When you are getting a new puppy, how do you know which one will have the right personality for your family? Is there a surefire way to know what a puppy’s lifelong temperament will be? For example, which puppy will grow up to be confident versus anxious.
For a long time, puppy temperament tests were considered an accurate way to predict an adult dog’s behavior. Through exercises such as lifting the puppy off the ground or rolling the puppy on their back, it was thought you could know what that puppy would be like when they were fully grown. But are those tests accurate? Is there really a way to predict an adult dog’s behavior from puppy temperament tests?
What Is a Temperament Test?
According to Senior Veterinarian at Schwarzman Animal Medical Center and certified veterinary behaviorist Vanessa Spano, DVM, Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Behavior, temperament testing involves exposing a dog to controlled test situations with the goal of assessing that dog’s behavioral traits. Those situations could include interactions with unfamiliar people, reaction to sounds or novel objects, or interactions with other dogs, among others. “The psychological assessment is used to determine if the animal is suitable to be placed in specific contexts, such as to a family or for use as a working dog.”
Temperament tests can be done with dogs of any age; however, Spano says it’s common for temperament tests to be performed in puppies when they’re around 7 weeks old. For example, the Volhard Puppy Aptitude Test (PAT) is meant to be conducted when a dog is exactly 49 days old. The PAT involves scoring the puppy’s reaction to situations such as retrieving and restraint to determine qualities like independence, aggression, and energy levels.
Do Puppy Temperament Tests Predict Adult Dog Behavior?
It would be wonderful to think you could predict the reactions of an adult dog based on how they react as a puppy. After all, not only would it help match puppies with the right families, but it could also help predict behavioral problems and match suitable puppies with service dog, military, or police work. Unfortunately, that simply isn’t possible at this time.
Research has shown that current puppy temperament tests don’t predict adult behavior. For example, a research study in PLoS ONE looked at Border Collies and found that the test results when the dogs were only 40 to 50 days old (about one and a half months) didn’t correlate with the results when the dogs were one and a half to 2 years old. The researchers concluded that the puppy tests held limited predictive validity for behavior traits in adult dogs.
Even within puppyhood, these temperament tests hold little predictive value. A study in Applied Animal Behaviour Science tested puppies’ social tendencies at two different ages: 7 weeks and 16 weeks. Although only eight weeks had passed between test periods, the tests were unable to predict future responses.
Why Don’t Puppy Temperament Tests Always Work?
So why don’t puppy temperament tests predict adult dog behavior? Because although genetics play a role in a dog’s potential personality, the environment acts on those genetics as the puppy matures, with social maturity lasting from around 6 months to 2 to 3 years of age, depending on the breed. Spano explains, “Just because a dog inherited a genetic sequence which codes for a certain temperament, such as impulsivity or a calm demeanor, it does not necessarily imply the dog will display that temperament as an adult.
“Whether or not that genetic sequence will either be ‘expressed’ or ‘silenced’ is dependent upon the environment the puppy is exposed to up until social maturity, also known as epigenetics.”
Spano says puppy temperament testing can’t possibly take into account the influence that epigenetics has on a dog’s behavior because of neural pruning. During social maturity, the neural connections containing the genes that code for personality traits compete. The rehearsed connections are maintained, while those which aren’t rehearsed are eliminated. For example, if a puppy that inherited a fearful temperament toward people is forced to interact with strangers, those anxious neural connections will be rehearsed, leading to an adult dog with a fear of new people. But if you make exposure to strangers a positive and rewarding experience, those fearful neural connections will not be rehearsed, and the dog will be less likely to exhibit those fears as an adult.
“That’s why the most common age of my patients is between 1 and 3 years of age,” Spano says. “It’s not uncommon for me to hear something like, ‘My dog is aggressive toward unfamiliar people, but she was not like this at all as a puppy.'”
Do Temperament Tests Work on Adult Dogs?
Of course, you can test a dog’s temperament at any age. And many service and guide dog programs do in an effort to select those dogs that will be most successful at their jobs. For example, the Canine Behavior Assessment and Research Questionnaire, also known as the C-BARQ assessment, is widely used among working dog organizations as it has been shown to predict the success or failure of dogs in training. These tests are done once the dogs are older than 1 year. However, Spano points out that what you would look for in a working dog is difficult to generalize to a family pet.
That’s where the American Kennel Club Temperament Test (ATT) comes in. The ATT tests a dog in six categories: social, auditory, visual, touch, motion, and unexpected stimulus. The purpose is to identify undesirable traits such as fear or shyness that can be addressed through training. Rather than being a predictive test, it’s meant to be prescriptive, telling an owner where their dog needs extra help. Through positive reinforcement training and behavior modification techniques like desensitization and counterconditioning, you can change behaviors, like fearful reactions, that are related to your dog’s temperament.
Why Choosing the Right Puppy for You Matters
If a puppy temperament test won’t tell you what your dog will be like as an adult, does it matter which puppy in the litter you choose? Yes! Experienced responsible dog breeders are skilled at matching the right puppy with the right household. Stephanie Abraham, AKC judge and AKC Breeder of Merit with Trefoil Cavaliers, has been breeding Cavalier King Charles Spaniels for 38 years and Boxers since 1970. She believes placing puppies properly is one of the most essential and sometimes difficult aspects of breeding dogs. “It’s the breeder’s responsibility to give every puppy the best start with a loving placement.”
To assess her puppies, Abraham always meets prospective owners and other family members in person to evaluate their reaction to the pups and how the pups relate to them. She also considers what the prospective family is looking for. For instance, if they want an agility dog, she says soundness is everything along with a confident and biddable attitude. “I feel confident,” she says, “in my 40-plus years of experience breeding dogs, so I can make practical decisions that work. After all, I’ve observed these babies from birth and I don’t need formal testing to decide who is bold, who is quiet, or who is more or less resilient.”
How Can You Bring out the Best in Your Puppy’s Temperament?
Spano suggests you ask your breeder how to best meet your dog’s needs, especially during the period of social maturity where neurodevelopment is so easily influenced. You can also ask whether the mother and father of your puppy have been temperament tested. This doesn’t consider the effect of epigenetics on your new puppy, but it will provide some insight into those behavioral traits that may wind up being displayed due to genetic expression.
Finally, Spano says it’s critical that owners understand how to properly manipulate the environment through socialization. Reward-based training and keeping the puppy below the threshold of fear is essential. “While we cannot deny that heritability plays a large part in a dog’s temperament, the focus should be on providing puppies with a positive and nurturing environment throughout the early stages.”
At AKC Marketplace, we are committed to connecting breeders with families who want to give your AKC-registerable puppies their best homes. Visit marketplace.akc.org to start advertising your litters today!