Revisiting a Previously Validated Temperament Test in Shelter Dogs, Including an Examination of the Use of Fake Model Dogs to Assess Conspecific Sociability

Abstract

Simple SummaryGlobally, many unwanted dogs enter rescue shelters. Shelter staff often avail of behavioural tests as an early screening tool to identify areas of concern to minimise the welfare risk associated with long-term kennelling and failed adoptions. A number of requirements need to be verified in order for a test to become a useful assessment tool, including how reliable and accurate the measurements are. For these tools to be widely used, they need to be feasible and reproducible. We refined a previously validated temperament test for shelter dogs’ assessment, developed in Italy, and applied it to two populations of shelter dogs in the UK. The test measured dog behaviour in the kennel, sociability towards people and other dogs, docility to leash, playfulness, cognitive skills, and reactivity. The test proved easy to replicate, with key outcomes that are consistent with existing research on this topic. Furthermore, an additional experiment provided support for the use of fake dogs instead of real ones to assess sociability to dogs. However, we also highlight the importance of interpreting these data with caution, and advocate the use of behavioural tests as a partial screening tool to be used in conjunction with more extensive behavioural and welfare monitoring.AbstractThis study assessed the feasibility and reproducibility of a previously validated temperament test (TT) for shelter dogs. The test was developed to measure dog behaviour in the kennel, and traits of sociability towards people and other dogs, docility to leash, playfulness, cognitive skills, and reactivity. We introduced the use of differently sized fake dogs to check their appropriateness in correctly assessing sociability to dogs to broaden its applicability (as the original study used real stimulus dogs). We hypothesised that dogs’ responses may be modulated by the body size of the stimulus dog presented. The reduction analysis of the TT scores extracted five main dimensions (explaining 70.8% of variance), with high internal consistency (alpha > 0.65) and being broadly consistent with existing research. Behavioural components that were extracted from the fake dog experiment showed that dogs are likely to show signs of anxiety and fear toward both the real and fake dog. Dogs’ responses towards a real vs. fake stimulus were significantly correlated (p < 0.05) and they were not affected by the size of the stimulus (p > 0.05). We discuss the importance of interpreting these data with caution and use behavioural tests as a partial screening tool to be used in conjunction with more extensive behavioural and welfare monitoring.

Socialization in Commercial Breeding Kennels: The Use of Novel Stimuli to Measure Social and Non-Social Fear in Dogs

“…This is in line with previous studies using fake dogs as proxies for unfamiliar dogs in dog–dog interactions. Barnard et al [ 20 ] found that their subjects responded with the same general behaviors when presented with a fake dog reproduction as with a living dog. Given that the subjects seemed to react (at least initially) to the statue as if it was another dog, it is possible that this stimulus could reflect the response of the tested dog to another unfamiliar dog after being rehomed.…”

“…The use of artificial conspecifics has many advantages, allowing performance of social behavior and cognition experiments in a more controlled and repeatable manner compared to living animals [ 21 , 22 , 23 ]. The use of artificial dogs during behavioral assessments in homes and shelters has gained attention as it permits testing of dogs safely and in a standardized way, although its validity is still controversial [ 20 , 24 , 25 , 26 ]. Future studies should further investigate how dogs perceive social and non-social stimuli and what elements of these stimuli might elicit fear responses.…”

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

“…The items were included to primarily trigger a social response towards people and conspecifics and an exploratory/avoidance response to novel/inanimate objects. We hypothesized that based on previous results with shelter and pet dogs [20,21], responses to some items would reflect specific behavioral characteristics of interest. For example, the ball and squeaky toy previously proved to be a good measure of playfulness, the problem-solving task represented a measure of cognitive flexibility, the artificial dog was a proxy measure of intra-specific sociability, and the leash and commands served as a measure of trainability in Table 1.…”

“…The behavioral component, i.e., a human-approach test, was refined based on previous work [10,17] and thus, needed new examination. The second portion of the assessment was a reactivity test loosely based on previously published work [20,21]. The test was adapted and refined to suit dogs in commercial breeding kennels.…”

“…To achieve this goal, and for comparison with previous work [20,21], our specific objectives were to:…”