My ‘Perfect’ Dog: Undesired Dog Behaviours and Owners’ Coping Styles

Abstract

Abstract Research continues to shed light on the benefits associated with dog ownership. However, we know virtually nothing about how undesired dog behaviours impact young people’s behavioural and perceptive experiences with their dogs. Understanding these impacts is important because it can offer a more nuanced understanding of the effects of dog ownership. This exploratory study applied a qualitative methodology to examine young people’s perceptions about their dog’s behavioural issues, along with a focus on young people’s coping styles. Seven participants aged between 17 and 26 years engaged in semi-structured in-depth one-on-one interviews about their experiences with their dogs and their coping strategies in response to undesired dog behaviours. Thematic coding identified the following salient themes in participants’ responses which were subsequently explored in detail: (1) severity of dogs’ behavioural issues, (2) participants’ coping styles, (3) the relationship between the dog’s behavioural issues and the participant, (4) participants’ emotional reactions, (5) participants’ self-evaluation – insights – of their coping styles, and (6) similarities between participants’ coping styles with humans to whom they are close and those used with their dogs. Findings from this study indicate that young people prefer proactive coping styles when coping with undesired behaviours in their dogs. This study’s findings also indicate that the severity of dogs’ behavioural issues is associated with young people’s emotions (e.g., more severe behavioural issues seem to elicit more intense emotions). The significance of these findings for practice in the field of human-animal interactions is discussed.