Temperament and EBV – Presented by Erling Strandberg, PhD, SKK

Dogs of working dog breeds in Sweden are required to participate in the Dog Mentality Assessment (DMA) if they are to be used in breeding. DMA was developed mainly for working dogs and there was an increasing demand for a mentality assessment suitable also for other breeds. With this aim,the new behaviour and personality assessment in dogs (BPH) was created and assessments were started in 2012.This presentation will describe the genetic background of behavioral traits that can be used for genetic evaluation of dogs in Sweden from both tests. 6 traits were defined for 12 breeds in DMA: Sociability (SOC), Playfulness (PLAY), Chase-proneness (CH), Curiosity/Fearlessness (C/F), Aggressiveness (AGGR), and Gunshot Avoidance (GUN). Heritability’s averaged around 0.25 for SOC, PLAY, and C/F and around 0.13 for the other 3 traits. BPH-information from five breeds: Rhodesian Ridgeback, Labrador Retriever, Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, Staffordshire Bullterrier, and American Staffordshire Terrier were used to define 6 summarizing mentality traits using exploratory factor analysis. Average h2 for all traits within breed varied from 0.29-0.38. Hostility had the highest h2 across breeds but also the largest variation (0.38, range 0.18-0.62). Confidence had more consistently high h2 (0.36,> range 0.22-0.45). The other 4 traits (Playfulness, Sociability, Curious and Confident, and Positive and energetic) had average h2 of around 0.3,with range from 0.10 to 0.59. In conclusion, the results show that it should be possible to achieve genetic improvement in several of the traits measured in both DMA and BPH.