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Study of pet dogs shows breed does not predict behaviour

40 points by lnyan 4y ago

vmception 4y ago
Any problems with the study? Control group is "random distribution of dogs" and the other group is "18,000 but of a no specific breed". Is that a problem or does it even out.
- pboutros 4y ago
  Importantly... the behavior is self-reported (by dog owners), who almost certainly have some bias about their dogs. I know I do. :)
  - BurdensomeCount 4y ago
    Also what would count as "no issues" by and large depends on the dog breed I'd say. If a rottweiler tried to attack a rabbit that wouldn't be out of the ordinary, but if a border collie did the same it would.
jimhefferon 4y ago
Isn't this study flawed because they asked people to report on their dog's behavior? When I talk to other dog owners, they discuss the dog with respect to their perceived breed standard, "Oh, Kelly is much more calm than I expected from a Rotty" or "Joy is pretty dumb for a Collie." If they somehow got neutral observers that would be much more persuasive, in my mind.
- rcpt 4y ago
  Exactly right.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I can only assume some pitbull/Rottweiler owner group paid for this publication.
- tkahnoski 4y ago
  I came across this from one of the authors cited on the studies. https://twitter.com/eenork/status/1520450288095797251?s=20&t=v-SJ7JYYyTpfsQiat9oehg https://twitter.com/eenork/status/1520450288095797251?s=20&t... My understanding is they use genomic traits across mutts to try and validate if its inheritable.
- antisthenes 4y ago
  It isn't flawed, it's straight up garbage. The fact that the authors are preferring twitter to have a conversation about the study is pretty telling as well. No idea how they got into Nature, I thought it was supposed to be a respectable journal?
  - robonerd 4y ago
    > No idea how they got into Nature, I thought it was supposed to be a respectable journal? Prominent journal is a better way to describe it. They have a well known sensationalism bias (as does Science. This is the reason both journals are so widely recognized.)
pupppet 4y ago
Stats that reveal breeds like pitbulls causing the majority of attacks seem to contradict this, no?
- mindcrime 4y ago
  It would contradict the headline as written, but headline is not actually an accurate statement of the article itself. This headline, to a superficial reading, says "breed has NO predictive power with regards to behavior". What the study found was that breed is a weak predictor of behavior, not that it has no impact at all.
- rcpt 4y ago
  It does. Once your pitbull mauls the neighbor kids you're not going to send it's DNA into their website. There's a huge sampling problem here.
- rajin444 4y ago
  not finding something is a lot different than finding something
- lin83 4y ago
  There's a subreddit that campaigns on the issue. The research page has a link to lots of studies, most from respectable publications, which are really damning: https://old.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/wiki/research https://old.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/wiki/research
- TameAntelope 4y ago
  No? It just means people teach pitbulls to attack other people. Ban pitbulls and those people will teach some other breed to attack.
  - caterpi11ar 4y ago
    Pitbulls have been banned in various places. Any data to suggest this phenomenon has happened anywhere that pitbulls are banned?
ShockTohp 4y ago
From the source: "The team found that some traits were more common in certain breeds. For example, compared with a random dog, German shepherds were more easily directed; beagles, not so much. And the authors’ genetic studies revealed that mixed-breed dogs with a particular ancestry were more likely to act in specific ways. Mutts with St Bernard ancestry, for instance, were more affectionate, whereas mutts descended from Chesapeake Bay retrievers had a penchant for wrecking doors." They then go on to say that the variation is only around 9%, but it does seem to suggest the opposite than what the title claims. If you can estimate behavior of a stray based on assumed breed and be right more than wrong, it would seem that while breed does not predict entirely, it does correlate. It would be nice to see what the actual study was instead of a blurb.
- tkahnoski 4y ago
  Lots more details from the authors on twitter. https://twitter.com/eenork/status/1520450288095797251 https://twitter.com/eenork/status/1520450288095797251
  - defen 4y ago
    The author says "We found no support for policies targeting particular breeds" [1] which is completely absurd even if you postulate that their study's results were even stronger than they are. Imagine that their study found zero correlation between breeds and behavior. Even if that were the case, the outcomes of that behavior are wildly different. Some breeds will bite you and not even break skin. Some breeds will bite you, and you'll need stitches and antibiotics. Some breeds will literally rip your arms off. How could any reasonable person conclude that "no difference in behavior" leads to "no support for policies targeting particular breeds"? Is there anyone here who would let their 6 year old child play, unsupervised, with a random pit bull? How about a random chihuahua? [1] https://twitter.com/eenork/status/1520459786575396869 https://twitter.com/eenork/status/1520459786575396869
    - randomblast 4y ago
      No. I wouldn't let a 6 year old play unsupervised with any dog. That would be incredibly irresponsible, and has lead to innumerable unnecessary child & dog deaths. Would you leave a 6 year old unsupervised with a hungry rat? No - what a stupid question. A chihuahua can cause the same degree of injury (life-altering). Is there a significant difference in behaviour between a pitbull and a chihuahua? No - this study confirms what has been known for years. Breed-specific legislation is utter bullshit. It clearly doesn't work, isn't workable anyway (breed is judged based on looks rather than genetics), never had any scientific basis, and has been proven to be detrimental to its own aims time & time again.
bpodgursky 4y ago
This is one of those studies where the conclusion is so obviously wrong that I don't even want to open it, and it makes me discount the credibility of Nature overall.
- rcpt 4y ago
  On top of that it was published in Science. I'm completely stumped.
  - User23 4y ago
    I'm not going to spell it out because it's one of those observations that's taboo even here, but it's pretty obvious why in the prevailing political climate this piece would get published in prestigious journals and a piece finding otherwise would not.
    - dTal 4y ago
      You should spell it out, or stay silent. This middle ground is cowardly and contributes nothing.
      - bpodgursky 4y ago
        "It is currently politically unacceptable to make any claims that human behavior is primarily genetically influenced, and strong evidence in support of genetically-determined behavior in dogs will beg the question of why (or if) we don't see the same patterns in human populations."
        TameAntelope 4y ago
        The fact that people believe this demonstrates an egregious misunderstanding of how genetics works. People have never been "bred" in any meaningful sense (e.g. for a long enough or in a consistently isolated way for selection to be relevant) in human history.
onphonenow 4y ago
This is such a weird turn in new science. For hundreds of years folks breed dogs for various traits. Labs are friendly (and not great guard dogs). Greyhounds can run fast and like to chase. Pitbulls can use their strong bite and a shake behavior to devastating effect. And the list goes on. Now we have nature coming out with a study that shows breed does NOT predict behavior? What's interesting is I'm not sure some breeds can even mechanically behave in certain ways. Can miniature poodles even hamstring you if they wanted to? Science has taken a lot of hits recently with some of the covid stuff. This type of scientific conclusion is going to risk some more damage to folks faith in science (or at least in the accuracy of reporting on science).
- _aavaa_ 4y ago
  I suspect part of it is a fear of the following slippery slope: admitting of genetic differences between breads -> genetic differences between races -> providing scientific proof that some races are better than others -> therefor some races should be treated better/worse than others. I personally find this line of argument flawed. Putting aside any discussion of the idea of race, it simply does not follow that a) one group being better at certain things means they are inherently better overall. Or that b) being better at certain things, or even overall, means that others must be treated worse.
  - daenz 4y ago
    I can think of 4 things that would make a science-based discussion around those sensitive topics more palatable: 1) All data is in distributions, and so no predictions can be made about an individual based on distributions. 2) "Better" is a meaningless term in these discussions. 3) Any traits are the result of optimization for a particular environment. 4) Everyone should be treated with respect.
    - worik 4y ago
      > 1) All data is in distributions, and so no predictions can be made about an individual based on distributions. Good luck with getting people to accept that. It is obvious to any statistician, but I have had arguments with experienced researches who cannot grasp this simple fact
synaesthesisx 4y ago
To be frank, this "study" is absurd & invalid, and there is 100% an association between breed and behavior (we literally breed dogs for certain behavioral traits!). On that topic, I realize it's controversial but think pitbulls should be banned outright - they are responsible for the majority of fatal dog-related attacks and there is a wealth of evidence indicating that they are not a desirable breed. https://www.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/
- loceng 4y ago
  Indeed, there are intuitive or instinctual behaviours different breeds have - of course they can learn other behaviours from observing other dogs, and training can reduce or suppress instincts to some degree as well. Context matters too, so if the environment doesn't match what their instincts would lead them to do don't have the opportunity to get triggered then you're not going to see them, at least not as often or as strongly. The most obvious to me are the breeds that were bred for herding, and where you see that behaviour in mixes of that breed as well - even if it's muted some. And I tend towards agreeing with you re: pitbulls. I've seen perfectly friendly and generally very gentle pitbulls snap - there's no reason for this amongst the general population.
  - cameronh90 4y ago
    Agree RE herding. I've seen a Collie that has never even seen a sheep try to instinctively herd a bunch of school kids. It just came naturally. My Golden Retriever on the other hand won't even chase a squirrel. He has finally learnt to guard my rabbits from the foxes, but it took a lot of training.
- srveale 4y ago
  From the study: "Owner survey responses are susceptible to rater bias, including the influence of breed stereotypes." That's all I could find acknowledging that this bias exists. I'm inclined to believe they know this type of bias completely invalidates the study, which is why they didn't want to explore it further. Imagine a dog owner saying "Strongly agree" to something like "Dog has a tendency to attack (or attempt to attack) other dogs", or "Dog behaves aggressively towards children." (I believe these were questions in the surveys given to the dog owners). > No no, not my precious Bulldozer, he's a sweety, just gets excited sometimes. I'll only put "neither agree nor disagree", because he only tries to attack dogs who are smaller than him. I mean, I get it, nobody wants to think ill of their beloved pet, but that's the point. A study like this needs objective measures.
zarkov99 4y ago
This is obvious nonsense to anyone that breeds, owns or even regularly interacts with dogs. But gas lighting has always been a preferred tactic of those proselytizing "the message".
jdalgetty 4y ago
This is click bait.
abdel_nasser 4y ago
this is political dogma. there is a strain of dogma asserting that behavior is 100% nurture. if they accept the idea that breeds of dog have certain traits then they would be forced to reconcile with the hypothetical concept that different races of humans have different inherent behaviors or ways of thinking. people complain about science being under threat but i never see people talk about this particular dogmatic landmine that threatens to destroy any scientist who dares to approach that region of genetics. the fact of the matter is that you can never create a complete and perfect atlas of the human brain or genetics without touching this topic -- as a person who suffers from diseases that are tangential to these areas i would very much appreciate less dogma and more progress...
- sacrosancty 4y ago
  Yep. It's stifling fore sure. Even the guy who discovered DNA (Watson?) got some awards retracted because of saying that. You definately can't trust any research showing that behavior is not heritable or that there are no cognitive differences between races. One study even found clear differences between races but then wrote a conclusion saying the opposite! They justified that by discovering another variable they'd forgotten to control for that they guessed might have been responsible for the difference instead of race.
- weezin 4y ago
  > this is political dogma. there is a strain of dogma asserting that behavior is 100% nurture. Unless it is sexuality, then it is 100% nature.
jamesash 4y ago
The Siberian silver fox study makes it very difficult to avoid the conclusion that behavior (e.g. tameness) in canines is a heritable trait that can be selected for. Beginning in 1952 wild silver foxes have been bred in Siberia selecting solely for friendliness. Notable changes were found after 6 generations. By the 30th generation, 70-80% of the selected population were "domesticated elite", which "are eager to establish human contact, whimpering to attract attention and sniffing and licking experimenters like dogs." Similar experiments were performed in the opposite direction, selecting for aggression. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox
- sacrosancty 4y ago
  Heritability of traits is a really messy and difficult problem. Sere, you can breed tameness into wild foxes, but that doesn't mean you can easily breed more tameness into already tame foxes/dogs. There might be some low-hanging fruit that's easy to exploit and after that, it's mostly random chance and the environment that determines things. But that again depends on what the environment is like - if all dog owners routinely raise their puppies in the same extreme way, their inherited differences might either be invisible because none get the chance to express them, or even more significant because that's the only factor left that can sort out how they respond to their environment.
  - jamesash 4y ago
    One can start with an already tame population of foxes/dogs and select for aggression. Aggression would be a useful trait in a breed desired for protection/guarding.
    - sacrosancty 4y ago
      People have been doing that and yet somehow those aggressive breeds still frequently produce harmless puppies, so it's not obvious that breeders have actually achieved it. Maybe dogs have been domesticated for so long that we can't undo their behavior with just a couple of hundred years. Or maybe we can. It's hard, not obvious.
qiskit 4y ago
> But, as Karlsson points out, “anyone who’s owned eight dogs from the same breed will tell you all about their different personalities”. Even within a single litter, you can obviously track different personalities. The bigger dominant ones to the submissive runt. The more dominant or adventurous ones will come up to you while others remain a bit back and the runt remains all the way back. > Particularly low was the connection between breed and how likely a dog was to display aggressive behaviour, which could have implications for how society treats “dangerous” dog breeds Even within a litter, there will be more aggressive and less aggressive. And it isn't just "aggressiveness" that determines how society treats "dangerous" dog breeds, it's the size and ability to cause damage. Every pitbull owner will shout from the rooftops that a chihuahua is more aggressive than a pitbull and more people are bitten by chihuahuas than pitbulls. Of course they completely ignore the fact that a pitbull's bite will cause far more damage than a chihuahuas. > Breeds as we think of them today — distinctive canines such as beagles, pugs and Labradors — are a by-product of more recent evolutionary meddling. Starting around 200 years ago, dog enthusiasts in Victorian England began inventing breeds by actively selecting for canine traits that they found aesthetically pleasing. But dog breeds go back far thousands of years. Are they limiting dog breeds to just the last 200 years? Even so, certainly you can predict some behavioral differences between a labrador and a beagle. Of course being dogs they will share a lot of common behaviors like wagging the tail, sniffing each other, barking, etc, but certainly there are differences. > But, on average, breed explained only around 9% of the variation in how a dog behaved, a number “much smaller than most people, including me, would have expected,” says Karlsson. What did she expect? Dog breeds to behave 100% differently from each other? > “We talk about breeds like they’re categorically different,” he says. “But in reality, that’s not the case.” They are categorically different. Also why does the article talk about behavior then switch to personality then to temperament as if they all mean the same thing. We have too many eaters in academia, media, etc. Nothing of value in the article. This study and article is a fine example of "publish or perish". People who have nothing to say or contribute but forced to say something and waste everyone's time because they need to justify their paychecks. This is why I support UBI. Cut down on the useless and wasteful white collar busy work.
ryandvm 4y ago
Mmmm. I call bullshit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_t... Funny how you never hear about a golden retriever mauling anybody...
hepinhei 4y ago
Everyone who had dogs knows that this is a not correct. There are behavioral characteristics that you see in races like Labradors Rottweilers, etc
323 4y ago
Actual study link: https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abk0639 https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abk0639
randomblast 4y ago
Science: “Here is some science” This Website: “NO! THE SCIENCE IS WRONG BECAUSE IT DISAGREES WITH MY ANECDOTAL EXPERIENCE”
aaron695 4y ago
thephyber 4y ago
I’m curious how the method of collecting data is biased away from dogs who are less likely to be talked/bragged about by their owners. Also, that suggests it is likely more likely to represent a person’s/family’s _current_ dog and to ignore previous dogs. Dogs which are given back, thrown away, currently homeless, in a rescue organization, or were put down are likely to not be represented in this survey. Those are likely to have less breed-predictable temperaments, so I would assume the results here are a ceiling, not necessarily accurate.
ensan 4y ago
I have not had the time to read the paper and see how the authors address this, but the biggest flaw of this study is relying on subjective reports by the owners. Almost all dog owners I know are used to playing down the severity of their dog's aggressiveness.
more_corn 4y ago
This is obviously wrong to anyone who has observed dogs. Some breeds are much more vocal. My boxer would only bark to communicate (she’d bark once to be let in. Only ever twice if she didn’t hear you getting up). I’ve never seen anyone else’s boxer bark. Some breeds are hugely vocal. Hounds for example because sounding is beneficial for hunting. We literally breed dogs for certain behaviors. You can see a sheep dog’s instinctive herding behavior. You can watch a bird dog breed point having never seen the behavior before. Goldens are absurd key attention seeking. Chows very territorial. You can literally see these things with your own eyes. Science means looking at the evidence. The evidence is all around us. Sometimes science shows us bias and misconception. This time I beg to differ.
daniel-cussen 4y ago
That's like the whole point of breeding. For instance breeding against pit bulls who attacked their master, that's a behavior, I guess they wasted time and dogs culling those dogs instead of breeding them. So I guess kids who want a specific dog type should just go by weight? Hey Timmy how much dog biomass you want for your birthday?
sinuhe69 4y ago
For study like that, its extremely important to design and evaluate the questionnaires carefully because people’s descriptions of temperament can vary significantly. Besides, like any society, dogs in a household also affect each other, thus not taking that into consideration can alter the result considerably.

40 points by lnyan 4y ago

Any problems with the study? Control group is "random distribution of dogs" and the other group is "18,000 but of a no specific breed". Is that a problem or does it even out.

pboutros 4y ago
Importantly... the behavior is self-reported (by dog owners), who almost certainly have some bias about their dogs. I know I do. :)
- BurdensomeCount 4y ago
  Also what would count as "no issues" by and large depends on the dog breed I'd say. If a rottweiler tried to attack a rabbit that wouldn't be out of the ordinary, but if a border collie did the same it would.

jimhefferon 4y ago

Isn't this study flawed because they asked people to report on their dog's behavior? When I talk to other dog owners, they discuss the dog with respect to their perceived breed standard, "Oh, Kelly is much more calm than I expected from a Rotty" or "Joy is pretty dumb for a Collie." If they somehow got neutral observers that would be much more persuasive, in my mind.

rcpt 4y ago
Exactly right.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I can only assume some pitbull/Rottweiler owner group paid for this publication.
tkahnoski 4y ago
I came across this from one of the authors cited on the studies. https://twitter.com/eenork/status/1520450288095797251?s=20&t=v-SJ7JYYyTpfsQiat9oehg https://twitter.com/eenork/status/1520450288095797251?s=20&t... My understanding is they use genomic traits across mutts to try and validate if its inheritable.
antisthenes 4y ago
It isn't flawed, it's straight up garbage. The fact that the authors are preferring twitter to have a conversation about the study is pretty telling as well. No idea how they got into Nature, I thought it was supposed to be a respectable journal?
- robonerd 4y ago
  > No idea how they got into Nature, I thought it was supposed to be a respectable journal? Prominent journal is a better way to describe it. They have a well known sensationalism bias (as does Science. This is the reason both journals are so widely recognized.)

pupppet 4y ago

Stats that reveal breeds like pitbulls causing the majority of attacks seem to contradict this, no?

mindcrime 4y ago
It would contradict the headline as written, but headline is not actually an accurate statement of the article itself. This headline, to a superficial reading, says "breed has NO predictive power with regards to behavior". What the study found was that breed is a weak predictor of behavior, not that it has no impact at all.
rcpt 4y ago
It does. Once your pitbull mauls the neighbor kids you're not going to send it's DNA into their website. There's a huge sampling problem here.
rajin444 4y ago
not finding something is a lot different than finding something
lin83 4y ago
There's a subreddit that campaigns on the issue. The research page has a link to lots of studies, most from respectable publications, which are really damning: https://old.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/wiki/research https://old.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/wiki/research
TameAntelope 4y ago
No? It just means people teach pitbulls to attack other people. Ban pitbulls and those people will teach some other breed to attack.
- caterpi11ar 4y ago
  Pitbulls have been banned in various places. Any data to suggest this phenomenon has happened anywhere that pitbulls are banned?

ShockTohp 4y ago

From the source: "The team found that some traits were more common in certain breeds. For example, compared with a random dog, German shepherds were more easily directed; beagles, not so much. And the authors’ genetic studies revealed that mixed-breed dogs with a particular ancestry were more likely to act in specific ways. Mutts with St Bernard ancestry, for instance, were more affectionate, whereas mutts descended from Chesapeake Bay retrievers had a penchant for wrecking doors." They then go on to say that the variation is only around 9%, but it does seem to suggest the opposite than what the title claims. If you can estimate behavior of a stray based on assumed breed and be right more than wrong, it would seem that while breed does not predict entirely, it does correlate. It would be nice to see what the actual study was instead of a blurb.

tkahnoski 4y ago
Lots more details from the authors on twitter. https://twitter.com/eenork/status/1520450288095797251 https://twitter.com/eenork/status/1520450288095797251
- defen 4y ago
  The author says "We found no support for policies targeting particular breeds" [1] which is completely absurd even if you postulate that their study's results were even stronger than they are. Imagine that their study found zero correlation between breeds and behavior. Even if that were the case, the outcomes of that behavior are wildly different. Some breeds will bite you and not even break skin. Some breeds will bite you, and you'll need stitches and antibiotics. Some breeds will literally rip your arms off. How could any reasonable person conclude that "no difference in behavior" leads to "no support for policies targeting particular breeds"? Is there anyone here who would let their 6 year old child play, unsupervised, with a random pit bull? How about a random chihuahua? [1] https://twitter.com/eenork/status/1520459786575396869 https://twitter.com/eenork/status/1520459786575396869
  - randomblast 4y ago
    No. I wouldn't let a 6 year old play unsupervised with any dog. That would be incredibly irresponsible, and has lead to innumerable unnecessary child & dog deaths. Would you leave a 6 year old unsupervised with a hungry rat? No - what a stupid question. A chihuahua can cause the same degree of injury (life-altering). Is there a significant difference in behaviour between a pitbull and a chihuahua? No - this study confirms what has been known for years. Breed-specific legislation is utter bullshit. It clearly doesn't work, isn't workable anyway (breed is judged based on looks rather than genetics), never had any scientific basis, and has been proven to be detrimental to its own aims time & time again.

bpodgursky 4y ago

This is one of those studies where the conclusion is so obviously wrong that I don't even want to open it, and it makes me discount the credibility of Nature overall.

rcpt 4y ago
On top of that it was published in Science. I'm completely stumped.
- User23 4y ago
  I'm not going to spell it out because it's one of those observations that's taboo even here, but it's pretty obvious why in the prevailing political climate this piece would get published in prestigious journals and a piece finding otherwise would not.
  - dTal 4y ago
    You should spell it out, or stay silent. This middle ground is cowardly and contributes nothing.
    - bpodgursky 4y ago
      "It is currently politically unacceptable to make any claims that human behavior is primarily genetically influenced, and strong evidence in support of genetically-determined behavior in dogs will beg the question of why (or if) we don't see the same patterns in human populations."
      - TameAntelope 4y ago
        The fact that people believe this demonstrates an egregious misunderstanding of how genetics works. People have never been "bred" in any meaningful sense (e.g. for a long enough or in a consistently isolated way for selection to be relevant) in human history.

onphonenow 4y ago

This is such a weird turn in new science. For hundreds of years folks breed dogs for various traits. Labs are friendly (and not great guard dogs). Greyhounds can run fast and like to chase. Pitbulls can use their strong bite and a shake behavior to devastating effect. And the list goes on. Now we have nature coming out with a study that shows breed does NOT predict behavior? What's interesting is I'm not sure some breeds can even mechanically behave in certain ways. Can miniature poodles even hamstring you if they wanted to? Science has taken a lot of hits recently with some of the covid stuff. This type of scientific conclusion is going to risk some more damage to folks faith in science (or at least in the accuracy of reporting on science).

_aavaa_ 4y ago
I suspect part of it is a fear of the following slippery slope: admitting of genetic differences between breads -> genetic differences between races -> providing scientific proof that some races are better than others -> therefor some races should be treated better/worse than others. I personally find this line of argument flawed. Putting aside any discussion of the idea of race, it simply does not follow that a) one group being better at certain things means they are inherently better overall. Or that b) being better at certain things, or even overall, means that others must be treated worse.
- daenz 4y ago
  I can think of 4 things that would make a science-based discussion around those sensitive topics more palatable: 1) All data is in distributions, and so no predictions can be made about an individual based on distributions. 2) "Better" is a meaningless term in these discussions. 3) Any traits are the result of optimization for a particular environment. 4) Everyone should be treated with respect.
  - worik 4y ago
    > 1) All data is in distributions, and so no predictions can be made about an individual based on distributions. Good luck with getting people to accept that. It is obvious to any statistician, but I have had arguments with experienced researches who cannot grasp this simple fact

synaesthesisx 4y ago

To be frank, this "study" is absurd & invalid, and there is 100% an association between breed and behavior (we literally breed dogs for certain behavioral traits!). On that topic, I realize it's controversial but think pitbulls should be banned outright - they are responsible for the majority of fatal dog-related attacks and there is a wealth of evidence indicating that they are not a desirable breed. https://www.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/

loceng 4y ago
Indeed, there are intuitive or instinctual behaviours different breeds have - of course they can learn other behaviours from observing other dogs, and training can reduce or suppress instincts to some degree as well. Context matters too, so if the environment doesn't match what their instincts would lead them to do don't have the opportunity to get triggered then you're not going to see them, at least not as often or as strongly. The most obvious to me are the breeds that were bred for herding, and where you see that behaviour in mixes of that breed as well - even if it's muted some. And I tend towards agreeing with you re: pitbulls. I've seen perfectly friendly and generally very gentle pitbulls snap - there's no reason for this amongst the general population.
- cameronh90 4y ago
  Agree RE herding. I've seen a Collie that has never even seen a sheep try to instinctively herd a bunch of school kids. It just came naturally. My Golden Retriever on the other hand won't even chase a squirrel. He has finally learnt to guard my rabbits from the foxes, but it took a lot of training.
srveale 4y ago
From the study: "Owner survey responses are susceptible to rater bias, including the influence of breed stereotypes." That's all I could find acknowledging that this bias exists. I'm inclined to believe they know this type of bias completely invalidates the study, which is why they didn't want to explore it further. Imagine a dog owner saying "Strongly agree" to something like "Dog has a tendency to attack (or attempt to attack) other dogs", or "Dog behaves aggressively towards children." (I believe these were questions in the surveys given to the dog owners). > No no, not my precious Bulldozer, he's a sweety, just gets excited sometimes. I'll only put "neither agree nor disagree", because he only tries to attack dogs who are smaller than him. I mean, I get it, nobody wants to think ill of their beloved pet, but that's the point. A study like this needs objective measures.

zarkov99 4y ago

This is obvious nonsense to anyone that breeds, owns or even regularly interacts with dogs. But gas lighting has always been a preferred tactic of those proselytizing "the message".

jdalgetty 4y ago

This is click bait.

abdel_nasser 4y ago

this is political dogma. there is a strain of dogma asserting that behavior is 100% nurture. if they accept the idea that breeds of dog have certain traits then they would be forced to reconcile with the hypothetical concept that different races of humans have different inherent behaviors or ways of thinking. people complain about science being under threat but i never see people talk about this particular dogmatic landmine that threatens to destroy any scientist who dares to approach that region of genetics. the fact of the matter is that you can never create a complete and perfect atlas of the human brain or genetics without touching this topic -- as a person who suffers from diseases that are tangential to these areas i would very much appreciate less dogma and more progress...

sacrosancty 4y ago
Yep. It's stifling fore sure. Even the guy who discovered DNA (Watson?) got some awards retracted because of saying that. You definately can't trust any research showing that behavior is not heritable or that there are no cognitive differences between races. One study even found clear differences between races but then wrote a conclusion saying the opposite! They justified that by discovering another variable they'd forgotten to control for that they guessed might have been responsible for the difference instead of race.
weezin 4y ago
> this is political dogma. there is a strain of dogma asserting that behavior is 100% nurture. Unless it is sexuality, then it is 100% nature.

jamesash 4y ago

The Siberian silver fox study makes it very difficult to avoid the conclusion that behavior (e.g. tameness) in canines is a heritable trait that can be selected for. Beginning in 1952 wild silver foxes have been bred in Siberia selecting solely for friendliness. Notable changes were found after 6 generations. By the 30th generation, 70-80% of the selected population were "domesticated elite", which "are eager to establish human contact, whimpering to attract attention and sniffing and licking experimenters like dogs." Similar experiments were performed in the opposite direction, selecting for aggression. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox

sacrosancty 4y ago
Heritability of traits is a really messy and difficult problem. Sere, you can breed tameness into wild foxes, but that doesn't mean you can easily breed more tameness into already tame foxes/dogs. There might be some low-hanging fruit that's easy to exploit and after that, it's mostly random chance and the environment that determines things. But that again depends on what the environment is like - if all dog owners routinely raise their puppies in the same extreme way, their inherited differences might either be invisible because none get the chance to express them, or even more significant because that's the only factor left that can sort out how they respond to their environment.
- jamesash 4y ago
  One can start with an already tame population of foxes/dogs and select for aggression. Aggression would be a useful trait in a breed desired for protection/guarding.
  - sacrosancty 4y ago
    People have been doing that and yet somehow those aggressive breeds still frequently produce harmless puppies, so it's not obvious that breeders have actually achieved it. Maybe dogs have been domesticated for so long that we can't undo their behavior with just a couple of hundred years. Or maybe we can. It's hard, not obvious.

qiskit 4y ago

> But, as Karlsson points out, “anyone who’s owned eight dogs from the same breed will tell you all about their different personalities”. Even within a single litter, you can obviously track different personalities. The bigger dominant ones to the submissive runt. The more dominant or adventurous ones will come up to you while others remain a bit back and the runt remains all the way back. > Particularly low was the connection between breed and how likely a dog was to display aggressive behaviour, which could have implications for how society treats “dangerous” dog breeds Even within a litter, there will be more aggressive and less aggressive. And it isn't just "aggressiveness" that determines how society treats "dangerous" dog breeds, it's the size and ability to cause damage. Every pitbull owner will shout from the rooftops that a chihuahua is more aggressive than a pitbull and more people are bitten by chihuahuas than pitbulls. Of course they completely ignore the fact that a pitbull's bite will cause far more damage than a chihuahuas. > Breeds as we think of them today — distinctive canines such as beagles, pugs and Labradors — are a by-product of more recent evolutionary meddling. Starting around 200 years ago, dog enthusiasts in Victorian England began inventing breeds by actively selecting for canine traits that they found aesthetically pleasing. But dog breeds go back far thousands of years. Are they limiting dog breeds to just the last 200 years? Even so, certainly you can predict some behavioral differences between a labrador and a beagle. Of course being dogs they will share a lot of common behaviors like wagging the tail, sniffing each other, barking, etc, but certainly there are differences. > But, on average, breed explained only around 9% of the variation in how a dog behaved, a number “much smaller than most people, including me, would have expected,” says Karlsson. What did she expect? Dog breeds to behave 100% differently from each other? > “We talk about breeds like they’re categorically different,” he says. “But in reality, that’s not the case.” They are categorically different. Also why does the article talk about behavior then switch to personality then to temperament as if they all mean the same thing. We have too many eaters in academia, media, etc. Nothing of value in the article. This study and article is a fine example of "publish or perish". People who have nothing to say or contribute but forced to say something and waste everyone's time because they need to justify their paychecks. This is why I support UBI. Cut down on the useless and wasteful white collar busy work.

ryandvm 4y ago

Mmmm. I call bullshit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in_t... Funny how you never hear about a golden retriever mauling anybody...

hepinhei 4y ago

Everyone who had dogs knows that this is a not correct. There are behavioral characteristics that you see in races like Labradors Rottweilers, etc

323 4y ago

Actual study link: https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abk0639 https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abk0639

randomblast 4y ago

Science: “Here is some science” This Website: “NO! THE SCIENCE IS WRONG BECAUSE IT DISAGREES WITH MY ANECDOTAL EXPERIENCE”

aaron695 4y ago

thephyber 4y ago

I’m curious how the method of collecting data is biased away from dogs who are less likely to be talked/bragged about by their owners. Also, that suggests it is likely more likely to represent a person’s/family’s _current_ dog and to ignore previous dogs. Dogs which are given back, thrown away, currently homeless, in a rescue organization, or were put down are likely to not be represented in this survey. Those are likely to have less breed-predictable temperaments, so I would assume the results here are a ceiling, not necessarily accurate.

ensan 4y ago

I have not had the time to read the paper and see how the authors address this, but the biggest flaw of this study is relying on subjective reports by the owners. Almost all dog owners I know are used to playing down the severity of their dog's aggressiveness.

more_corn 4y ago

This is obviously wrong to anyone who has observed dogs. Some breeds are much more vocal. My boxer would only bark to communicate (she’d bark once to be let in. Only ever twice if she didn’t hear you getting up). I’ve never seen anyone else’s boxer bark. Some breeds are hugely vocal. Hounds for example because sounding is beneficial for hunting. We literally breed dogs for certain behaviors. You can see a sheep dog’s instinctive herding behavior. You can watch a bird dog breed point having never seen the behavior before. Goldens are absurd key attention seeking. Chows very territorial. You can literally see these things with your own eyes. Science means looking at the evidence. The evidence is all around us. Sometimes science shows us bias and misconception. This time I beg to differ.

daniel-cussen 4y ago

That's like the whole point of breeding. For instance breeding against pit bulls who attacked their master, that's a behavior, I guess they wasted time and dogs culling those dogs instead of breeding them. So I guess kids who want a specific dog type should just go by weight? Hey Timmy how much dog biomass you want for your birthday?

sinuhe69 4y ago

For study like that, its extremely important to design and evaluate the questionnaires carefully because people’s descriptions of temperament can vary significantly. Besides, like any society, dogs in a household also affect each other, thus not taking that into consideration can alter the result considerably.