Last Updated: December 22, 2022, 18:55 IST
Researchers discovered that dogs were like humans and have personalities that evolve with time.
New research even suggests that dogs often take on the same personality traits as their owner.
Having a pet is a wonderful experience. You not only learn to become responsible and learn to take care of another being but also say goodbye to your loneliness forever, even more so when it is a dog. They are the best companions one can have for life and new research even suggests that dogs often take on the same personality traits as their owner.
Researchers at Michigan State University discovered that dogs were like humans and have personalities that evolve with time. Lead author of the study Professor William Chopik said, “When humans go through big life changes, their personality traits can change. We found that this also happens with dogs – and to a surprisingly large degree. We expected the dogs’ personalities to be stable because they don’t have wild lifestyle changes humans do, but they change a lot. We uncovered similarities to their owners, the optimal time for training and even a time in their lives that they can get more aggressive toward other animals.”
The study involved observing more than 1,600 dogs of 50 different breeds and their ages ranged from a few weeks to 15 years old. The owners were asked to evaluate their dog’s personalities and were also asked questions about their personalities. This led to the researchers finding correlations in three areas: age and personality, human-to-dog personality similarities and the influence a dog’s personality has on the quality of its relationship with its parent. Professor Chopik revealed, “Older dogs are much harder to train; we found that the ‘sweet spot’ for teaching a dog obedience is around the age of six, when it outgrows its excitable puppy stage but before it’s too set in its ways.”
Extroverted individuals had more excited and active dogs and on the other hand, people with negative emotions rated their dogs as being fearful and less responsive to training. People who were more friendly and agreeable revealed their dogs to be less fearful and less aggressive towards other people and animals.
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