Exploring Social Desirability Bias in Perceptions of Dog Adoption: All’s Well that Ends Well? Or Does the Method of Adoption Matter?

Abstract

Simple SummaryDog adoption is often cited as an ethical and popular method of acquisition but interpretation of the term ‘adoption’ may vary. In a nationally representative survey of the U.S., 767 respondents were asked questions regarding their opinions of dog acquisition including adoption. Within the sample, 45% had a dog; of those, 40% had adopted a dog and 47% visited a veterinarian once a year. Respondents’ preferences for the most ethical method of dog adoption were elicited using a survey instrument. Our results indicate that respondents had the largest preference share for adoption from a municipal animal shelter’ (56%) and the smallest preference share for adoption from a pet store (3%). Dog acquisition was further evaluated by creating an index of social desirability bias comparing how important respondents believed certain dog characteristics were and how important respondents believed others would rate/rank the same dog characteristics. The highest incidences of social desirability bias occurred for the dog characteristics of appearance and breed.AbstractDogs are a popular companion animal in the United States; however, dog acquisition is often a contentious subject. Adoption is often cited as an ethical and popular method of acquisition but interpretation of the term ‘adoption’ may vary. In a nationally representative survey of the U.S., 767 respondents were asked questions regarding their opinions of dog acquisition and adoption. Within the sample, 45% had a dog; of those, 40% had adopted a dog, and 47% visited a veterinarian once a year. A best-worst choice experiment, where respondents were asked to choose the most ethical and least ethical method of acquiring a dog from a statistically determined set of choices, was used to elicit respondents’ preferences for the most ethical method of dog adoption. A random parameters logit and a latent class model were used to estimate relative rankings of dog adoption methods. In the random parameters logit model, the largest preference share was for adoption from a municipal animal shelter (56%) and the smallest preference share was for adoption from a pet store (3%). Dog acquisition was further evaluated by creating an index of social desirability bias using how important respondents believed certain dog characteristics were compared to how important respondents believed others would rate/rank the same dog characteristics. The highest incidences of social desirability bias occurred for the dog characteristics of appearance and breed.

Familiarity and Use of Veterinary Services by US Resident Dog and Cat Owners

“…Similarly to the 54% of respondents who used heartworm prevention in this study, Bir et al [14] found that 55% of dog owners used heartworm prevention continuously in their nationally representative study of U.S. residents. Other studies have found heartworm preventative use compliance of less than 50% [39,40].…”

“…For both dog and cat owners, common acquisition methods selected by pet owners were purchased, or adopted/rescued. Similar to these findings, in their representative sample of U.S. residents, Bir et al [14] found that 37% of dog owners had purchased a dog, and 40% of dog owners had adopted a dog. In a best-worst scaling experiment of the most ethical ways to acquire a dog, Bir et al [15] found that adoption had by far the largest preference share (79%) when compared to other methods including purchasing, finding a stray, gift, or others.…”

Consumer willingness to pay for sustainability attributes in beer: A choice experiment using eco‐labels

“…The sample is also overeducated as a whole. It is common for samples recruited online to oversample relatively well‐educated individuals, as people with lower educational attainment may have less internet access (Bir, Widmar, & Croney, 2018; Cummins, Widmar, Croney, & Fulton, 2015). Finally, respondents from the South are over‐represented in the sample, while the West is underrepresented.…”

Evaluation of an easy-to-use protocol for assessing behaviors of dogs retiring from commercial breeding kennels

“…Nonetheless, the existence of commercial breeding kennels in the US reflects both the increasingly high demand for pet dogs that needs to be met, the inability of small-scale breeders, shelters and rescues to do so, and socio-ethical factors that support such enterprises, particularly when demand is high but supply is limited. These include the need to avoid infringements on the public's right and expressed desire to retain choices in where they acquire dogs, inequities in accessing dogs that meet people's preferred characteristics, and creation of black markets for dogs that further jeopardize their welfare [1,4,5].…”