I see that you have already seen a prior post on measuring oxytocin levels in animals. It appears that the current state of the art is not to use saliva, but plasma. That may be problematic for data collection, but that still is the most valid measurement approach. You should follow up with the poster that is studying the validity of urine samples.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Does_anyone_have_input_on_designing_an_experiment_to_test_oxytocin_levels_during_inter-species_bonding

Thank you Ariel yes there seems to be a lot of conflict in the literature which is why I thought i would put the question on here.   I doubt I will be able to collect Plasma samples unfortunately although it's not a definate. I will follow up with the poster.

It can be done with saliva, but you would have to get plenty of it so that it would be above detection threshold with an ELISA.  If I remember right, I did it with 4mL samples a few years ago.

Thank you so much Walter this is really helpful

This is the protocol I followed.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2767206/

Fabulous Thank you Walter.

What were you looking at and how did your samples turn out?

Hi Jacquie - I'm also planning a study where I measure salivary oxytocin.  You need a relatively large volume of saliva (approx 5 mL) and to do purification steps before the oxytocin assay.