The relationship between personality traits and their effect on learning in dogs.

Abstract

Dogs fulfil numerous important rolls in our society, such as police dogs, military working dogs and guide dogs for the blind. To perform well on duty it is crucial for these service dogs to learn certain behaviours and to be able to carry them out under any and all circumstances. For different reasons some dogs are more able to function as a service dog than others. To assess which individual dogs are most suitable to fulfil a certain role researchers have been working on the development of different methods to evaluate dog personality and temperament. Over the years this has led to numerous behavioural tests and questionnaires being developed. Assessing the quality of these tests has proven to be challenging, for the degree to which their reliability and validity have been assessed varies greatly. The aim of this study was to assess whether personality plays a role in learning ability in dogs. Additionally we wanted to investigate whether we could identify other factors influencing learning ability and whether different personality traits correlated with each other.

For this study we used 22 pet dogs with various backgrounds and training experience. To assess the dogs’ learning ability we measured how many trials it took them to learn a size discrimination task. For the assessment of their personality we used three previously validated questionnaires (Dog Impulsivity Assessment Scale, Positive And Negative Activation Scale and Monash Canine Personality Questionnaire – Revised) filled out by the owners of the dogs.

We found that younger dogs learned the discrimination task significantly more quickly compared to older dogs. In contrast we found no effect of gender, training experience or personality on the number of trials the dogs needed to learn the task. Looking at the relationship between the different personality traits as assessed by the questionnaires we found significant positive correlations between impulsivity, positive activation and extraversion, between impulsivity and motivation and between neuroticism and aggression & response to novelty. We explain these effects in light of the Reward Sensitivity Theory in human personality research.