During the domestication of dogs, people began to separate the personalities of these creatures according to certain races. In other words, there were thought to be important links between a dog’s personality traits and breed. But new research says breed (or breed) only really strongly influences a dog’s appearance. Personality traits may be related to their environment rather than their race. The research also challenges this theory and the long-held idea of a race-personality link.
Dogs and humans have joined forces in the past in tasks such as hunting, guarding and herding, but over time dogs have assumed a less functional role in our lives. As institutions like Crufts saw modern humans go crazy for purebred chihuahuas performing Swan Lake, breeders and dog lovers alike began ascribing certain personality types to certain breeds.
Understanding an animal’s personality structure can inform whether they are a suitable pet for a home or farm or a working animal, so there are some benefits to trying to predict an animal’s nature based on its heritage. Still, these animals may have unsuitable homes if the assumptions about the breed aren’t really true. This would reveal, for example, that laws like the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 in the UK are not actually true.
In a paper published in Dog Genomics, researchers sequenced the DNA of more than 2,000 dogs registered through the Darwin’s Ark community science project to assess whether or how the breed affects a dog’s traits. Included in the study were a mix of purebred and mixed-breed dogs, and their sequences were matched to owner surveys of their behavior to look for relationships between their genotype (DNA) and phenotype (appearance and behavior).
The results revealed that dogs associated with certain breeds had many similar physical characteristics, but the behavior was less consistent. Among the behaviors that seem to be associated with certain breeds, willingness, a dog’s capacity to follow instructions from a human, was the most genetically linked.
Borders collie dogs, such as those participating in the Genius Dog Challenge, were among those with the highest willingness, and this type of behavior was found to be significantly linked to breed, although individual differences still exist. In contrast, no significant correlation was found between “human sociability”, a trait often associated with buyers, and the genotype of the species.
The researchers say that the breed that had minimal influence on behavior in this study “makes it a poor predictor of individual behavior and should not be used to determine decisions about pet dog selection.” Instead, it’s stated that environmental factors are more likely to play a larger role in influencing dogs’ personalities.
Nicely summarizing what we can draw from this research, Elinor Karlsson, director of vertebrate genomics at the Broad Institute that oversaw the study, told Science, “You shouldn’t shop from a catalogue. Every dog is an individual.”
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