Bir Courtney, Olynk Widmar Nicole, Croney Candace
Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
Department of Comparative Pathobiology and Animal Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
Animals (Basel). 2018 Sep 13;8(9):154. doi: 10.3390/ani8090154.
Dogs are a popular companion animal in the United States; however, dog acquisition is often a contentious subject. Adoption is often cited as an ethical and popular method of acquisition but interpretation of the term 'adoption' may vary. In a nationally representative survey of the U.S., 767 respondents were asked questions regarding their opinions of dog acquisition and adoption. Within the sample, 45% had a dog; of those, 40% had adopted a dog, and 47% visited a veterinarian once a year. A best-worst choice experiment, where respondents were asked to choose the most ethical and least ethical method of acquiring a dog from a statistically determined set of choices, was used to elicit respondents' preferences for the most ethical method of dog adoption. A random parameters logit and a latent class model were used to estimate relative rankings of dog adoption methods. In the random parameters logit model, the largest preference share was for adoption from a municipal animal shelter (56%) and the smallest preference share was for adoption from a pet store (3%). Dog acquisition was further evaluated by creating an index of social desirability bias using how important respondents believed certain dog characteristics were compared to how important respondents believed others would rate/rank the same dog characteristics. The highest incidences of social desirability bias occurred for the dog characteristics of appearance and breed.
狗在美国是一种受欢迎的伴侣动物；然而，获取狗往往是一个有争议的话题。收养常常被视为一种符合道德且受欢迎的获取方式，但“收养”一词的含义可能因人而异。在一项针对美国的全国代表性调查中，767名受访者被问及有关他们对获取和收养狗的看法的问题。在样本中，45%的人养狗；其中，40%的人收养过狗，47%的人每年带狗看一次兽医。采用最佳-最差选择实验，让受访者从一组经统计确定的选择中选出获取狗的最符合道德和最不符合道德的方式，以引出受访者对最符合道德的狗收养方式的偏好。使用随机参数logit模型和潜在类别模型来估计狗收养方式的相对排名。在随机参数logit模型中，最大的偏好份额是从市政动物收容所收养（56%），最小的偏好份额是从宠物店收养（3%）。通过创建一个社会期望偏差指数来进一步评估狗的获取情况，该指数依据受访者认为某些狗的特征有多重要，与受访者认为其他人会如何评价/排名相同狗的特征的重要程度进行比较。社会期望偏差发生率最高的情况出现在狗的外貌和品种特征方面。
