Test-retest reliability and predictive validity of a juvenile guide dog behavior test

Harvey, Naomi D.; Craigon, Peter J.; Sommerville, Rebecca; McMillan, Caroline; Green, Martin J.; Asher, Lucy

doi:10.1016/j.jveb.2015.09.005

Cited by 44 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(2 reference statements)

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“…Similarly, dogs with shorter latencies to vocalize during the novel object task, a likely sign of higher anxiety (69), were more likely to be released from the program. This result is consistent with the findings of Harvey et al (26), who found that the guide dogs predicted to be successful had lower scores on a fear/anxiety PC at 5 mo of age. The component was partially based on vocalizing during tasks.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…success is associated with high levels of obedience and trainability and low levels of reactivity, hyperactivity, aggression, distraction, and anxious behaviors (e.g., barking) (24,26,29,32,35). To date, however, no study has examined the direct effect of mother-puppy interactions on program success or failure; examined the direct effect of performance on cognitive tests on subsequent working dog success; or simultaneously explored maternal, cognitive, and temperament effects within the same model, thereby testing each variable while controlling for the others.…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of maternal investment, temperament, and cognition on guide dog success

Bray

Sammel

Cheney

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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A continuing debate in studies of social development in both humans and other animals is the extent to which early life experiences affect adult behavior. Also unclear are the relative contributions of cognitive skills ("intelligence") and temperament for successful outcomes. Guide dogs are particularly suited to research on these questions. To succeed as a guide dog, individuals must accomplish complex navigation and decision making without succumbing to distractions and unforeseen obstacles. Faced with these rigorous demands, only ∼70% of dogs that enter training ultimately achieve success. What predicts success as a guide dog? To address these questions, we followed 98 puppies from birth to adulthood. We found that high levels of overall maternal behavior were linked with a higher likelihood of program failure. Furthermore, mothers whose nursing style required greater effort by puppies were more likely to produce successful offspring, whereas mothers whose nursing style required less effort were more likely to produce offspring that failed. In young adults, an inability to solve a multistep task quickly, compounded with high levels of perseveration during the task, was associated with failure. Young adults that were released from the program also appeared more anxious, as indicated by a short latency to vocalize when faced with a novel object task. Our results suggest that both maternal nursing behavior and individual traits of cognition and temperament are associated with guide dog success.guide dogs | nursing style | maternal style | temperament | cognition I t is often assumed that, in both human and nonhuman animals, variation in cognitive abilities contributes to variation in problemsolving skills. However, there remains little consensus about what attributes, exactly, comprise such abilities, because performance is affected not just by variation in general "intelligence" (1) or reasoning ability (e.g., refs. 2, 3) but also by variation in more affective attributes, such as impulse control, neophobia, motivation, and exploration (e.g., refs. 4-6).Similarly, the long-term effects of early life experiences remain poorly understood. There is now considerable evidence that early exposure to stress has lasting effects on physiology [e.g., humans (refs. 7-9), rodents (refs. 10, 11), rhesus macaques (ref.12 and reviewed in ref. 13)]. In rhesus macaques, mothering style is correlated with offspring cortisol and serotonin levels (14, 15), and in baboons, the male offspring of subordinate mothers exhibit higher glucocorticoid levels than the offspring of more dominant mothers (16). In rodents, experiences across the early weeks of life have lasting implications for later temperament measures, such as stress reactivity and fear (17, 18), and cognitive skills, such as spatial memory (19). Similar effects are observed in children, where negative life events in childhood are linked to later reductions in adolescent self-control (20).Guide dogs are particularly suited to research on the longterm effects of early experi...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of maternal investment, temperament, and cognition on guide dog success

Bray

Sammel

Cheney

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Correlations ranged from 0.42 to 0.69, whereas the meta-analysis found mean correlations of 0.34 for puppies and juveniles (<12 months of age) and 0.53 in adult dogs (>12 months of age)[26]. The strength of the correlations from this questionnaire completed by trained dog handlers also compares favourably to similar questionnaires completed by dog carers (correlations 0.25 to 0.56 [31] and 0.18 to 0.66 [10]). The lower end of correlations found here was higher than that found in the questionnaires scored by carers, a result which would be expected if trained dog handlers were more reliable/consistent in their evaluations, although inter-rater reliability was not possible to assess due to there being only one handler per dog.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…Each prediction used a scale score from the questionnaire (a 0-100mm continuous measure) as the dependent variable, with behavioural coding measures from the juvenile guide dog behaviour test [10] as independent variables (IV’s). The predictions were based on the shared areas of behaviour the test and questionnaire were designed to assess.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An evidence-based decision assistance model for predicting training outcome in juvenile guide dogs

et al. 2017

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Working dog organisations, such as Guide Dogs, need to regularly assess the behaviour of the dogs they train. In this study we developed a questionnaire-style behaviour assessment completed by training supervisors of juvenile guide dogs aged 5, 8 and 12 months old (n = 1,401), and evaluated aspects of its reliability and validity. Specifically, internal reliability, temporal consistency, construct validity, predictive criterion validity (comparing against later training outcome) and concurrent criterion validity (comparing against a standardised behaviour test) were evaluated. Thirty-nine questions were sourced either from previously published literature or created to meet requirements identified via Guide Dogs staff surveys and staff feedback. Internal reliability analyses revealed seven reliable and interpretable trait scales named according to the questions within them as: Adaptability; Body Sensitivity; Distractibility; Excitability; General Anxiety; Trainability and Stair Anxiety. Intra-individual temporal consistency of the scale scores between 5–8, 8–12 and 5–12 months was high. All scales excepting Body Sensitivity showed some degree of concurrent criterion validity. Predictive criterion validity was supported for all seven scales, since associations were found with training outcome, at at-least one age. Thresholds of z-scores on the scales were identified that were able to distinguish later training outcome by identifying 8.4% of all dogs withdrawn for behaviour and 8.5% of all qualified dogs, with 84% and 85% specificity. The questionnaire assessment was reliable and could detect traits that are consistent within individuals over time, despite juvenile dogs undergoing development during the study period. By applying thresholds to scores produced from the questionnaire this assessment could prove to be a highly valuable decision-making tool for Guide Dogs. This is the first questionnaire-style assessment of juvenile dogs that has shown value in predicting the training outcome of individual working dogs.

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“…The associated contributed papers suggest that these are all rich intellectual fields. Harvey et al (2016) present the results of early testing using a novel evaluation paradigm for dogs intended to become guide dogs. All working dogs require extensive, expensive training.…”

Section: Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Special issue: The “dominance” debate and improved behavioral measures—Articles from the 2014 CSF/FSF

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2016

Journal of Veterinary Behavior

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Test-retest reliability and predictive validity of a juvenile guide dog behavior test

Cited by 44 publications

References 48 publications

Effects of maternal investment, temperament, and cognition on guide dog success

Effects of maternal investment, temperament, and cognition on guide dog success

An evidence-based decision assistance model for predicting training outcome in juvenile guide dogs

Special issue: The “dominance” debate and improved behavioral measures—Articles from the 2014 CSF/FSF

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