Owner and companion dog interactions
Pauleen Charmayne Bennett, a, and Vanessa Ilse Rohlfa
aAnimal Welfare Science Centre, Department of Psychology, Caulfield Campus, Monash
University, P.O. Box 197, Caulfield East, Vic. 3145, Australia
Accepted 11 March 2006. Available online 18 April 2006.
Abstract
Many companion dogs occupy a privileged position in our society, living closely with
human caretakers who go to great lengths to provide for their needs and desires. Others
fare less well, being abandoned or killed, many because they are believed to exhibit
behaviour problems. The aim in this study was to investigate the frequency of potentially
problematic behaviours experienced by a convenience sample of companion dog owners
and to establish if the presence of these behaviours was associated with demographic
variables, involvement in dog training activities and participation in other dog-human
interactions. Potentially problematic behaviours were reported to occur by the 413 adult
participants only infrequently, but fell into five factors; disobedience,
unfriendliness/aggression, nervousness, anxiety/destructiveness and excitability. Each of
these factors was associated with a number of owner and dog characteristics. Engagement
in training activities was predictive of lower scores being obtained for many of the
behaviours, as well as increased involvement in shared activities. Some of the behaviours,
particularly the perceived friendliness of the dog, were also predictive of involvement in
shared activities. This confirms that strategies designed to increase participation in dog
training activities and promote canine sociability may have significant benefits for both
companion dog owners and their dogs.
Keywords: Canine; Dog behaviour; Dog training; Human–animal interaction; Human–
animal bonding
Article Outline
1. Introduction
2. Method
2.1. Participants
2.2. Measures
2.3. Data analysis
3. Results
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Acknowledgements
References
1. Introduction
The domestic dog (Canis familiaris) is regarded as a highly trainable species (Prestrude
and O'Shea, 1996). Despite this, thousands of dogs are surrendered to animal shelters
annually because of perceived behaviour problems (Patronek et al., 1996, New et al.,
2000 and Marston et al., 2004). This is a significant animal welfare issue. In addition,
misbehaving dogs cause road accidents, community disputes, property damage and injury
(Ashby, 1996 and Sacks et al., 1996). Establishing the prevalence of perceived dog
behaviour problems in the community is an important issue, which has previously been
addressed in several different contexts (Adams and Clark, 1989, Beaver, 1994, Guy et al.,
2001, Hiby et al., 2004 and Wells and Hepper, 2000). A recent study in Australia by
Kobelt et al. (2003), for example, found that overexcitement and jumping up on people
were common behaviours among dogs, as were rushing at people or other dogs and
excessive barking. Kobelt et al. (2003) also found that specific ‘problem behaviours’ were
associated with general disobedience, owner experience and the amount of time spent by
the owner with his or her dog, and that dogs who attended obedience training were more
likely to obey their owner's commands. This is consistent with previous reports that
participation in obedience training is associated with a significantly reduced prevalence of
canine behaviour problems (Clark and Boyer, 1993 and Jagoe and Serpell, 1996) and an
increased probability of a positive outcome following adoption of a dog from a welfare
shelter (Patronek et al., 1996 and Marston and Bennett, 2003).
| Owner-companion dog interactions: Relationships between demographic variables, potentially problematic behaviours, training engagement and shared activities |