Old dog, new tricks: Age differences in dog personality traits, associations with human personality traits, and links to important outcomes

Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are often referred to as humans’ best friends. Like humans, not all dogs are the same and vary in how they approach different situations. People often make adoption decisions based on a dog’s temperament. It is unclear whether dog personality differs by age.

The Jones taxonomy was developed using an iterative approach that follows best practice guidelines for measuring personality traits in humans. A pool of 1200 descriptors was gathered from prior dog-personality assessments, shelter assessments, and dog experts. A series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted across over 6000 human participants and their dogs. The resulting measure—the Dog Personality Questionnaire (DPQ)—is discussed in more detail in the current paper.

Because humans and dogs spend a considerable amount of time together, it is plausible that there might be some degree of similarity in human and dog personality. There is a larger body of research examining how human personality is associated with important dog outcomes. In a study by Turcsán et al. (2012), the personalities of dogs and humans were rated by owners and friends.

We believe there are at least three reasons why owners and dogs might be related. Owners might select dogs that match their personalities and life styles. Dogs might have similar personalities based on a socialization effect. Extraverted owners might bring their dogs to social events, which may in turn socialize them to humans.

Owners and dogs might have similar personalities because owners have idiosyncratic ways of evaluating things in their lives. People tend to perceive similarity with things that they like. Human personality is associated with satisfaction and maintenance of close relationships over time.

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