Companion dog temperament traits

Owners rated their companion dogs (Canis faamiliarus) on the frequency of occurrence of 127 descriptions of behavior. We conducted an exploratory principal components analysis of these behaviors for 2,018 participants that produced 22 interpretable factors (or traits). Four related to aggression indicate that aggression is not a unitary concept. Three factors relate to play and 3 describe vocal behavior. Regression analyses examined the relation of sex and obedience training (OT) to factor scores. Some unexpected relations between OT and factor scores were identified. Frequency distributions for factor scores were positively skewed for undesirable traits and negatively skewed for more desirable traits. Some common beliefs about companion dog behavior problems, such as the relation between playing tug-of-war games and aggression, are challenged. The identified factors provide some insight into the structure of temperament in companion dogs and represent traits that can be measured for individual dogs, although further refinement is needed.