One 5442ZE is running V2.840.15OG00D.0.R, Build Date: 2022-08-18. Yesterday I installed a new 5442ZE S3 version with V3.100.0000000.5.R, Build Date: 2023-05-09.
They are both installed next to the 5231R-ZE. But we haven't had animals last night so I can't comment on that.
Ah, here we have a difference, I'm using IVS (tripwire) so motion detection is not enabled on mine, mostly because IVS is supposedly better at ignoring things like shadows, leaves etc.
IVS has a setting called "target filter" where you can choose 'human' and/or 'motor vehicle' so it will only trigger on those.
But you can uncheck "target filter" so I should also trigger on other things (like animals), however; it never does.
There's a whole thread about it:
Detecting wildlife with Dahua cameras
But Dahua doesn't seem to care to fix it.