Dog Behavior Study

The University of Texas at Austin is conducting a study in dog behavior. They are looking for dog owners from all over to participate. If you have owned your dog for at least 1 year, you may be included. To find out more information or to sign up to participate, click here. Here's a quick overview of the project:

I am a Ph.D. student working with Dr. Sam Gosling at UT-Austin and am studying personality and temperament in the domestic dog. Currently, we are designing a questionnaire for the assessment of personality in dogs. Once this questionnaire is completed, we aim to use it to answer a variety of research questions, from what characterizes the best explosives detection dogs and guide dogs, to what types of breed-specific personality traits truly exist, to whether there are specific "types" of dogs who often end up in rescues and shelters. However, to create a reliable and valid dog personality questionnaire, we need thousands of dog owners to fill out the initial version of our on-line questionnaire, which is quite lengthy, and to give us feedback. This is why I'm writing to you! Although the questionnaire is not yet ready, we are compiling an e-mail list of individuals who would be willing to participate in the study. Once the questionnaire is posted (within a couple weeks), I will e-mail the participant list. For further information about this and other studies, please visit our website at www.animalpersonality.org and click on the "Attention Dog Owners!"link. To volunteer for the study or if you have any questions,please e-mail me directly at amanda@animalpersonality.org Please tell all your dog-owning friends about our study! All the best, Amanda Jones