Dog-directed parenting styles: The role of parenting styles in the owner-dog relationship

Since its domestication the dog’s living environment, including its opportunity to perform species specific behaviour, has been largely human-determined. Dogs seemingly adapted to this human-determined environment, but aspects of modern Western-society life can challenge their welfare. For instance, living without conspecifics and being left alone during an owner’s working hours can result in welfare compromising separation distress. Also, species specific behaviour, such as defending home territory, can result in undesired biting incidents. Generally, undesired dog behaviours challenge dog welfare and pressure the owner-dog relationship. These pressures rise as dogs increasingly become a ‘surrogate family member or child’, making it even more relevant to guide dog owners towards optimal long-term interaction patterns with their dogs. Such long-term interaction patterns can be studied in the form of parenting styles, which were previously studied extensively in the parent-child relationship for societal and child cognitive/emotional outcomes. Four styles diverge in the underlying dimensions of demandingness - as in exerting levels of monitoring and control - and responsiveness - as in showing levels of support and warmth. When these two dimensions are high in parenting, the authoritative parenting style optimizes child outcomes. When both styles are low, uninvolved parenting challenges the child in its development. A third style, the authoritarian style, is demanding, but lacks responsiveness and a fourth, permissive, style is responsive, but lacks demandingness. Thus, diverseness in parenting styles reflects a parent’s caregiving and as the human caregiving system was seen triggered by dogs, studying how parenting styles affect the owner-dog relationship can shed a new light on optimizing this evolutionary liaison. Therefore, we endeavoured to establish if and how dog-directed parenting styles affect the owner-dog relationship. We first established that dog-directed parenting styles exist by adapting a Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire from parent-child studies. Once this was made to apply to dog owners, 518 parents that also owned one or more dogs, answered questions on five-point Likert scales on their dog interactions. With Principal Component Analyses (PCA) their parenting propensities were grouped into three styles that indicated similarities but also differences in parenting directed at child and dog. A dog-directed authoritarian-correction orientated (AUC) parenting style of high demandingness and use of correctional methods combined with owners bossing over the dog. The authoritative-intrinsic value orientated (AUI) parenting style of high responsiveness and a focus on the dog’s general needs and emotions, combined with humanizing the dog. The authoritative-training orientated (AUT) parenting style was characterized by high demandingness and responsiveness and focussed on teaching a dog how to behave. No permissive or uninvolved style surfaced, which could be attributed to our sample of likely highly engaged dog owners. A logical next question was if parenting styles express in certain owner/dog behaviours. We surveyed 41 owners on their dog-directed parenting styles and observed their behaviours and those of their dogs during a more demanding distraction course and a more relaxed breaktime setting. Particularly owner behaviours were seen to combine with the styles, such as the owner’s verbal praising of the dog relating directly to AUI/AUT and inversely to AUC. The latter style related directly to verbal corrections and leash pressures. These style-related behavioural differences in the owner may affect a dog’s behaviour as a dog’s looking at the owner associated directly with AUT and inversely with AUC during the demanding distraction course. We also wanted to determine if dog-directed parenting styles could foreseeably affect a dog’s physique. This as in the parent-child relationship the styles are known to relate to a child’s weight status of underweight, healthy-weight or overweight/obese. To investigate if this could apply to the owner-dog relationship, we questioned 2,303 dog owners on their dog-directed parenting styles and their dog’s weight. Chi-square tests indicated how overweight/obese dogs were overrepresented in the highest quartile of permissive parenting. This finding corresponded with parent-child studies and dogs may benefit from less permissive styles of dog-directed parenting. Physical factors, such as consequential to a dog’s weight, will affect dog welfare. However, dog welfare is also determined by the owner-perceived relationship with the dog. We found AUC, which focusses on correcting a dog for undesired behaviour, to relate to lesser optimal satisfaction with owning the dog. In contrast, AUT combined with lesser feelings of being burdened by the costs of having a dog. This indicates AUT to be the more favourable parenting style, making it of interest to know if owners can be facilitated in adopting this style. Therefore, our final study was on the effectiveness of educational interventions in changing a dog owner’s parenting style. We tested two online educational interventions, both consisting of an online slide presentation and three informative videos, but offering either parenting or training content. The 88 participating dog owners were randomly assigned to this parenting or training content. In our sample of owners that largely parented AUT, AUC decreased with offering both parenting and training content and AUT increased with training content only. Thus, online educational interventions could benefit long term owner-dog interactions, but the optimal content needs to be defined yet. An interesting point for future studies is reaching those owners that need education most. So far, educational interventions as well as effectiveness studies thereof seem challenged to reach a broad study sample, including lower educational levels and equal numbers of males and females. All of the studies done by us likewise held large proportions of highly educated females and this is not unique to our research. We also point out our lack of finding permissive and uninvolved styles of parenting which may affect dog welfare and the owner-dog relationship quality more so than our found styles of AUC, AUI and AUT. Notwithstanding these challenges, the establishment of dog-directed parenting styles offers new ways of looking at the evolutionary bond between owner and dog. This may benefit the owner-dog relationship and raises questions on how to reach and involve those owners that may benefit most from interventions aiming to optimize dog welfare and the owner-dog relationship.