What is the difference between the CBARQ, GDBART and BCL?

There’s so many acronyms- what do they all mean?!

C-BARQ (CBARQ)

This is the “Canine Behavioral Assessment & Research Questionnaire”. It is a self reported questionnaire that any handler of the dog can fill out. It does not require that the person filling it out is trained. This questionnaire is often used for pet or shelter/rescue evaluations.

GDBart

This is the “Guide Dog Behavior and Assessment Research Test”. The GDBart has a consistent room set-up that should be followed in order to keep the environment as similar as possible for each dog. It also gives instructions for handlers to follow with the aim of exposing dogs to consistent stimuli like surfaces, vacuums, stairs, other dogs, etc.

In order to measure how the dog performs during this test, we need to use a consistent scoring system.  Most organizations use the BCL (Behaviour Checklist). The CBARQ cannot be used to score a GDBart.

BCL

The BCL (Behavior Checklist) is a method of scoring dog behavior. It provides a list of behaviours which scorers can rate on a scale of Absent to Severe. For example, as the dog performs a GDBart, scorers use the BCL to track behaviours and their severity when they are observed during the test.

• Learn more about the BCL here.

WDCBARQ

This is a test developed from the C-BARQ which has been tailored towards detection dogs. 

• Learn more about the WDCBARQ here: A Behavioral Questionnaire for Selection and Study of Odor Detection Dogs – Presented by Cynthia Otto