Behavioural characteristics of dogs removed from hoarding situations

Hoarding occurs when persons accumulate animals in numbers that exceed their capacity to provide for the needs of the animals. Typical animal hoarding environments are extremely unsanitary and unhealthy, with malnutrition, disease, and death all common elements. Anecdotal reports of dogs recovered from hoarding situations have described a wide array of abnormal behaviours. The purpose […]

Behavioural testing based breeding policy reduces the prevalence of fear and aggression related behaviour in Rottweilers

Behavioural testing allows to exclude dogs that are fearful and aggressive from the breeding population, but relatively little is known about the effectiveness of such strategies in practice. From 2001 till 2009 parent purebred Dutch Rottweilers had to pass the Socially Acceptable Behaviour (SAB)-test for their offspring to obtain a pedigree certificate. We evaluated if […]