Body temperature is an important component in the diagnoses and treatment of disease in canines. Rectal temperature remains the standard of obtaining temperature within the clinical setting, but there are many drawbacks with this method, including time, access, animal stress and safety concerns. Interest in using infra-red thermography in canines to obtain body temperature has grown as animal scientists and veterinarians search for non-invasive and non-contact methods and locations of obtaining canine temperatures. Here we review evidence on axillary, auricular, and ocular region canine thermography and the degree to which measurements in these locations are representative of rectal temperature values. Instrumentation refinement and developmental or morphologic differences, play an important role in the potential correlation between rectal temperature and these other locations. These caveats have yet to be fully addressed in the literature, limiting the options for those seeking alternatives to rectal thermography.
Key words: Thermography in canines
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