Highly Heritable and Functionally Relevant Breed Differences in Dog Behavior

MacLeant, Evan L; Snyder‐Mackler, Noah; vonHoldt, Bridgett M.; Serpell, James A.

doi:10.1101/509315

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Significant breed differences in temperament, trainability, and social behavior are readily appreciable by the casual observer, and have also been documented quantitatively (Serpell and Hsu, 2005;Tonoike et al, 2015). Furthermore, recent genetic research indicates that this behavioral variation is highly heritable (MacLean et al, 2019). This panoply of behavioral specializations must rely on underlying neural specializations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Significant Neuroanatomical Variation Among Domestic Dog Breeds

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Humans have bred different lineages of domestic dogs for different tasks such as hunting, herding, guarding, or companionship. These behavioral differences must be the result of underlying neural differences, but surprisingly, this topic has gone largely unexplored. The current study examined whether and how selective breeding by humans has altered the gross organization of the brain in dogs. We assessed regional volumetric variation in MRI studies of 62 male and female dogs of 33 breeds. Neuroanatomical variation is plainly visible across breeds. This variation is distributed nonrandomly across the brain. A whole-brain, data-driven independent components analysis established that specific regional subnetworks covary significantly with each other. Variation in these networks is not simply the result of variation in total brain size, total body size, or skull shape. Furthermore, the anatomy of these networks correlates significantly with different behavioral specialization(s) such as sight hunting, scent hunting, guarding, and companionship. Importantly, a phylogenetic analysis revealed that most change has occurred in the terminal branches of the dog phylogenetic tree, indicating strong, recent selection in individual breeds. Together, these results establish that brain anatomy varies significantly in dogs, likely due to humanapplied selection for behavior.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Significant Neuroanatomical Variation Among Domestic Dog Breeds

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…By contrast, C-BARQ, which uses a similar scoring system, has been utilised in a much wider range of studies and appears to be becoming a popular instrument for investigating increasingly complex relationships beyond the sort of behaviour profiling for which it was originally developed (10,15). For example scores have been used to make inferences about welfare (14) and to inform working dog selection (16) but also to make heritability estimates for a range of behaviours (17) and to investigate more closely the potential risk factors of specific issues such as aggressive behaviour (9,18,19). It is in these latter contexts that the issues relating to the pooling of scores of similar value are of potential concern and we suggest a fallacy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential Risk Factors for Aggression and Playfulness in Cats: Examination of a Pooling Fallacy Using Fe-BARQ as an Example

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Using a popular method of behaviour evaluation which rates the intensity of behaviour in different contexts, we demonstrate how pooling item scores relating to a given construct can reveal different potential risk factors for the dependent variable depending on how the total score is constructed. We highlight how similar simple total scores can be constructed through very different combinations of constituent items. We argue for the importance of examining individual item score distributions, and the results from different intensity thresholds before deciding on the preferred method for calculating a meaningful dependent variable. We consider simply pooling individual item scores which conflate context with intensity to calculate an average score and assuming this represents a biologically meaningful measure of trait intensity is a fallacy. Specifically using four items that describe intercat aggression and eleven that describe playfulness in cats in Fe-BARQ, we found sex and neuter status, social play and fearfulness were consistently significant predictors for intercat aggression scores; and age, age when obtained, social play and fearfulness were significant predictors of playfulness scores. However, the significance of other factors such as scratching varied with the threshold used to calculate to the total score. We argue that some of these inconsistent variables may be biologically and clinically important and should not be considered random error. Instead they need to be evaluated in the context of other available evidence.

show abstract

“…If these traits exhibit substantial heritability, dog providers may consider these traits in breeder selection, with ultimate hopes of increasing the prevalence of favorable traits within the entire population of candidate dogs. Along these lines, several studies indicate that traits measured by the C-BARQ are moderately to strongly heritable (31–33), and traits similar to those measured in the IFT have been shown to be heritable in other populations (34, 35), suggesting promise for future developments in this area.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Predictive Models of Assistance Dog Training Outcomes Using the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire and a Standardized Temperament Evaluation

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Assistance dogs can greatly improve the lives of people with disabilities. However, a large proportion of dogs bred and trained for this purpose are deemed unable to successfully fulfill the behavioral demands of this role. Often, this determination is not finalized until weeks or even months into training, when the dog is close to 2 years old. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop objective selection protocols that can identify dogs most and least likely to succeed, from early in the training process. We assessed the predictive validity of two candidate measures employed by Canine Companions for Independence (CCI), a national assistance dog organization headquartered in Santa Rosa, CA. For more than a decade, CCI has collected data on their population using the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ) and a standardized temperament assessment known internally as the In-For-Training (IFT) test, which is conducted at the beginning of professional training. Data from both measures were divided into independent training and test datasets, with the training data used for variable selection and cross-validation. We developed three predictive models in which we predicted success or release from the training program using C-BARQ scores ( N = 3,569), IFT scores ( N = 5,967), and a combination of scores from both instruments ( N = 2,990). All three final models performed significantly better than the null expectation when applied to the test data, with overall accuracies ranging from 64 to 68%. Model predictions were most accurate for dogs predicted to have the lowest probability of success (ranging from 85 to 92% accurate for dogs in the lowest 10% of predicted probabilities), and moderately accurate for identifying the dogs most likely to succeed (ranging from 62 to 72% for dogs in the top 10% of predicted probabilities). Combining C-BARQ and IFT predictors into a single model did not improve overall accuracy, although it did improve accuracy for dogs in the lowest 20% of predicted probabilities. Our results suggest that both types of assessments have the potential to be used as powerful screening tools, thereby allowing more efficient allocation of resources in assistance dog selection and training.

show abstract

Highly Heritable and Functionally Relevant Breed Differences in Dog Behavior

Cited by 9 publications

References 51 publications

Significant Neuroanatomical Variation Among Domestic Dog Breeds

Significant Neuroanatomical Variation Among Domestic Dog Breeds

Potential Risk Factors for Aggression and Playfulness in Cats: Examination of a Pooling Fallacy Using Fe-BARQ as an Example

Predictive Models of Assistance Dog Training Outcomes Using the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire and a Standardized Temperament Evaluation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About