Behavioural selection criteria for Czech police puppies to assess their chances of certification.

Abstract

The project based on behavioural tests of 7 week old German Shepherd puppies performed in police kennel in Prackovice nad Labem and Domažlice. The project focused on verification of the usability and improvement of the selection of puppies using behavioural test. We tested the possibility of environmental effect (presence of shooting range near the kennel Domažlice) on the later success of puppies in the behavioural test. The aim of the project was collecting additional data which were use to improve and verify procedure for early selection of puppies. We checked the possibility of habituation breeding females and their puppies to noise, including monitoring of the different environments in the kennels in. It was found that different results are affected by of their mothers. This means that puppies raised by mothers from the police kennel near shooting range are better evaluated later in the disciplines of evaluating response to noise compared with pups from mothers of police kennel without shooting range. Worse response to noise had pups from litters with a higher number of pups. Reviews summarizing the literature on heritability of behavioural traits in dogs have been published repeatedly over the last four decades. The conclusions of these reviews vary to some extent. We applied meta-analysis and re-evaluated the literature available collecting 47 references dealing with heritability of behavioural traits in domestic dogs. For each study included, data was extracted for individual behavioural traits. Each of these traits was entered into the analysis as a separate unit of measure, giving a total of 1761 measures. We classified the traits measured in each study into five functional categories (Environment, Herding, Hunting, Play, and Psychical characteristic). The metaanalysis has shown low general heritability of the categorised behavioural traits analysed. Thus, the commonly used behaviour tests for many breeds, to determine the dog's eligibility for reproducing, traditionally required by many associations, is not supported by the present results of the meta-analysis