Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
These days, each dog breed has a strictly defined standard that is much
more focused on morphologic appearance than on dog behavior. In fact,
many behaviors for which working breeds were originally selected became
inconvenient in modern life and are not supported by current breeding
practices. Behavioral characteristics for which the breeds were known his-
torically thus often do not correspond to the behavioral characteristics of
these breeds today. For example, Kubinyi et al., analyzed temperament
traits in different breeds in Europe and found significant differences for
some breeds between behavioral characteristics provided by the breed stan-
dard and behavioral profiles of same breeds based on the owners reports
( Kubinyi et al., 2009 ).
In the Kubinyi et al. (2009) study, 93.3% of the respondents representing
14,004 dog owners indicated the “family member” category as the function
of their dogs. These results are consistent with other studies in Europe,
Australia, and the US, indicating that the majority of dog owners acquire
dogs not for specific working tasks but for companionship ( Bennett and
Rohlf, 2007; Ellingsen et al., 2010; Jagoe and Serpell, 1996; Serpell, 2004 ).
Although the strict demand for working skills is reduced, some breed clubs
are making an effort to preserve these skills through behavioral tests and
incorporating the results of these tests into breeding programs. This some-
times leads to the development of two independent lines of breeding, one for
show and pet dogs, but another one for working dogs, as in, for example, the
Border Collie breed.
Programs implemented by organizations to evaluate specific aspects of
dog behavior (e.g., herding, protection, detection of drugs or explosives) or
for general behavioral assessment (e.g., to screen potential breeding popula-
tions for dogs with undesirable behavioral characteristics), have yielded valu-
able data for scientific evaluation of dog temperament. Svartberg and
Forkman (2002) identified five factors (dimensions) underlying canine tem-
peramental traits using data from 1175 dogs of 47 different breeds tested in
the dog mentality assessment (DMA) test designed by the Swedish Working
Dog Association ( Svartberg and Forkman, 2002 ). The factors were labeled
as “Playfulness,” “Curiosity/Fearlessness,” “Chase-proneness,” “Sociability,”
and “Aggressiveness,” and accounted for 37% of common variation in the
test. The first four factors were related to one other higher-order factor,
which was interpreted as shyness
boldness. The same broad factors with
slight variations were identified in an analysis of 15,329 dogs from 164
breeds performed for each of eight FCI (F ´ d ´ ration Cynologique
Internationale) breed groups ( Svartberg and Forkman, 2002 ). These data
argue that personality factors underlying dog behavior in the DMA test are
universal among breeds and not related to specific characteristics of FCI
breed groups. Consistency of these behaviors over repeated tests for individ-
ual dogs was observed ( Svartberg et al., 2005 ). A heritability of 0.25 for the
shyness boldness dimension was reported ( Saetre et al., 2006 ).
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