The early experiences of dogs showing signs of avoidance behaviour or aggression were compared with those of dogs from the same clinical population that did not show such behaviour. The occurrence of each behavioural sign was tested for its association with the dog's maternal environment, the environment it experienced between three and six months of age, and the age at which it had been acquired. Non-domestic maternal environments, and a lack of experience of urban environments between three and six months of age, were both significantly associated with aggression towards unfamiliar people and avoidance behaviour. Aggression during a veterinary examination was more likely in dogs from non-domestic maternal environments. There was no significant association with either environment for aggression towards familiar people, or towards dogs.
Homing puppies before 8 weeks has been associated with lower instance of avoidance and types of aggression in adult dogs. The current study aimed to further assess the impact of homing age on these behaviours in adult dogs. Finnish dogs provide an interesting population for this further study, as based on the clinical experience of the co-authors, puppies in Finland are predominantly reared in domestic maternal environments before first homing, which is was not the case in the countries where previous studies have been performed. Online questionnaire-based data on frequencies of problematic behaviours (n = 3689) were analysed using Chi-Square, comparing adult dogs homed at 6-7 weeks (6-7), 8 weeks (8), 9-12 weeks (9-12) and 13-16 weeks (13-16). 31 % were 6-7, 41 % 8, 23 % 9-12, 5 % 13-16. If an overall association was observed, pairwise comparisons between homing age groups were conducted. All of the dogs included in the study came from domestic maternal environments, where the puppies were kept in the breeders' living quarters. Homing age was associated with avoiding, growling and snapping at unfamiliar people when away from the home environment (p = 0.004, p = 0.02 and p = 0.008, respectively); avoiding, barking at, growling at and snapping at unfamiliar people visiting the home (p = 0.02, p = 0.02, p = 0.04 and p = 0.03, respectively) and barking at unfamiliar dogs when away from the home environment (p = 0.001). With one exception, dogs homed later than 8 weeks, namely during weeks 9-12 and 13-16, had higher than expected prevalence of avoidance and aggressive behaviour than dogs homed at other ages. The exception being that for the measure, barking at unfamiliar dogs away from the home environment, there were higher than expected values in dogs homed at 8 and 13-16 weeks and lower in dogs homed at 6-7 and 9-12weeks. This research supports the view that homing age is associated with instances of avoidance behaviour and some types of aggression in adult dogs.
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