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

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.