Where does your dog live? Size, origin and aggressiveness predict dogs' developmental environment

Abstract

Animals’ development is influenced by the environment in which they live. In the case of dogs, persons can decide whether that environment is the internal or external part of their residences, which differ strongly in terms of physical and social environment. The aim of this study was to evaluate which characteristics of the dog and the owner influence the location where the dog lives in the house (mostly inside or mostly outside). Participants in this study were Brazilian dog owners who answered an online questionnaire. 730 questionnaires were analyzed. We applied multiple logistic regressions to investigate whether the factors studied (sex, age and marital status of the person; number of people living in the residence; sex, age, size, origin, level of aggression of the dog in the presence of strangers and age at which the dog arrived at the residence) were associated with where the dogs lived. We obtained a final model with three main effects: size, origin and aggressiveness of dogs in the presence of strangers. We found that the chance of living indoors is greater for: small dogs than for big dogs, bought dogs than for rescued dogs and dogs with no level of aggression compared to dogs with little aggression. These results have a possible relationship with easier handling, in relation to small dogs; the motivations in the acquisition process, regarding the bought dogs; and safety for non-aggressive dogs. Owner characteristics did not influence where dogs spent most of their time. Since the internal part of the house differs from the external part in terms of physical and social environment, we discuss how our data contributes to a better understanding of dogs’ developmental environment and possible reasons that determine the place where dogs spend most part of their lives.