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. 2021 Apr 24;11(5):1234.
doi: 10.3390/ani11051234.

Reliability and Validity of a Dog Personality and Unwanted Behavior Survey

Milla Salonen  1   2   3 , Salla Mikkola  1   2   3 , Emma Hakanen  1   2   3 , Sini Sulkama  1   2   3 , Jenni Puurunen  1   2   3 , Hannes Lohi  1   2   3
Affiliations

Reliability and Validity of a Dog Personality and Unwanted Behavior Survey

Milla Salonen et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

Dogs have distinct, consistent personalities, but the structure of dog personality is still unclear. Dog personality and unwanted behavior are often studied with behavioral questionnaires. Even though many questionnaires are reliable and valid measures of behavior, all new questionnaire tools should be extensively validated. Here, we examined the structure of personality and six unwanted behavior questionnaire sections: noise sensitivity, fearfulness, aggression, fear of surfaces and heights, separation anxiety and impulsivity/inattention with factor analyses. Personality consisted of seven factors: Insecurity, Training focus, Energy, Aggressiveness/dominance, Human sociability, Dog sociability and Perseverance. Most unwanted behavior sections included only one factor, but the impulsivity/inattention section divided into two factors (Hyperactivity/impulsivity and Inattention) and the aggression section into four factors (Barking, Stranger directed aggression, Owner directed aggression and Dog directed aggression). We also examined the internal consistency, test-retest reliability, inter-rater reliability and convergent validity of the 17 personality and unwanted behavior traits and discovered excellent reliability and validity. Finally, we investigated the discriminant validity of the personality traits, which was good. Our findings indicate that this personality and unwanted behavior questionnaire is a reliable and valid tool that can be used to study personality and behavior extensively.

Keywords: behavior assessment; behavior problems; convergent validity; discriminant validity; dog personality; inter-rater reliability; personality structure; survey study; test-retest reliability; unwanted behavior.

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Conflict of interest statement

H.L. is a co-founder and E.H. is an employee of Petsofi Ltd., providing the survey platform for data acquisition. The authors declare no other competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart of the study population and sample size for dog personality and behavior studies.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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