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Dog Breed VS Dog Personality

Modern dog breeds represent most present-day family dogs, namely, dogs living as companion animals with a human family.

LET’S NOT GET CONFUSED though. Let’s remember that the majority of dogs present worldwide is about 900 million. Out of those, about 750 million are free-ranging dogs and 150 million are pet companion dogs. Now, most of those pet companion dogs are breed dogs.

Those dogs are highly divergent from ancient breeds of wolves and dogs in both genetics and behaviour. In fact, modern breeds originated from recent and – we should say that with a certain degree of confidence, forceful breeding efforts, and they date only 200 years back (Lindblad-Toh et al., 2005; vonHoldt et al., 2010).

Background

The recent dog-breeding generated a high breed-specific selection pressure. This means that the selection for desired traits has determined those unequivocal and commonly known morphological differences among all the dog breeds (Ostrander et al., 2000; Zapata et al., 2016). So we may be able to clearly distinguish a border collie from a Doberman, a Golden Retriever, a German Shepard, a french bulldog and so on.

A new study in canine science and genetic

Morril and colleagues (2022) in their Ancestry-inclusive dog genomics challenges popular breed stereotypes clarify how (and I quote) “dog breed is generally a poor predictor of individual behavior and should not be used to inform decisions relating to selecting a pet dog.” This study has been highlighted also by Marc Bekoff in one his Psychology Today posts, titled:

It’s Best Not to Judge Dogs by Their Covers

Core considerations

The selective pressure on aesthetic preference for coat colour, tail length, body size, muzzle size and other physical characteristics caused important differences between dog breeds. The same applies to the specific behaviours of dog breeds. Behaviors targeted for specialised functions, such as guarding, herding, hunting and companionship, caused important differences between dog breeds.

However, we should be aware of two fundamental facts:

1) Those important selection has tremendously impacted the health of dogs. Restricting breeding to some behavioural and physical traits has caused a dramatic drop in the genetic diversity (heritage) of dogs, and that is at the core of many medical conditions that modern dog breeds had to go through during the last two centuries. We can make the simple example of hip dysplasia in German Shepherds, for they have been selected to have lower back, and breathing difficulties in French Bulldogs due to targeting a short muzzle.

2) We may tend to strongly associate the breed of a dog with a dog’s personality. Dog personality depends on every individual dog and on the background of the dog, on how dogs are raised and socialised with other dogs and people.

Bottom line

The personality of dogs is not determined by their breed. Also, human behaviour may importantly affect the lifestyle of companion pet dogs and result in behavioural issues and changes in personality traits (Corrieri et al., 2018).

Fun facts: breed dogs are often referred to as “pure” dogs. You can understand how this is inconsistent with the history of dogs.

Let’s um up on this: dogs are remarkable animals, and every individual dog should be valued for her/his moral characteristics, and cognitive and emotional skills, and not for her/his aspects or the breed they belong to.

So, if you are considering adopting a dog, bear this in mind. And if possible, ask for professional advice.

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