Testing a Puppy's Personality

WHAT IS PUPPY TESTING?

Just like humans, every dog has its own personality. This can be determined, in dogs, at a young age. The object of a puppy test is to determine what kind of personality the dog has. Knowing this, allows you to train your dog more effectively.

Some people believe that a puppy test allows you to pick the perfect dog. This is nonsense. It does, however, allow you to pick a puppy which is mentally stable and has an easy-to-work-with personality. From experience, my mom and dad can say that dog training is 70% the owners experience and mentality and only 30% that of the dog. So, having a mentally stable and easy-to-work with puppy does not guarantee that you will have a dog that is easy to train or that will turn out to be a perfect dog. YOU, as the owner, will make a huge contribution to the type of dog you end up with.

CONDITIONS FOR A PUPPY TEST

It's important that the test is performed in a neutral room or space where the dog hasn't been before and where there is no external distraction for the dog.

The optimal age for the test to be performed is when the puppy is five to seven weeks old. At this point, the personality is nearly set, but the dog is not yet fully attached to humans.

The person performing the test should be someone the puppy has not met before. This is necessary so that some parts of the test do not give invalid results.

THE ACTUAL TEST

The test described below is the well-known Campbell test.
(See http://www.seefido.com/html/campbell_s_test.htm for scoring information)

This is not the only test that can be used as several others exist.

With this test, the puppy is scored on five criteria:

* Social attraction.

* Facility to follow.

* Reaction to orders.

* Social domination.

* Acceptance to being lifted.

For the “social attraction” test, the testing person sits a few feet from the puppy and observes how the dog reacts: Does it come? If it comes, is the tail carried high or low? Does he scout his surroundings? Does he run the other way?

When testing the “facility to follow,” the tester will put the puppy next to him and then walk away. Does the dog follow or not? Does she follow and jump up at the test person and even try to bite his ankles? Does she follow from a distance? Does she wander off on her own?

The “reaction to orders” test requires that the puppy be put on his back and held down on the ground by placing a hand flat on his chest. Does the puppy protest heavily, try to turn over and try to bite the hands of the testing person? Does he initially protest but calm down later? Does he remain quiet or does he try to lick the tester’s hands?

With the “social domination” test, the tester will sit down next to the puppy and just stroke him. Here he'll observe what the puppy does. Some puppies will try to crawl up on the test person, others will try to bite the hands of the test person and other puppies will lie on their back and lick the hands of the test person. Some puppies will even run away.

For the final test the puppy is lifted from the ground supported only at his chest (this way the puppy doesn't see the test person). Does he struggle and try to bite the hands of the tester? Does he initially struggle but calm down after a while? Does he remain calm and perhaps even try to lick the hands of the test person?

The combination of results lets you determine what personality the dog has. For novice dog owners it is best to pick a puppy that hasn't got an extreme test result, because puppies with extreme results are either very dominant or extremely submissive and will require a handler who is experienced.

Until next time,

Teia

Question - Do you think puppy testing is worthwhile? Leave your comments.