Introduction

Dogs undergoing chemotherapy treatment, or those receiving other immune-suppressive medications, are at risk of developing infectious complications. Accurate and timely detection of fever is crucial to the successful management of these patients. However, frequent rectal measurements are difficult to perform.

Objective

To investigate the feasibility and accuracy of a novel, continuous, noninvasive, wireless monitoring device for early detection of fever in dogs.

Method

A sensor-laden smart dog collar (PetPace^TM) was applied to 13 healthy dogs and 40 sick dogs with various medical conditions for a minimum of 3 hours each. Core body temperature was calculated based on inputs of ambient and skin temperatures and activity level. Reference rectal temperature measurements were taken every 30 minutes.

Results

Of the 53 dogs included in the study, 3 had a fever as determined by rectal measurements. The collar accurately detected fever in all 3 dogs. Three additional dogs in which collar measurements indicated possible hyperthermia had normal or borderline-high rectal temperatures. All of the remaining 47 dogs were accurately determined by the collar to be normothermic. No dogs developed hypothermia, and the collar indicated no hypothermic measurements. Sensitivity of fever detection by the collar was 100% and specificity was 94.3%. The positive likelihood ratio of fever detection by the collar was 17.6, which strongly supports its usefulness. All dogs tolerated the collar without any problems or adverse reactions.

Conclusions

The use of a noninvasive, wireless sensing collar for the detection of fever in hospitalized or at-home dogs is accurate and reliable.