We are very excited to say that we have reached our goal number of participants (5,000) for the first phase of development of our questionnaire! We will be searching for more volunteers in the future, so check back frequently if you would like to participate in a future phase of this study.
We are working on a questionnaire to assess personality in dogs. To develop this questionnaire, we need help from dog owners. If you have had a dog for at least one year and would be willing to answer questions (on-line or on paper -- your choice) about your dog's personality, please send your e-mail address and any other contact information to Amanda Jones (acjones@mail.utexas.edu).
We are currently compiling a database of dog owners who are willing to participate in this study. When the study is up and running, we will e-mail you to let you know and to give you the website at which we have posted the questionnaire. We will not share your contact information with anyone else, nor will we contact you for any reason except to tell you about our questionnaire. The results of this study may be published, but no identifying information will ever be revealed about you or your dog!
It is important to note two things. First, this first version of the questionnaire will be rather lengthy and probably take about an hour to complete. Second, initially, we will not be able to give you feedback about your dog (e.g., how s/he compares to other dogs in our sample, etc.). Eventually, however, once enough people have told us about their dogs, we will be able to share more information with you about what our questionnaire tells us about your dog's personality.
Most American families have at least one dog, and most of us interact with dogs every day. Due to their simple abundance in our lives, they deserve attention. Of course, dogs are more to us than that. They live as members of our families. They guide the blind. They hear for those who can't. They serve the police and the military. And, like us, they are all different from each other, and some are better suited to each job or situation than others. How is an ideal guide dog different from an ideal police dog? How is an ideal guide dog different from your dog? We believe that dogs play interesting, important roles in our lives and that answering these questions about them will give us information to improve our and their lives.
Once we have developed a reliable, valid questionnaire, it will allow us to gather large amounts of information quickly, efficiently, and with minimal disruption to the dogs and their owners. (In addition, past research gives us reason to believe that questionnaires and owner-reports may be among the best ways to assess personality in dogs!)
Because the questionnaire we are developing will be suited to a broad array of dogs, from pet to service dogs, we will be able to compare the personalities of these different groups.
When will the questionnaire be on-line?
The questionnaire is nearly completed. The study should, thus, be up and running very, very soon! Thank you for your patience while we finish.
Do participants have to be living in the
No! Originally we had intended to collect data in the
When a person has more than one dog, will he/she fill out a questionnaire for each and every dog?
For the online questionnaire, we will select one of your dogs for you to tell us about. After you have filled out a questionnaire for that dog, you are more than welcome to tell us about any (or all!) of your other dogs in future studies (we'll be looking for volunteers again soon!). However, you are not required to tell us about all of your dogs.
Do the dogs in the study need to be purebred or of known lineage?
No! We wish to include dogs of all shapes, sizes, ages, and breeds/mixes.
There are many factors that may influence personality, including nutrition, vaccinations, general health and age. Will these be taken into account?
Although this is the initial stage of developing our questionnaire, we will be including questions about issues such as those mentioned in this question. We will also be inviting people to include notes of other factors that we do not cover (such as specific traumatic events). For this, and all areas of the questionnaire, we value your input!
Will participants be able to access the results of the study?
Yes. In addition to sharing the final paper that results from this study and the next edition of the questionnaire that we build after completing this study, we will be maintaining a webpage to keep you updated about the current status of the study.
How will these data be used?
We are interested in this study and these data from a theoretical and research perspective. We are interested in learning more about personality and about dogs. In the future, we hope to apply what we learn in this study to examining the differences in personality between specific groups of dogs (e.g., guide dogs vs. pet dogs) and to developing better assessments for the selection of working dogs.
How is this research funded, and with whom is your research group affiliated?
A number of potential research participants have expressed concerns that our research group (API), or members of our group, may be funded by or affiliated with groups that those participants do not want to support. We are not currently funded by any dog food or product companies. We are also not affiliated with PETA or any similar agencies in any way. It is our number one goal to produce valid, unbiased research.
Thank you for your concerns and your thoughfulness with respect to canine research and welfare!
Amanda C. Jones
acjones@mail.utexas.edu
acjones@mail.utexas.edu
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
1 University Station A8000
Austin, TX 78712-0187