
Well-Behaved Dogs May Have Happier Owners - whatami
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fellow-creatures/201809/well-behaved-dogs-may-have-happier-owners
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olliej
Alternatively:

People with spare time/money are happier

People with spare time/money can afford to put more time/money into their
dog’s wellbeing.

It reminds me of an article saying women who owned horses lived longer than
those who didn’t. Then it was pointed out that women who can afford horses are
vastly more likely to have health insurance and/or access to better
healthcare. Which obviously wouldn’t make as good a headline.

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s0rce
These factors are often controlled for (or attempted) in these sorts of
studies.

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olliej
I don’t see any reference to controls in the article (and the paper is
paywalled, because obviously it would be :D).

That said reading more closely it’s a study of 36 people. _36_ how does this
get published? And then get an article???

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olliej
Oops so 70 odd people. That’s still nowhere near reasonable to make the claims
they’re making.

Being hard to get a decent sample size isn’t a justification for making
unreasonable claims.

A few people have commented on the nature of the samples group (namely that
they were homogenous, etc), but that’s not mentioned in the article, and the
paper is behind a paywall. If you want a press release for your paper you need
to make sure the relevant data is available to people who otherwise only have
access to the article.

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canadapups
My wife is a dog breeder. My anecdotal sample size is getting close to the
sample size of the study.

In one litter you will get such a large range of personalities even with same
parents and being raised the same.

And then there’s such a big range of behaviours between the breeds. For
example, weimaraners are predisposed to separation anxiety.

In addition, some owners adopt or rescue dogs who had bad experiences.

With the article behind a paywall, I’m guessing a sample size of 70 is way too
small to come up with something insightful. How on earth could they come up
with a “negative spiral” from the data. Sounds made up.

Anyway, I’ve stopped judging owners based on the behaviour of their dogs.

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adrianN
It's the same for children.

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gumby
The biggest lesson I got in dog training (which is really "owner training")
was that the dog really wants to know what to do. So for example if my
instructions were clear there was no ambiguity of what was expected. I suspect
this is a big driver of the phenomenon.

The funny thing is I had a very very anxious breed of dog (an IWH) that people
thought was docile and would not even notice that he was leashless even in a
crowd or even crowded restaurant (and of course in the office). But it was
simply that the dog was so used to my needs and wishes that he was comfortable
in any situation -- or perhaps confident that I would not put him in a scary
situation?

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jarnagin
This story seems to have it backwards: well-rounded people train happier dogs.

Classic “tail wags the dog” reporting here, IMHO.

~~~
maxk42
Still wrong: People who are happier perceive their dogs to be well-behaved.
People who are more anxious predictably have more anxiety about their dogs'
behavior.

FTA: "This study looked only at the owners’ perceptions of separation-related
behaviors and not a specific diagnosis of separation anxiety."

Also FTA: "The study is just a snapshot in time and does not show causality."

~~~
projektir
> People who are happier perceive their dogs to be well-behaved. People who
> are more anxious predictably have more anxiety about their dogs' behavior.

I think this might actually be it. As someone with anxiety I am irrationally
anxious about my cat all the time, but according to external appraisal (i.e.,
the vet), my cat is just fine.

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pjmorris
I once worked in a place that held a 'Bring Your Dog To Work' day. The
intriguing thing to me was that the dogs very much had the personalities of
their owners, whether calm or anxious.

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whitepoplar
I've noticed that people look like their dogs, too.

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tonyedgecombe
[http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151111-why-do-dogs-look-
li...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151111-why-do-dogs-look-like-their-
owners)

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sokoloff
Well-behaved children may have happier parents as well.

~~~
olliej
Parents with no children are clearly happiest

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olliej
People, I meant People.

But it’s such a broken sentence I’m leaving it for the ages :)

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jshevek
I thought you were making a joke which I didn't understand, having discounted
the possibility that you meant parents of adult children or parents whose
children had died.

~~~
olliej
Actually parents of children who have moved out would have been a great save,
but I also thought it was hilariously dumb so left it there

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motohagiography
That cliche about "aspire to be the kind of person your dog thinks you are,"
rings true.

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bwang29
A friend of mine recently had a dog in the back seat while driving and the dog
started to want to get attention from her. My friend turned to look at the dog
which ended in rear-ending a car in front of her. Now she needs to spend more
than 2k in insurance deductible as well as having to use Uber to commute.
Nonetheless, she feels it is 100% her own fault and she's really happy that
the dog wasn't injured.

~~~
sokoloff
That last sentence seems eminently reasonable all around.

~~~
interfixus
Totally. And in the generalised version: Rear-ending is _always_ your own
fault. You hit the car in front of you, you were too close || too fast || not
paying requisite attention.

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rdlecler1
Pointing to the obvious here but would this also translate to children and
then economically depressed communities (negative network effects anyone?)

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yesenadam
Links to this and 3 other González-Ramírez papers on dogs/pets in the same
journal:

[http://libgen.io/scimag/index.php?s=Gonz%C3%A1lez-
Ram%C3%ADr...](http://libgen.io/scimag/index.php?s=Gonz%C3%A1lez-
Ram%C3%ADrez&journalid=Journal+of+Veterinary+Behavior&v=&i=&p=&redirect=1)

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Fomite
The Discussion and Conclusions of the actual paper, since my institution
subscribes to the journal:

Discussion It is widely known that human-animal interaction is associated with
positive health effects for humans, and for many years, its investigations had
focused on this aspect (Fine, 2010). Nevertheless, dogs' unwanted behaviors
could also have affect humans. This research focuses on owners’ perception
about dog behavior when left alone and its association with their perceived
stress and happiness.

We evaluated owners who believed that their dogs had separation-related
problems and owners who perceived that their dogs were well behaved in their
absence. After comparing the characteristics of both groups, as in McGreevy
and Masters (2008) study, we did not detect a tendency related to breeds or an
association related to their size. We found a significant difference between
the groups according to the dog's time living with their actual owner: those
owners who perceived that their dogs were well behaved when left alone had
lived with their dogs longer.

Owners perceived that those dogs that did not present separation-related
problems also had higher scores in trainability. This relationship may be
explained by Tiira and Lohi (2015) findings that anxious dogs could be
exercised less because these dogs may be less obedient or more prone to
running away when walking.

Hyper- or over-attachment are typical descriptions in the literature regarding
dogs with separation anxiety (Ogata, 2016). We found higher attachment scores
within the group of owners who reported that their dogs had separation-related
behavioral problems; however, attachment style should be considered
(Parthasarathy and Crowell-Davis, 2006).

Results suggest that owners and dogs that share the same preferences in
activities also share symptoms associated with stress. Dogs share many of the
same environmental factors that contribute to anxiety in other species, such
as humans (Tiira and Lohi, 2015).

Owners with higher levels of stress may not have a relaxed relationship with
their dogs, which can contribute to their annoyance about their dogs'
behavior, so they spend less time with them, increasing the anxiety in the
dogs. In turn, a dog's behaviors may annoy the owner and may be a source of
stress for him or her, which affects his or her perceived happiness.

Conclusion The findings of this study suggest that if owners do something to
improve behaviors that they consider annoying in their dogs, their perceived
happiness and dog-owner relationship could improve. Owners who perceive
themselves as stressed also perceive separation-related problems in their
dogs.

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reacweb
Does it work also for childs? Well behaved childs have happier parents ?

