Anxiety as a Personality Trait

The topic of anxiety in dogs is important because it burdens both dogs and their owners. While the dog can experience fears, its owner suffers from seeing the dog in this emotional state. It therefore makes sense to delve into the scientific foundations and the most important well-founded findings on this topic.

In the area of anxiety behavior, it is important to distinguish between so-called state anxiety and trait anxiety. While the former describes the reaction to a specific situation, the latter is a relatively manifest character trait. This trait in dogs can also be referred to as anxiousness. Anxiousness is one of five traits that describe a dog's personality. It is defined as an individual's readiness to experience anxiety.

In the literature, a distinction is often made between anxiety towards humans, anxiety towards conspecifics, and anxiety regarding asocial stimuli, such as noises. In addition to genetic components, experiences also play an important role in the development of anxiety in dogs.

Our Speaker

Dr. Marie Nitzschner is a biologist with a doctorate who researched the cognitive abilities of dogs for 10 years at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Since 2014, she has been writing the dog science blog hundeprofil.de. Since early 2016, she has been a lecturer at KynoLogisch and works as a freelance lecturer and author.
More about the speaker: http://marienitzschner.de/