This article presents eight different experimental tasks, mirroring the everyday life of dogs and owners, used to analyze how owners interact with their dogs in a standardized way. The tasks included both positive (e.g. play) and negative (potentially stressful) situations (e.g. physical restriction).
It has been suggested that the way in which owners interact with their dogs can largely vary and influence the dog-owner bond, but very few objective studies, so far, have addressed how the owner interacts with the dog. The goal of the present study was to record dog owners' interaction styles by means of objective observation and coding. The experiment included eight standardized situations in which owners of pet dogs were asked to perform specific tasks including both positive (i.e. playing, teaching a new task, showing a preference towards an object in a food searching task, greeting after separation) and potentially distressing tasks (i.e. physical restriction during DNA sampling, putting a T-shirt onto the dog, giving basic obedience commands while the dog was distracted). The video recordings were coded off-line using a specifically designed coding scheme including scores for communication, social support, warmth, enthusiasm, and play style, as well as frequency of behaviors like petting, praising, commands, and attention sounds. Exploratory Factor Analysis of the 20 variables measured revealed 3 factors, labeled as Owner Warmth, Owner Social Support, and Owner Control, which can be viewed as analogues to parenting style dimensions. The experimental procedure introduced here represents the first standardized measure of interaction styles of dog owners. The methodology presented here is a useful tool to investigate individual variation in the interaction style of pet dog owners that can be used to explain differences in the dog-human relationship, dogs' behavioral outcomes, and dogs stress coping strategies, all crucial elements both from a theoretical and applied point of view.
Humans are the principal social partners of pet dogs living in western households and the study of the relationships dogs and humans build with each other is of primary importance from both the theoretical and applied points of view1. In fact, dogs, having closely evolved with humans, can be studied as models for the evolution of human social skills2. Additionally, the widespread presence of dogs in human environments presents societies with practical issues that have implications for human safety, dog welfare, and the health of both parties3. In fact, it has been shown that the way in which handlers treat their dogs during training (e.g. using punishment-based techniques) is associated with dog aggression towards people and conspecifics, highlighting the importance of considering how the owner behaves with its dog in dog bites prevention4,5,6. However, most of the studies which aimed at investigating the dog-owner relationship focused only on one partner: the dog. While hundreds of measurements have been developed to describe one or more aspects of the dog behavior7, no studies so far have systematically coded how the owners behave towards their dogs in a variety of contexts. While many studies acquired information about the owners' behavioral characteristics using questionnaires (e.g.8,9,10,11), only few studies used behavioral observations to analyze the way dog owners interact with their pet dogs12,13,14,15,16,17,18. However, these latter studies investigated the behavior of dog owners in only a few contexts (ranging between one12,13,15,17 and three16, and mainly contexts with positive valence (e.g. play12,14,15)), and only three of these studies were conducted in a standardized environment14,15,17. Moreover, most studies focused on training methods4,11,16,19, applied by owners in specific contexts, like teaching a dog a specific behavior or modifying undesired ones. However, formal training is just one way that owners interact with their dogs and it may depend not only on the owners' own characteristics but also on the dog school they attend. Therefore, the way owners train their dogs may not even reflect reliably how they spontaneously interact and communicate with them in everyday life situations, with the latter probably being more important in affecting the dogs' everyday behavior. Considering the lack of standardized measurements of dog owners' behavioral characteristics, we developed the first behavioral test aimed at analyzing how owners interact with their pet dogs in tasks reflecting everyday situations.
It has been shown that human infants' behavior is influenced by daily interactions with their parents: for example, by how parents support their children´s autonomy20, how sensitive and responsive parents are in distressful situations21, and how parents control the behavior of their children22. All these elements have been proven to greatly vary among parents and the combinations of these behaviors are known as parenting styles20,21,22,23,24. Since the dog-owner relationship has been described as similar to the child-mother bond1,25,26, it is feasible to assume that the way the owners interact with their dogs can also be categorized into specific behavioral patterns (i.e. owner interaction styles), but no attempt has been made so far to create such categories.
Human parenting style studies have shown that combining detailed observational coding and factor analytic methods are less susceptible to coder biases and more reliable than global ratings and self-reports27. Therefore, we decided to apply this method to study the interaction styles of dog owners. The present study was conducted in a laboratory setting and the behavior of the owners was videotaped and analyzed off-line by two independent coders (allowing us to test for inter-rater reliability). The tasks were designed to reflect everyday situations that dog-owner dyads are confronted with in a western, urbanized environment. Importantly, we included tasks with both positive and negative valence for the dog. The coding scheme we used included a combination of variables reflecting verbal, facial, physical, and gestural communication, measured as counts and scales. For the characterization of the owner interaction styles we used Exploratory Factor Analysis.
The present method is not only the first specifically developed to describe pet dog owners' behavioral characteristics in numerous different contexts, but it also allowed for identification of owner interaction dimensions, which might show high similarity to the dimensions used to describe parenting styles18,28.
The present paper describes in detail the entire procedure and presents some of the results which are published in full in Cimarelli et al. (2016)18.
The Owner Interaction Style test is a newly developed protocol aiming at analyzing the behavior dog owners show towards their dogs in many different situations. We defined three factors characterizing the interaction style of pet dog owners, which related to warmth, social support, and control. The three factors show similarities with the dimensions identified in human parenting21,22,29. Moreover, two of the factors identified here significantly correlated with owner age, suggesting a modulatory effect of age on owner interaction styles.
In a previous study, conducted using the methods presented here, we also found associations between the owner interaction factors and personality traits (i.e. a negative association between Owner Control and Openness, between Owner Social Support and Conscientiousness, and a positive association between Owner Warmth and Openness)18. Building on this, in the current study we additionally found associations between owner interaction factors and dog behavior (e.g. positive associations between dog proximity-seeking behaviors towards the owner and Owner Warmth)18. Taken together, the results suggest that the present methodology provides reliable and useful measurements of human social behaviors that can advance the fields of animal-human interactions, human personality, and social psychology.
The objective behavioral analyses combined with a factor analytical approach allowed a more objective assessment of the behavior than the use of owner reports or questionnaires. The inter-coder reliability analysis confirmed that the results are also reliable and free from coder bias/subjectivity. The present protocol is the first to comprehensively analyze the behavior of dog owners in a variety of situations mirroring the everyday life of dog-owner dyads. This includes components of owner behavior that the owners do not necessarily intentionally use to influence their dogs or that they are even consciously aware about. As such, the Owner Interaction Style Test covers a much broader range of behaviors than most other studies investigating human-animal interactions, many of which focus on training or verbal commands4,11,16,19.
One of the three components of owner interaction styles, namely the Owner Social Support factor, was associated with neither owner personality or dog behavior18. As a possible explanation, this factor in its current form may include not only appropriately supportive but also overprotective behaviors. In children, adequately supportive and overprotective parenting lead to different behavioral outcomes31, which may also be the case in dogs. For this reason, overprotectiveness and adequate support need to be better disentangled, for example by adding a global rating scale about the owners' intrusiveness and prevention of independent behavior of the dog32.
The most critical aspect of the described method is the possibility that the owner could make a mistake in following the protocol. For this reason, we suggest providing a detailed written protocol to the owners prior to testing to allow them to form an overall idea of how the tests will be performed. In addition, before each sub-test, the experimenter shall again explain the details and the owner's specific duties. Moreover, the owners should be instructed only about the actual task they need to perform, but not about how they should perform it, allowing them to behave as they normally would (which is what we want to measure) rather than how they 'think' the test requires them to behave. Furthermore, in the basic commands test (see the protocol), there is the possibility that the dog would not perform the behaviors asked by the owner. If this happens, the owner will repeat the commands for a maximum of 3 min. In the Ball play test, the dog might not retrieve the ball when asked. In this case, the owner can take the ball from the floor, move to the starting position, and continue with the procedure. In case the dog takes the ball but does not give it to the owner, the owner can take the ball away from the dog in a manner they would normally take objects from the dog.
The context, knowing that they are being observed and recorded, likely affects the behavior of dog owners. Even being passively observed (i.e. the experimenter being present during the tests) may prevent owners from using negative behaviors (i.e. severe scolding, leash pulling, etc.), which they may think is not publicly acceptable, even though they may normally use it. This phenomenon (known in psychology as social desirability bias30) is quite common when human behavior is tested. Our suggestion is to make the owner as comfortable as possible before the testing begins and informing the owners that the test is about dog behavior or the dog-owner interaction rather than only about the owner behavior. In addition, the present protocol was designed for adult dogs (older than one year), therefore further modifications might be needed if testing dog puppies.
Nevertheless, the method developed here provides a useful tool for various research purposes. For example, future studies could further elaborate on how owner interaction styles affect the behavioral characteristics of pet dogs, how they develop and change over time, how they relate to the owners' individual characteristics (e.g. personality, interpersonal behavior), and how they affect the owners' satisfaction with the dog-owner bond. Moreover, our method could also have direct practical applications (e.g. for dog trainers, veterinarians, and other dog practitioners) and ultimately help improve the welfare of pet dogs. In particular, the test could be used to investigate whether and how owner interaction styles influence dog behavioral problems, like aggressiveness, advancing the fields of dog-bite prevention and behavioral medicine. Furthermore, the strong similarity between owner interaction styles and parenting styles offers the possibility to directly compare interaction styles towards animals and parenting styles towards children. Moreover, the protocol allows to investigate whether there are similar psychological, demographical, environmental and cultural factors influencing/driving parenting and dog caregiving behavior and it would allow to use dog-human interactions for modeling the development and progression of parent-child relationships.
The authors have nothing to disclose.
The authors are grateful to all owners and dogs involved in the study as well as to the students who performed the experiments: Lisa Wallis, Claudia Rosam, Stefanie Riemer and Julia Schößwender. We further thank Desirée Brucks for reliability coding, Ludwig Huber for his support, Karin Bayer, Jennifer Bentlage and Aleksandar Orlic for administrative support, and Peter Füreder and Wolfgang Berger for technical help. We are grateful to Rachel Dale for revising the English of the manuscript. Funding: The present research was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) project I 1271-B24 and the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund project OTKA-ANN 107726. B.T. also received funding from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Furthermore, we would like to thank Helena Manzenreiter and Ziva for their help with video shooting. In addition, we are grateful to Royal Canin for supporting the Clever Dog Lab.
Videocamera | Samsung | ZA TZ6V3Z300274W | |
Videocamera | Samsung | ZA TZ6V3Z300316J | |
Videocamera | JVC | 066C1124 | |
Videocamera | JVC | 066C1123 | |
Chair | n.a. | n.a. | Material: plastic and metal. Color: black. With backrest and seat. Overall measures: 39 x 47 x 77 cm. Seat measures: 39 x 34 x 45 cm. |
Leash | n.a. | n.a. | Material: nylon. Color: black. Measures: 2 x 300 cm. |
Plates | n.a. | n.a. | Material: pottery. Color: white. Diameter: 25 cm. |
Cotton swabs | n.a. | n.a. | Material: cotton. Color: white. Length: 7.6 cm. |
Dog toy: rope | n.a. | n.a. | Material: cotton. Color: red. Diameter: 5 cm. Length: 30 cm |
T-shirt | n.a. | n.a. | Material: cotton. Size M. Measures: 70 x 60 cm. |
Carton box | n.a. | n.a. | Material: carton. Color: brown. Measures: 50 x 35 x 25. |
Crumpled newspaper | n.a. | n.a. | Material: paper. From 3-4 newspapers. |
Bin + lid | n.a. | n.a. | Material: plastic. Shape: round. Color: grey. Diameter: 20 cm. Height: 28 cm |
Tennis ball | n.a. | n.a. | Material: rubber, nylon. Color: yellow. Diameter: 6.5 cm |