Over 47,000 Dogs Help Researchers Track Behavior Trends
Around the world, an estimated 900 million dogs wag their tails, chase sticks, and fill homes with joy. In the United States alone, dog ownership increased from 38% in 2016 to 44% in 2022. But bringing a dog into your life is about more than just numbers and statistics. Building a bond requires understanding their behavioral language.
How quickly does your dog respond when you call? How do changes in daily routines, or major events like the COVID-19 pandemic, shape their moods and reactions? The key to a successful relationship lies in observing, listening, and learning from your four-legged companion, as well as in conveying what they cannot express to scientists. A new study demonstrates exactly that.
The study, “An analysis of behavioral characteristics and enrollment year variability in 47,444 dogs entering the Dog Aging Project from 2020 to 2023,” published in the journal PLOS One, provides a starting point for better understanding dog behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Having an awareness of a dog’s baseline behavioral profile is a crucial component of being able to detect, record, and, when necessary, address behavioral changes in both the short and long term. From a research perspective, establishing this baseline is also important in order to monitor the relationship between behavior and physiological changes over dogs’ lifetimes…. We wanted to examine if dogs entering the study in different years demonstrated behavioral differences independent of changes over time, given that a puppy entering the study in 2020 could likely have different experiences than a puppy entering the study in 2022,” the researchers stated.
They used owner-reported data from 47,444 dogs enrolled in the Dog Aging Project (DAP) between 2020 and 2023 via a shortened version of the C-BARQ questionnaire. This questionnaire covers 14 behavioral domains, including fear, aggression, attention/attachment (and excitability), and trainability. The data allow researchers to estimate average behavior scores across years and track changes over time.
“As a researcher (and as an animal-lover), I have always been especially interested in what motivates animals to act or behave the way they do. Having the opportunity to dig into some of these behavioral complexities with such a large group of dogs was really fascinating. In terms of outcomes, what is most exciting to me from a research perspective is that we now have a baseline understanding of average behavioral characteristics for all of these dogs, who we can continue to follow as they age,” said Courtney Sexton, the study author and a postdoctoral associate in the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech.
What do we know about the dogs?
Of the 47,444 dogs in the sample, half (23,857) were single-breed and the other half (23,587) mixed-breed, with genders evenly distributed. Notably, 88% were neutered or spayed. The majority (55%) were mature adults, while puppies made up 5%, young adults 21%, and seniors 18%. The dogs lived in all regions of the United States, with the highest percentage (35%) in the West, followed by 30% in the South.
They tracked data across all 14 domains. For example, in the ‘attention’ domain, dogs enrolled in 2022 showed a higher need for attention, particularly mixed breeds, puppies, males, and smaller dogs. An analysis of four years of owner-reported data revealed that overall, dogs’ fear, attention/playfulness, and aggression did not change significantly, while trainability showed differences. Factors such as life stage, sex, and size were also examined, but they did not have a consistent year-to-year impact on behavior, despite expectations based on environmental and routine changes. Interestingly, dogs that joined the project after 2020 exhibited slightly lower average trainability scores. However, further research is needed, and these findings do not yet provide a definitive explanation for the observed patterns.
“While we did actually note some important differences in averages from year to year, what we didn’t see were many “trends” – that is, most behaviors as owners reported them weren’t changing definitively in one direction or the other.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were no significant changes in overall dog behavior from year to year, despite the changes in environment and routines that many experienced. Could this mean, for example, that owners were taking such good care of their dogs that they didn’t even notice any changes? And considering that working from home became the norm, could that have been one of the reasons? The dogs were at home with their owners all day…
Courtney Sexton: One of the questions we were interested in exploring here was how the pandemic may have affected dogs’ behavior. While we did actually note some important differences in averages from year to year, what we didn’t see were many “trends” – that is, most behaviors as owners reported them weren’t changing definitively in one direction or the other.
I think what is important to note here is that experiences were all very different for dogs in different households during that time, and so these results could point to some places where we might investigate reported behavior changes a little deeper on the individual dog level. For example, to your question, while one owner may have been at home and had the opportunity to focus more intently on their relationship with their dog or their dog’s training, another may have been more distracted or ill, or dealing with other pandemic challenges that drew their attention away from their dog and may not have noticed changes for that reason.
The study revealed one small but interesting exception: trainability. Dogs enrolled in the study after 2020 had lower average trainability scores compared to dogs enrolled in 2020, who likely benefited from pre-pandemic training experience. What are the implications of this? Is this something owners can improve?
Courtney Sexton: We did notice that, on average, dogs were reportedly less trainable in each year we evaluated (2021-2023) compared to 2020. It is possible that people got overwhelmed and fell away from their typical training routines, or weren’t quite as prepared for having a new dog in their home with all of the other stressors that abounded during this difficult time. It’s also possible that dogs just seemed harder to train, again, because of the added challenges of the pandemic.
However, we did see that average trainability scores were the least different from 2020 in 2023, which could imply that dogs (and owners) were getting the hang of things as the depths of the pandemic receded. In any scenario, and at any time, it is important for people to be aware of their dogs’ needs and to pay attention to how they express themselves, and to seek support as needed to maintain a healthy and happy relationship with their dog.
The study underscores just how valuable it is to pay close attention to even subtle changes. Understanding these patterns not only helps owners build stronger, healthier relationships with their companions but also provides scientists with insights into dogs’ well-being. As Professor Sexton emphasized, “The most exciting thing about this study is in its potential usefulness for investigating the long-term connections between behavior and behavior changes and dog health and wellbeing across their lifetimes.”
Image: Dog training/Best friends
