Volume 169, August 2015, Pages 69–77
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Box 7023, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden
- Accepted 26 April 2015, Available online 6 May 2015
Highlights
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- Working dog breeds are more easily trained, show more interest in playing with humans and are less fearful than non-working dog breeds.
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- Fearful dogs are more aggressive whereas more social dogs are less fearful and less aggressive.
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- Dogs that want to play with humans are easier to train.
Abstract
The
domestication of the dog and the ensuing breed creation has resulted in
a plethora of dog breeds that differ not only in morphology but also in
terms of behaviour. In addition, a majority of the dogs today are no
longer utilized for their working ability, but are mainly kept as
companion animals. The main aim of this study was to estimate breed
differences in everyday behaviour traits, as well as to study the
phenotypic correlations between these traits. Dog owners described their
dogs’ everyday behaviour in a questionnaire. The responses to the
questions were combined into 18 behavioural subscale scores (BSS). After
editing, the material included dog owner responses for 3591 dogs from
20 different breeds. The breeds represent both working and non-working
breeds.
We can conclude that breed (and grouping
into working vs non-working breeds), age and sex had significant effects
on many everyday behaviour traits. The working breeds were about 10%
more trainable, showed 30% more interest in playing with humans and were
10–60% less fearful. Furthermore, our results showed that fearful dogs
were more aggressive, whereas more social dogs were less fearful and
less aggressive. We also found that dogs that were more eager to play
with humans were also easier to train.
Keywords
- Canine;
- Questionnaire;
- Companion dog;
- C-BARQ;
- Phenotypic correlation
Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
