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Personality in Nonhuman Animals pp 205–224Cite as

Personality in Dogs

Abstract

Dogs have an ever-increasing presence in our lives from being a child’s best friend to detecting roadside bombs to guiding people with visual impairments. Examining the personalities of these animals can help us to better understand them. This chapter reviews many topics related to dog personality, beginning by examining the structure of dog personality. Studies have found that dog personality consists of two to more than five dimensions with little consensus as to the optimal number of dimensions needed to best describe dog personality. This chapter then examines the reliability and validity of dog personality assessments. Finally, this chapter reviews the evidence for various genetic, biological, and environmental factors related to dog personality and concludes that what we currently know is largely mixed. Future studies on dog personality should further examine several personality dimensions and factors likely associated with dog personality.

Keywords

  • Dog
  • Personality
  • Reliability
  • Validity
  • Personality assessment
  • Breed

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, 108 E. Dean Keeton Stop A8000, Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    Jamie L. Fratkin

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  1. Jamie L. Fratkin
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Correspondence to Jamie L. Fratkin .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Dr. Jennifer Vonk

  2. Psychology, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    Dr. Alexander Weiss

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA

    Dr. Stan A. Kuczaj

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Fratkin, J.L. (2017). Personality in Dogs. In: Vonk, J., Weiss, A., Kuczaj, S. (eds) Personality in Nonhuman Animals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59300-5_10

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