Puppy Temperament tests, a study..

[Roova]

I thought this was an interesting paper on puppy temperament tests..

 

There's a paragraph which talks about a number of puppies chosen for service work and even though they all met the criteria, they didn't all pass the final certification.

But 14 of 15 puppies who didn't meet the criteria didn't pass the final certification.   I presume that's means its safer to focus on the puppies you don't want, then know any of those left have as good a chance as the other to meet your needs? 

 

Another paragraph which talks about puppy irritability being relatively stable over time so a puppy with high vocalisation can show struggling and flight behaviour during restraint tests as a puppy and barking or growling during the threatening approach as an adult.  Also sucking force in the neonate test was positively related to motivation and playfulness in the puppy and the adult test.

There was also a suggestion that predictability increases with age so wait until 6 months before choosing a dog to breed based on the fearfulness trait.

 

Anyway, hope someone else finds this interesting

 

The Predictive Value of Early Behavioural Assessments in Pet Dogs

[DogsAndTheMob]

I wonder if experienced breeders' predictions would be more reliable. I suspect so. From my observations, there are subtle behavioural cues that might be missed by a test. Also, puppies' behaviour varies from hour to hour and day to day, so a single test only provides a snapshot.

 

Hmm... only 50 of the 134 puppies tested were re-tested as adults. There's a risk of sampling bias in that; why were the other 84 dogs not tested as adults?

Edited March 25, 2017 by DogsAndTheMob

[Roova]

Yes, it would be interesting if the results differed much with the extra dogs participating.

[DogsAndTheMob]

Thanks for sharing the report, Roova. It's certainly food for thought.