Effect of our mental health on dog behaviour? Experiences

Hi dog owners, I know how vital the comfort and support of our dogs can be for our mental wellbeing; I'm looking into how our psychological functioning affects our dogs for my MSc, if you're also interested and want to be part of some new and interesting research I'd really appreciate it if you fill in my questionnaire:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1...5HEU4708tat3NtCo4MJH3yKw/viewform?usp=sf_link

It's entirely anonymous. There's an email address if you want more info or want to know your results. Thanks so much if you decide to do it

I took a,look at your first page and I see a potential issue:

You ask what sex is your dog and give a choice of male OR female. You also ask if the dog is a rescue and give a choice of yes OR no.

But then you ask how many dogs do you have. All the other questions are open ended so the participant can identify the different age and/or breed(s) of multiple dogs.

But with those two questions, you can only select one answer. So if someone has a male and female dog, they can only respond with one or the other. And if someone has both a purchased and a rescue dog, they can only respond with one or the other. I'm not sure if these questions have any bearing on the study itself, but you could be receiving bad data.

Done. Good luck with it x

Done. I chose to answer the dog questions based on Katie Mae, but the only real behavioral difference between them is that Bandit hangs out outside most of the day when I’m home and Katie Mae is inside with me 95% of the time. He’s a better to snuggle with, she’s more demanding of attention.

If I had answered some of the personal questions right before or a few months after my concussion some of those answers would have been different

Thanks for your comment! Participants answer for one dog at a time, so when answering they are referring to that specific dog, but it could be that they own more than one dog, that is the purpose of that question - the number of dogs in a household can affect behaviour so that's why that is included

Thanks so much for doing it, and for choosing Katie Mae as it will be interesting to look at higher levels of attachment and attention-seeking

Thank you, it's much appreciated!

This happens with almost all the questionnaires I try to compete. I also have opposite sexes, one a rescue and one privately sourced. The only remedy seems to be to complete the survey twice - one for each dog - but this is often so time consuming that I opt out.

Done for the older dog.

Me too. I did do this one but based on my Bat-dog as she was more attached to me than my others. But now I'm thinking I should do it for my Moose-dog as a balance. He was less attached but more sensitive. I've only had Tornado-dog for a few months so can't really answer the questions accurately andCat-dog has her own psychological traumas so using her would be skewed.

OK. I just did it for Moose-dog also. Did anyone else have difficulty answering for "aggression" and "fear"?

Bat-dog had a fear of people but would react by snapping if she felt cornered - so it wasn't aggression but fear. But with the questionnaire, I had to identify it as aggression per the descriptors.

There were a few other areas where I felt pigeonholed into an answer that didn't really fit.

For the OP, I answered the questions in relation to my emotional well-being in the last year with my dogs. I did have a stretch of extreme anxiety and depression due to a work harrassment issue where the questions about me would be very different, but the answers for the dogs would remain the same.

I was unsure how to answer the fear and aggression questions too. Akitas generally just don’t like other dogs. Both did pretty well with other dogs as puppies, but they grew out of it. I think I just picked the middle option on some of those

Yes I agree that some of the questions aren't representative of true fear/aggression behaviour and all our dogs are individuals and have different motivations and expressions of specific behaviours so a questionnaire will never capture this entirely accurately - a downfall of this type of study but this will be addressed when I write it up

There are so many things that go into how a dog’s personality develops, same as humans. So with my dogs there’s the difference in their sex. Katie Mae came into the house second, about 15 months after Bandit. She was kept by the breeder for me until she was 4 months old because bandit had arrived with parvo when I got him so I wanted her to be fully vaccinated and protected before she came into my yard, because despite following all the things you are supposed to do to kill the virus it could still be lurking, it can survive for years. So I don’t really know a lot about her living conditions and socialization prior to me getting her. She had to find her place in an environment with a very dominant dog. He was however happy to welcome another dog, but some of it was on his terms. He was a bully at times. It was after Katie Mae went through her first heat that I found she became more clingy. She was relatively young, a bit over 6 months when this happened. I was surprised because I had read larger breeds mature slower. Also if dogs are altered (neutered, spayed) plays into the their personalities.

As far as the fear/aggression with my dogs. I think they just pretty much don’t think other dogs should exist, period. They both think they own the Home Depot and are pissed when other dogs are there. It’s just in the breeds nature. They have a favorite cashier too.

My dogs, as a breed, often have food aggression. This is something I’ve had to learn how to manage. At some point Bandit just got mad with the fact that Katie Mae had to eat food.... his whole body would be rock hard after a meal, and he would want to go at her. They could be playing 30 minutes later, with him being submissive, letting her pull his tail and have the upper paw.

When I got Moose-dog, he was 8 weeks old. The first thing I did was take him to meet my dad's 3 yr old male akita. My dad was always trying to keep my dogs from visiting by saying his akita wouldn't accept them.

I brought the puppy up and let him meet my dad's. They did OK. Then I to go out for a bit and my dad had me put the puppy in a crate. When I came back, the crate was wide open but there was no puppy.

My dad pointed behind his desk and when I looked, there was the akita laying down. Directly in front of him was Moose-dog with his head completely inside the akita's mouth. I could see the akita's jaws working to pull the puppy's head further down his throat. I tapped the akita and said "let that poor pupoy out so he can breathe". He did. Moose-dog came up, took a huge breath, and went right back down his Uncle's throat. That was it.

For 9 years, they were the best of friends. Moose-dog was always drinking Uncle Akita's saliva.

My sibling got a male dog and he and the akita were always getting into it. I'd go up and while sitting watching Moose-dog and Uncle Akita play, my dad would say that my sibling said that Uncle Akita was an aggressive dog and was picking the fights with her dog. We'd turn and look at the two dogs and say "yeah, right".

Moose-dog was the only one of my dogs my dad never spoke bad about. He couldn't say mean things when Moose-dog worshipped that akita. Bat-dog got along with him fine, but I've never seen two dogs behave like Moose-dog and Uncle Akita did with each other.

And for the record, my sibling's dog picked fights with Moose-dog also.

My previous Akita had only one dog friend, a littermate that my friend had gotten. They were each other’s only friend, throughout their whole lives, both make Akitas that didn’t like other dogs, including another littermate that another friend had. They both wouldn’t tolerate other dogs at all.

Bandit looks so much like Uncle Akita. My dad's first akita was one of the tall narrower ones. I loved that dog. He did get his championship, but it took a while longer. He also did tracking and was great at it.

Uncle Akita had hip displasia. He didn't have a hip socket, it was just a straight bone. But you never would have known by watching him.

This is Darkstar also called Hoshi, which means star in japenese. He was my first Akita, given to me by my brother who had his mom. I saw him being born. From around 3-4 weeks old he knew the sound of my truck going up the gravel driveway to my brothers. All the other puppies would stand on the gate of the kennel and he would stay back a foot or so because he knew I’d open it up for him to come out, so he waited patiently.

Bandit was very long legged and I was told he had a pin nose by a snobby Akita person. He weighed around 120 lbs.

That’s Big Guy in the back of my truck getting a ride back to his house after I’d watched him for over a week. The dogs had enough of each other at that point. My friend was tired from his trip so I drive the 45 minutes to take him home, because it was time. Darkstar is in the cab of the truck.

This is Bandit and Katie Mae