Heritability of mentality traits in Swedish dogs

• The dog mentality assessement (DMA) has been used in Sweden since 1989 to describe mentality in dogs. DMA was developed mainly for working dogs and there was a demand for a mentality assessment suitable also for other breeds. With this aim, the new behaviour and personality assessment in dogs (BPH) was created and assessments were started in 2012. The aim of this study was to estimate heritabilities (h2) for the created behaviour traits for 5 breeds with the highest number of observations: Rhodesian Ridgeback (RR, n=493), Labrador Retriever (LR, n=491), Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever (NSDTR, n=425), Staffordshire Bullterrier (SBT, n=343), and American Staffordshire Terrier (AST, n=298). From the original 242 markings on the score sheet, 6 summarizing behavioural traits were defined across the 5 breeds using exploratory factor analysis. Average h2 for all traits within breed varied from 0.29-0.38. Hostility had the highest h2 across breeds but also the largest variation (0.38, range 0.18-0.62). Confidence had more consistently high h2 (0.36, range 0.22-0.45). The other 4 traits (Playfulness, Sociability, Curious and Confident, and Positive and Energetic) had average h2 of around 0.3, with range from 0.10 to 0.59. Standard errors ranged from around 0.10 for the largest breeds to about 0.15 for the smallest. These results show that the traits defined in the new BPH have at least as high h2 as the traits in DMA.

Subject headings

LANTBRUKSVETENSKAPER  -- Bioteknologi med applikationer på växter och djur -- Genetik och förädling inom lantbruksvetenskap (hsv//swe)

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES  -- Agricultural Biotechnology -- Genetics and Breeding in Agricultural Sciences (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)