Wilson Bethany J, Arnott Elizabeth R, Early Jonathan B, Wade Claire M, McGreevy Paul D
Sydney School of Veterinary Science, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
PLoS One. 2022 Apr 26;17(4):e0267266. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0267266. eCollection 2022.
Livestock herding dogs contribute greatly to the rural economy of Australia. However, their selection currently lacks a cohesive or methodical approach. For example, there is no accessible tool for assessing Australian livestock herding dogs' suitability for work. The purpose of the current study was to devise a herding dog assessment form, the Herding Dog Assessment Form-Personality (HDAF-P), to facilitate collection of data on relevant behavioural phenotypes of large numbers of working Kelpies and to apply the HDAF-P to identify personality traits needed for herding dog performance. The focus was on creating a succinct form that was salient and accessible to livestock herding dog owners. Wherever practical, terms and methods from published personality questionnaires were integrated. Seventeen terms were included as behavioural descriptors in the HDAF-P which was then used by 95 owners to assess a sample of 228 of their working Kelpies. Owners were also asked to rate the overall ability of their dog(s). Of these dogs, 210 (all twelve months or older) were fully described and their data were used in the analysis. Thus, the study was designed to reveal which personality traits are most critical to the overall ability of the herding dogs and to undertake an exploratory analysis of the patterns of dog behaviour revealed by the HDAF-P in non-juvenile dogs. The traits that showed the strongest correlations (using Kendall's Tau correlation analysis) with overall ability were initiative (T = 0.41, p < 0.001), persistence (T = 0.36, p < 0.001), intelligence (T = 0.32, p < 0.001), confidence (T = 0.36, p < 0.001) and nervousness (T = -0.30, p < 0.001). An exploratory principal component analysis of trait scores revealed that 64.5% of the variance could be explained by four components that share several similarities with those reported by previous dog personality studies. These findings confirm that the HDAF-P has potential for the practical assessment of livestock herding dog personality and can elucidate traits that should be considered for prioritisation in training and breeding to optimise herding dog ability.
畜牧犬对澳大利亚的农村经济贡献巨大。然而，目前对它们的选育缺乏连贯或系统的方法。例如，没有一种便于使用的工具来评估澳大利亚畜牧犬的工作适应性。本研究的目的是设计一种畜牧犬评估表，即畜牧犬性格评估表（HDAF-P），以方便收集大量工作用凯尔皮犬相关行为表型的数据，并应用HDAF-P来确定畜牧犬工作表现所需的性格特征。重点是创建一个简洁的表格，对畜牧犬主人来说既突出又便于使用。只要可行，就整合已发表的性格问卷中的术语和方法。HDAF-P中包含17个术语作为行为描述符，95位主人随后用它来评估他们的228只工作用凯尔皮犬样本。主人还被要求对他们的狗的总体能力进行评分。在这些狗中，有210只（均为12个月及以上）得到了全面描述，并将它们的数据用于分析。因此，本研究旨在揭示哪些性格特征对畜牧犬的总体能力最为关键，并对HDAF-P在非幼年犬中揭示的犬类行为模式进行探索性分析。与总体能力相关性最强的特征（使用肯德尔等级相关分析）是主动性（T = 0.41，p < 0.001）、坚持性（T = 0.36，p < 0.001）、智力（T = 0.32，p < 0.001）、自信（T = 0.36，p < 0.001）和紧张（T = -0.30，p < 0.001）。对特征分数的探索性主成分分析表明，64.5%的方差可以由四个成分解释，这四个成分与之前犬类性格研究报告的成分有一些相似之处。这些发现证实，HDAF-P在实际评估畜牧犬性格方面具有潜力，并且可以阐明在训练和育种中应优先考虑哪些特征，以优化畜牧犬的能力。
