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Examining Anxiety Traits and Breed Specifics Dr. Sheryl L. Walker reviews a recent paper on the prevalence, comorbidity, and breed differences in canine anxiety in Finnish pet dogs
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Teaching puppies how to encounter novel stimuli will not only teach them how to be confident throughout their life stages, but it also builds a foundation on which to build further life skills
A study by Salonen et al. (2020) names stimuli that often induce fear in dogs, as thunder, fireworks, gunshots, strangers, other dogs, novel situations, different surfaces, heights, stairs where you can/cannot see between steps, narrow bridges
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Study Methods
ith a background in behavior analysis and animal sheltering, and currently working toward my Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist (CAAB) certification, I personally found the re search in Prevalence, comorbidity, and breed differences in canine anxi‐ ety in 13,700 Finnish pet dogs by Salonen et al. (2020) intriguing.
Review Introduction Right off the bat, the first sentence in the Abstract packs a punch, espe cially if you have spent any time in an animal shelter: “Behavior prob lems and anxieties in dogs decrease their quality of life and may lead to relinquishment or euthanasia.” Having spent over 14 years working pro fessionally with animals, I can say with confidence that this is absolutely true. A plethora of research exists in human psychology showing that unmanaged anxiety can decrease quality of life. Similarly, although not studied as in depth, research also exists showing anxiety in animals can decrease their quality of life. In my opinion, there are several stakehold ers (e.g., animal shelter personnel, veterinary behaviorists, dog trainers, certified applied animal behaviorists, breeders) who can benefit from the knowledge outlined in this article.
State Salonen et al. (2020): “Dog breeds showed large differences in prevalence of all anxietyrelated traits, suggesting a strong genetic contribution. As a result, selective breeding focused on behavior may reduce the prevalence of canine anxieties.”
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BARKS from the Guild/July 2020
In this study based in Finland, the convenience sample size (more on this later) of 13,715 questionnaires representing 264 breeds was used to as sess prevalence, comorbidity, age, and sex differences of anxietybased behavioral problems. A subset of those represented 14 breeds (plus mixed breed) with a minimum sample size of 200 individuals per breed, accounting for 35% of all dogs in the entire data set. Guardians were asked to rate their dogs’ behavior on several anxietybased traits. “Noise sensitivity” was split into fear of thunder, fireworks, and gunshots. “Fear” was split into fear of strangers, other dogs, and novel situations. “Fear of surfaces and heights” was split into walking on different surfaces (e.g., metal grid, shiny floors, moving from one surface to another) and diffi culty in high places (e.g., walking next to glass railings, climbing metal stairs, walking over narrow bridges). “Compulsive behaviors” was as sessed by looking at the occurrences of tail chasing, fly snapping, and light chasing, among others. “Aggression” was rated as the likelihood of the dog growling, snapping, or biting when a stranger tries to pet the dog, or when the owner tries to take a resource from the dog.
Study Results Noise sensitivity was the most common anxiety trait with 32% of dogs being fearful of at least one noise, of which fear of fireworks was the most common subtrait with a prevalence of 26%: “The prevalence of noise sensitivity increased with age, especially fear of thunder.” (Salo nen et al., 2020). Anecdotally, I see this with both of my dogs. My Ger man shepherd/rottweiler, Luigi, has always been noise sensitive to fireworks and gun shots, but never thunder until he was about 8 years
