The existence of parenting styles in the owner-dog relationship

Abstract

Parents interact with children following specific styles, known to influence child development. These styles represent variations in the dimensions of demandingness and responsiveness, resulting in authoritarian, authoritative, permissive or uninvolved parenting. Given the similarities in the parent to child and owner to dog relationships, we determined the extent to which parenting styles exist in the owner to dog relationship using the existing Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire for the parent-child relationship and an adapted version for dog owners. Items on the parenting of children/dogs were rated for applicability on a five-point Likert scale by 518 Dutch dog owning parents. Principal Component Analyses grouped parenting propensities into styles, with some marked differences between the findings for children and dogs. Dog-directed items grouped into an authoritarian-correction orientated style, incorporating variation in demandingness and focussing on correcting a dog for behaviour verbally/physically, and in two styles based on authoritative items. An authoritative-intrinsic value orientated style reflected variation in mainly responsiveness and oriented on the assumed needs and emotions of the animal. A second authoritative-item based style, captured variations in demandingness and responsiveness. We labelled this style authoritative-training orientated, as it orientated on manners in teaching a dog how to behave in social situations. Thus, we defined dog-directed parenting styles and constructed a Dog-Directed Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire along the lines of the existing theoretical framework on parenting styles. We did not find a dog-directed parenting style of being permissive or uninvolved, which we attribute to a study population of devoted dog owners and our findings should be interpreted with this specific study population in mind. We found evidence of dog-directed parenting styles and provide a fundament for determining their possible impact on the different aspects of a dog’s life.

We Don’t Train in Vain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Human and Canine Caregiver Training

“…While the effectiveness of caregiver training was repeatedly shown in educational, psychological, and behavior-analytic research, including meta-analyses (e.g., Bearss, Burrell, Stewart & Scahill 2015;Crone & Mehta, 2016;Fukkink & Lont, 2007;Ilg et al, 2018), the topic did not yet attract wide attention within the animal behavior research community (Coe et al, 2014;Howard & DiGennaro-Reed, 2014). This is surprising as similarities between owner-dog and parent-child relationships (Hare & Tomasello, 2005;Prato-Previde et al, 2003;Prato-Previde & Valsecchi, 2014;Tomasello & Kaminski, 2009;Topal, Miklósi, Csányi & Dóka, 1998;van Herwijnen et al, 2018) are well-established, and many sources rely on dog owners to follow the animal behaviorists' instructions to implement the interventions accordingly (e.g., Butler et al, 2011;Echterling-Savage et al, 2014). In this vein, previous studies suggested that training caregivers to implement interventions with integrity may benefit treatment outcomes (e.g., Belfiore et al, 2008;Fryling et al, 2012).…”

Dog ownership satisfaction determinants in the owner-dog relationship and the dog's behaviour

“…The actual situation will be less positive as we assume our study sample of volunteers recruited by mainly (social) media to be skewed towards people with positive opinions about having a dog and thus willing to make the effort of filling out a research questionnaire on dogs. Unintentionally, much research on dog ownership is done with highly engaged dog owners [ 21 , 24 ], because participating in research requires effort, which average or less engaged dog owners are less likely to invest. Presently, science has not found an easy solution to this issue.…”

Permissive parenting of the dog associates with dog overweight in a survey among 2,303 Dutch dog owners

“…Parenting styles were measured with 32 parenting style items on a five-point Likert scale, rating the likelihood of scenarios occurring as never (score zero), nearly never (one), neutral (defined as about half of the time, two), nearly always (three) and always (four). These items were based on the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (32-PSDQ) commonly used with children [26] and transformed for use with dogs [23]. Here we used the 32 items measuring on the three 'original' parenting styles of authoritative, authoritarian and permissive parenting, as to facilitate comparisons of our study outcomes with similar studies done with children.…”

“…Differences in how owners see and treat their dog can be studied through the recently discovered dog-directed parenting styles [ 22 , 23 ] and in humans associations exist between parenting styles and a child’s overweight, including obesity [ 24 ]. Parenting styles encompass the overarching ‘emotional climate’ in the relationship between a care provider such as a dog owner and a care receiver such as a dog [ 23 ]. This emotional climate is characterized by variation in dimensions of responsiveness and demandingness [ 25 ].…”