Do owners know how impulsive their dogs are?

Abstract

Impulsivity is an important behavioral trait in dogs that affects many aspects of their relationship with humans. But how well do owners know their dog's levels of impulsivity? Two studies have investigated how owner perceptions of their dog's impulsivity correlate with the distance traveled in a spatial impulsivity task requiring choices between smaller, closer vs. larger, more distant food treats (Brady et al., 2018; Mongillo et al., 2019). However, these studies have demonstrated mixed results. The current project aimed to replicate these studies by correlating owner responses to the Dog Impulsivity Assessment Survey (DIAS) and the dog's maximum distance traveled in a spatial impulsivity task. We found that neither the DIAS overall score nor it's three subcomponent scores correlated with dog distance traveled. This result replicates Mongillo et al.'s lack of an relationship but does not replicate Brady et al.'s effect, questioning the generalizability of owner's reports of dog impulsivity. The lack of replication could result from differences in methodology and sample populations, but it raises intriguing questions about possible differences in dog characteristics and owner knowledge of their dogs across cultures.

ManyDogs Project: A Big Team Science Approach to Investigating Canine Behavior and Cognition

“…For instance, (Brady et al, 2018) found that owner perceptions of their dogs' impulsivity matched behavioral measures of impulsivity, suggesting that owners' impressions of their dog's impulsivity are relatively accurate. Using larger sample sizes, however, Mongillo et al, (2019) and Stevens et al, (2022) did not find a relationship between owner perceptions and behavioral measures of impulsivity.…”

“…Mixed results found across different studies could also stem from the use of different methods or other moderators such as dogs' training histories (Osthaus et al, 2005;Marshall-Pescini et al, 2008Silver et al, 2021), breed (Horschler et al, 2019;Gnanadesikan et al, 2020), or cultural differences across study samples (Wan et al, 2009;Stevens et al, 2022). As a result, even if an individual lab is able to test several hundred dogs in a pre-registered study with the video-recordings of all tests publicly available (Lonardo et al, 2021), some of the abovementioned issues remain.…”