Research assessing the behavior of dog breeds
common in Finland has found that a significant proportion of our canine best
friends live with some form of anxiety.
According to recent
statistical reports, as many as 89.7 million
dogs provided companionship to their human friends in the
United States in 2017, the latest year for which data are available.
Dogs
are some of the most popular
pets around the world, and no wonder. Anecdotally, they are
loyal, loving friends and a constant source of boundless affection and good
fun.
Yet,
much like humans, our canine pals can also face troubles such as stress and
anxiety.
In
fact, according to a new study from the University of Helsinki in Finland, dogs
are particularly prone to a wide range of anxiety-like traits.
More
than 70% of dogs display anxiety
In
the recent study, first author Milla Salonen and her colleagues analyzed the
behaviors that 13,715 pet dogs from Finland — belonging to 264 different breeds
— exhibited. Their findings appear in Scientific Reports.
The
researchers asked the dogs’ owners to fill in questionnaires surveying
behaviors that related to seven anxiety-related traits. These were noise
sensitivity, general fear, fear of surfaces, impulsivity or lack of attention,
compulsive behaviors, aggression, and behaviors relating to separation anxiety.
By
looking at the survey data, the investigators found that 72.5% of the dogs
expressed anxiety-like behaviors, according to their owners.
Of
the total number of dogs, 32% had noise sensitivity, meaning that they were
frightened of at least one noise. Among noise-sensitive dogs, the most common
fear was that of sounds associated with fireworks — this fear had a “prevalence
of 26%,” the researchers write.
General
fearfulness affected 29% of the dogs in the study. “Specifically, 17% of dogs
showed fear of other dogs, 15% fear of strangers, and 11% fear of novel
situations,” the authors write.
The
least common anxious behaviors, according to the surveys, were
separation-related behaviors, which affected 5% of dogs, and aggression, which
owners reported in 14% of dogs.
Some
anxiety-like behaviors, the researchers also found, seem to become more pronounced
as dogs age. These include noise sensitivity — especially being frightened of
thunder — as well as fear of heights and anxiety around walking on certain
types of surfaces, such as metal grids.
However,
judging by their owners’ reports, younger dogs were more likely to have
problematic behaviors relating to separation anxiety, such as urinating on the
floor or damaging furniture.
Younger
dogs also appeared to be more likely than older canines to be impulsive.
There
were also differences between the two biological sexes, with males being more
likely to show aggression and signs of impulsivity and females having a higher
tendency to display fear.
Breed-specific
differences
Different
dog breeds were also likely to display different types of anxiety-related
behaviors.
The
researchers stated that — much in accordance with what previous studies have
suggested — Lagotto Romagnolos, Wheaten terriers, and mixed breed dogs had the
highest prevalence of noise sensitivity, while miniature schnauzers and
Staffordshire bull terriers were less sensitive to noises.
Spanish
water dogs, Shetland sheepdogs, and mixed breed dogs were the canines in which
fearfulness was most common. More specifically, fear of surfaces and fear of
heights were most prevalent in rough collie and mixed breed dogs.
Large
breeds and small breeds also differed in terms of anxiety-like behaviors. For
example, among the miniature schnauzers in this study, 10.6% showed aggression
toward strangers, compared with only 0.4% of Labrador retrievers.
But
why are such anxious behaviors so common in dogs? The researchers cannot say
for sure, but they hypothesize that the dogs’ genetic makeup may have something
to do with their predisposition to different types of anxiety.
“Behavior
has a major genetic component,” they write, adding that “[s]ome genomic areas
and loci are associated with problematic behavior, including compulsion, fear,
and noise sensitivity.”
Yet
they note that environmental factors, such as the training that dogs receive,
most likely interact with genetic predispositions, leading to or suppressing
certain behaviors.
“As
anxiety can impair welfare, and problematic behavior may be an indication of
poor welfare, efforts should be made to decrease the prevalence of these canine
anxieties,” the researchers point out in their study paper
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