The American Kennel Club (AKC®), the world’s largest purebred dog registry and leading advocate for dogs, is proud to announce the AKC Temperament Test™ (ATT). The ATT is open to all breeds, including mixed breed dogs.
The temperament of any dog is an important characteristic. Temperament is a dog’s natural predisposition to react a certain way to a stimulus. The AKC Temperament Test includes test items in the following six categories: social, auditory, visual, tactile (touch), proprioceptive (motion), and an unexpected stimulus.
The ATT is a noncompetitive, pass-fail test that will screen for fear, shyness, inability to recover, and lack of cooperation. Desired traits are that the dog will be emotionally stable, inquisitive, appropriately social, biddable and recovers from a startling situation in a reasonable amount of time.
“Temperament is an important consideration for all breeders and owners,” said Doug Ljungren, Executive Vice President of Sports and Events. “The purpose of the AKC Temperament Test is to bring focus and meaningful evaluation to the assessment of temperament in our canine companions.”
ATT tests will be administered by any AKC licensed or member club in conjunction with AKC events such as dog shows, trials, or as stand-alone tests. ATT tests will appear on the AKC Event Search website. The evaluators for the ATT will be specially trained AKC Obedience judges, Rally judges and AKC Approved Canine Good Citizen Evaluators. ATT evaluators will appear on the AKC Judges Directory website.
Dogs must be at least 1-year old to take the ATT test and dogs who do not pass the test may retest when ready. Dogs who pass the ATT test twice under two different evaluators may earn the ATT title and list the suffix, “ATT” after the dog’s name.
“Taking the AKC Temperament Test will educate the owners of purebred dogs about the temperament of their breed as described in the breed standard,” said Dr. Mary Burch, AKC Family Dog Director, “And owners of mixed breed dogs can gain insight about the temperament of their individual dogs.”
Information for participants, clubs and evaluators can be found at www.akc.org/akctemptest. Questions can be emailed to akctemptest@akc.org.
Qualified individuals who are interested in being ATT evaluators may apply starting September 3rd. Clubs interested in holding an ATT test may start applying on October 1 for events to be held on or after November 1.