Science says that breed can be important but it’s not the full picture of a dog’s behavior.
A new study in the Journal Science challenges the popular idea that breeds have specific, reliable behaviors.
- A genome study found breed alone is not an accurate way to predict the personality of your four-legged friend.
- Researchers surveyed the owners of 18,385 dogs, asking questions about their pup’s behavior, such as whether they work at tasks until they’re finished, whether they’re friendly with strangers, or whether they circle before pooping. They also sequenced the DNA of 2,155 pure and mixed breed dogs and compared those to the survey results. They found breed
explains only about 9 percent of the variation in an individual dogs’ behavior. - “It’s a major advance in how we think about dog behavior,” Elaine Ostrander, an expert in canine genetics at the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute who was not involved with the study, “No breed owns any particular trait.”
- You may have heard stereotypes about certain breeds—some, like labs, are more lovable, while others, like chihuahuas, are more aggressive. But certainly breed can tell researchers some things. Overall, the scientists found some behavioral traits are more common in certain breeds. For example, Border collies seem to be more ready to respond to human direction than other breeds. Researchers found no behavioral trait was present in all dogs in a breed or missing from all of them either.
- In other words, though some behaviors are more likely to present in some breeds, breed alone cannot predict the disposition of a particular dog. Instead, personality is shaped by a combination of factors, including a dog’s environment. “Genetics matter, but genetics are a nudge in a given direction. They’re not a destiny,” We’ve known that for a long time in human studies, and this paper really suggests that the same is true for dogs.”
- “Any good dog trainer will tell you those stereotypes are a disaster,” according to dog-behavior experts at the University of Colorado at Boulder, “breeds don’t have personalities. individuals do.”
According to the authors of the study:
“Among behavioral traits, biddability—how well dogs respond to human direction—was the most heritable by breed but varied significantly among individual dogs. Thus, dog breed is generally a poor predictor of individual behavior and should not be used to inform decisions relating to selection of a pet dog.”