Assessing companion dog behavior in a social setting

There is a growing and important need for large-scale characterization of dog behavior, for example, to conduct genetic analyses or to assess welfare. An extensive number of standardized tests and questionnaires are used for this but few focus on the normal behavior in situations which are frequently encountered in the everyday life of companion dogs. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a fast but standardized method to characterize behavioral variation in pet dogs based on a brief observation in a situation often encountered by many dogs, namely during training classes. The spontaneous behavior of dogs was video-recorded during 3 minutes in a standardized setting, while their owners were occupied filling in a short questionnaire, and during 30 seconds of walking on leash. Behaviors, including contact seeking behavior with the owner, a stranger, and other dogs, together with general activity and interaction with a novel object were later analyzed and further processed in 2 separate principal component analyses. The principal components from the 2 test parts correlated significantly with each other and aspects of both home and test environment influenced several components in both principal component analyses. Age and sex also showed significant effects on test outcome, for example, age affected how social and explorative the dog was and females jumped more on their owner, whereas males pulled the leash more. In addition, dogs that were perceived as cooperative by their owner looked more at their owner and pulled the leash less. In conclusion, this simple test captures essential parts of the normal, everyday behavior profile of dogs, such as owner- and dog-directed social behavior, which are not usually measured in the commonly used test batteries for dogs.