Untitled - TiHo Bibliothek elib - Tierärztliche Hochschule Hannover

7 Summary
7 Summary Schreiner, Nadine
A study on the effects of various factors in housing dogs on the behavior of
dogs of the breed Australian Shepherd in a speciall designed behavior test.
The aim of this thesis was to find out whether different factors of housing dogs have
an influence on the behavior of dogs of the breed Australian Shepherds. For this 96
dogs underwent a specially designed behavior test. Afterwards, a questionnaire was
filled out by the owners, the results were compared with the behavior shown in the
behavioral test.
The questionnaire consisted of 20 questions of which 16 questions were asked with
different husbandry criteria. These were: gender and age of the owner, gender of the
dog, the owners experience, the housing period of each dog, the dog's age at
acquisition and at the time of the testing, number of previous owners, origin of the
dog, purchase reasons, level of training of the dog, the type of accommodation,
number of people and other animals in the household, previous diagnosted diseases
and traumatic events of the dogs.
The behavioral test consisted of 23 situations in which the dogs came in contact with
different stimuli. This included contact with noises, with unusual and well-known
pictures of people and inanimate nature. There was also a threat situation, situations
with quick movements and play situations. The dog was always with it`s main
caregiver who had already answered the questionnaire before testing.
The shown behavior patterns were recorded directly after each situation by at least
two observers, and also recorded using a camera which was later evaluated. Five
situations could not be brought into connection with the behavior. Except for the
pulling game that quite often revealed correlations, all other situations were evenly
distributed.
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