Assessing companion dog behaviour in a social setting

1 There is a growing and important need for large-scale characterisation of dog 2 behaviour, for example to conduct genetic analyses or to assess welfare. An extensive 3 number of standardised tests and questionnaires are used for this, but few focus on the 4 normal behaviour in situations which are frequently encountered in the everyday life 5 of companion dogs. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a fast, but 6 standardised method to characterise behavioural variation in pet dogs, based on a brief 7 observation in a situation often encountered by many dogs, namely during training 8 classes. The spontaneous behaviour of dogs was video-recorded during 3 minutes in a 9 standardised setting, while their owners were occupied filling in a short questionnaire, 10 and during 30 seconds of walking on leash. Behaviours, including contact seeking 11 behaviour with both the owner, a stranger and other dogs, together with general 12 activity and interaction with a novel object were later analysed and further processed 13 in two separate Principal Component Analyses (PCA). The PCs from the two test 14 parts correlated significantly with each other and aspects of both home and test 15 environment influenced several components in both PCAs. Age and sex also showed 16 significant effects on test outcome, e.g. age affected how social and explorative the 17 dog was and females jumped more on their owner, whilst males pulled the leash more. 18 In addition, dogs that were perceived as cooperative by their owner, looked more at 19 their owner and pulled the leash less. In conclusion, this simple test captures essential 20 parts of the normal, everyday behaviour profile of dogs, such as ownerand dog21 directed social behaviour, which are not usually measured in the commonly used test 22 batteries for dogs. 23 24