Details about the study

While it’s true that there’s a great degree of variation across each individual dog, numerous studies have shown that there is a statistically significant relationship between a dog’s breed and its behavior on average. The amount of variability within a breed is captured by that breed’s standard deviation for that value.

In all the datasets, I excluded dogs listed as mixed breeds. Don’t take this the wrong way–I love mixed breeds! I even started a nonprofit to rescue shelter animals, most of which are mixed. Currently, the academic studies I found only measure the behavior of purebred dogs.

I use one year’s worth of data within the range 2015-2018. The reason for this is that New York stopped releasing breed information in 2015. In order to ensure data integrity for Seattle, I needed to use a different year. (Some years appeared to have very little information.)

Studies have shown that there are some differences in the test results of dogs from different countries; this might reflect breeding in that country or cultural differences in reporting the data. As I address separately, I used two breed attribute datasets for this study–one by Turcsán, et al. and one by Coren–and the results are generally consistent between the studies. At the time of writing, I only have permission to publish the detailed results related to the Turcsán study on my website.

Results

For overall averages, see below:

TrainableBoldCalmSociable
New York0.4654060.5810380.4465820.453863
Seattle0.5972930.5981610.5518820.577961
Edmonton0.5763340.5845020.5233240.522898
Adelaide0.5220140.521140.4144640.411995
NYC Mean
Trainable    0.47
Bold         0.58
Calm         0.45
Sociable     0.45

NYC Standard Deviation
Trainable    0.38
Bold         0.46
Calm         0.50
Sociable     0.43
Seattle Mean
Trainable    0.60
Bold         0.60
Calm         0.55
Sociable     0.58

Seattle Standard Deviation
Trainable    0.38
Bold         0.46
Calm         0.50
Sociable     0.43
Adelaide Mean
Trainable    0.52
Bold         0.52
Calm         0.41
Sociable     0.41

Adelaide Standard Deviation
Trainable    0.38
Bold         0.46
Calm         0.50
Sociable     0.43
Edmonton Mean
Trainable    0.58
Bold         0.58
Calm         0.52
Sociable     0.52

Edmonton Standard Deviation
Trainable    0.38
Bold         0.46
Calm         0.50
Sociable     0.43

I also tabulated the top breeds by borough, as follows:

Top NYC Dogs Count
Yorkshire Terrier     7412
Shih Tzu              6835
Chihuahua             5555
Maltese               4117
Labrador Retriever    4055

Top Dogs By Borough

Bronx
Yorkshire Terrier                 1171
Shih Tzu                          1046
Chihuahua                          830
American Staffordshire Terrier     689
Pit Bull Mix                       513

Brooklyn
Yorkshire Terrier     1923
Shih Tzu              1838
Chihuahua             1456
Pit Bull Mix          1033
Labrador Retriever     929

Manhattan
Yorkshire Terrier     2017
Chihuahua             1871
Shih Tzu              1768
Labrador Retriever    1618
Maltese               1174

Queens
Yorkshire Terrier     1607
Shih Tzu              1496
Maltese               1129
Chihuahua             1057
Labrador Retriever     711

Staten Island
Yorkshire Terrier     694
Shih Tzu              687
Labrador Retriever    551
Maltese               378
Pit Bull Mix          355

I performed a Tukey test to determine if the average values in each borough were statistically different at the 0.05 level. Results are below. (The “true” in the right hand column indicates a rejection of the null hypothesis that they are the same.) In most cases, the differences in the means, though often small, were statistically significant.

Attribute:  Trainable
   Multiple Comparison of Means - Tukey HSD,FWER=0.05  
=======================================================
  group1      group2    meandiff  lower   upper  reject
-------------------------------------------------------
  Bronx      Brooklyn    0.0474   0.032   0.0628  True 
  Bronx     Manhattan    0.0635   0.0488  0.0782  True 
  Bronx       Queens     0.023    0.0071  0.0388  True 
  Bronx   Staten Island  0.0532   0.0342  0.0723  True 
 Brooklyn   Manhattan    0.0161   0.0047  0.0274  True 
 Brooklyn     Queens    -0.0245  -0.0373 -0.0116  True 
 Brooklyn Staten Island  0.0058  -0.0109  0.0225 False 
Manhattan     Queens    -0.0405  -0.0525 -0.0286  True 
Manhattan Staten Island -0.0103  -0.0263  0.0057 False 
  Queens  Staten Island  0.0303   0.0132  0.0474  True 
-------------------------------------------------------

Attribute:  Bold
   Multiple Comparison of Means - Tukey HSD,FWER=0.05  
=======================================================
  group1      group2    meandiff  lower   upper  reject
-------------------------------------------------------
  Bronx      Brooklyn    0.0206   0.0039  0.0374  True 
  Bronx     Manhattan    0.067    0.0511  0.083   True 
  Bronx       Queens     0.0419   0.0247  0.0591  True 
  Bronx   Staten Island  0.0632   0.0425  0.0839  True 
 Brooklyn   Manhattan    0.0464   0.0341  0.0587  True 
 Brooklyn     Queens     0.0213   0.0073  0.0352  True 
 Brooklyn Staten Island  0.0426   0.0244  0.0607  True 
Manhattan     Queens    -0.0251  -0.0381 -0.0121  True 
Manhattan Staten Island -0.0039  -0.0212  0.0135 False 
  Queens  Staten Island  0.0213   0.0027  0.0398  True 
-------------------------------------------------------

Attribute:  Calm
   Multiple Comparison of Means - Tukey HSD,FWER=0.05  
=======================================================
  group1      group2    meandiff  lower   upper  reject
-------------------------------------------------------
  Bronx      Brooklyn    0.0594   0.0391  0.0796  True 
  Bronx     Manhattan    0.1315   0.1122  0.1508  True 
  Bronx       Queens     0.0769   0.056   0.0977  True 
  Bronx   Staten Island  0.1214   0.0962  0.1465  True 
 Brooklyn   Manhattan    0.0721   0.0572  0.0871  True 
 Brooklyn     Queens     0.0175   0.0006  0.0344  True 
 Brooklyn Staten Island  0.062    0.0401  0.0839  True 
Manhattan     Queens    -0.0547  -0.0704 -0.0389  True 
Manhattan Staten Island -0.0102  -0.0312  0.0109 False 
  Queens  Staten Island  0.0445   0.022   0.067   True 
-------------------------------------------------------

Attribute:  Sociable
   Multiple Comparison of Means - Tukey HSD,FWER=0.05  
=======================================================
  group1      group2    meandiff  lower   upper  reject
-------------------------------------------------------
  Bronx      Brooklyn    0.0652   0.0454  0.0849  True 
  Bronx     Manhattan    0.1418   0.123   0.1607  True 
  Bronx       Queens     0.0828   0.0624  0.1031  True 
  Bronx   Staten Island  0.1216   0.0971  0.1462  True 
 Brooklyn   Manhattan    0.0767   0.0621  0.0912  True 
 Brooklyn     Queens     0.0176   0.0011  0.0341  True 
 Brooklyn Staten Island  0.0565   0.0351  0.0779  True 
Manhattan     Queens    -0.0591  -0.0744 -0.0437  True 
Manhattan Staten Island -0.0202  -0.0407  0.0004 False 
  Queens  Staten Island  0.0389   0.0169  0.0608  True 
-------------------------------------------------------

I also performed a Tukey test between different cities. The results are as follows:

Attribute:  Trainable
Multiple Comparison of Means - Tukey HSD,FWER=0.05
=================================================
 group1   group2  meandiff  lower   upper  reject
-------------------------------------------------
Adelaide Edmonton  0.0543   0.0438  0.0648  True 
Adelaide New York -0.0566  -0.0668 -0.0464  True 
Adelaide Seattle   0.0753   0.0627  0.0878  True 
Edmonton New York -0.1109   -0.117 -0.1049  True 
Edmonton Seattle   0.021    0.0115  0.0305  True 
New York Seattle   0.1319   0.1227  0.141   True 
-------------------------------------------------

Attribute:  Bold
Multiple Comparison of Means - Tukey HSD,FWER=0.05
================================================
 group1   group2  meandiff  lower  upper  reject
------------------------------------------------
Adelaide Edmonton  0.0634   0.0508 0.0759  True 
Adelaide New York  0.0599   0.0478 0.072   True 
Adelaide Seattle   0.077    0.0621 0.0919  True 
Edmonton New York -0.0035  -0.0107 0.0038 False 
Edmonton Seattle   0.0137   0.0024 0.0249  True 
New York Seattle   0.0171   0.0063 0.028   True 
------------------------------------------------

Attribute:  Calm
Multiple Comparison of Means - Tukey HSD,FWER=0.05
=================================================
 group1   group2  meandiff  lower   upper  reject
-------------------------------------------------
Adelaide Edmonton  0.1089   0.0944  0.1233  True 
Adelaide New York  0.0321   0.0181  0.0461  True 
Adelaide Seattle   0.1374   0.1202  0.1547  True 
Edmonton New York -0.0767  -0.0851 -0.0684  True 
Edmonton Seattle   0.0286   0.0155  0.0416  True 
New York Seattle   0.1053   0.0927  0.1179  True 
-------------------------------------------------

Attribute:  Sociable
Multiple Comparison of Means - Tukey HSD,FWER=0.05
=================================================
 group1   group2  meandiff  lower   upper  reject
-------------------------------------------------
Adelaide Edmonton  0.1109   0.0968  0.125   True 
Adelaide New York  0.0419   0.0282  0.0556  True 
Adelaide Seattle   0.166    0.1491  0.1828  True 
Edmonton New York  -0.069  -0.0772 -0.0609  True 
Edmonton Seattle   0.0551   0.0423  0.0678  True 
New York Seattle   0.1241   0.1118  0.1364  True 
-------------------------------------------------

Future work

There’s much more to explore. I am checking on obtaining a dataset based on thousands of dogs from Sweden, and Dr. James Serpell at the University of Pennsylvania also has a great study.

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At the time the study was conducted, New York and Seattle were the only known American cities that published this data. However, nearly every major city in the US collects this data, so perhaps I can expand the study to other cities. It’s even possible that I can obtain data from other cities around the world.

OK, now I need lots of merchandise. Do you offer that?

If you enjoyed this study, I’d love it if you could support Doggy Data Zone by visiting the shop! A portion of the proceeds go to animal rescue.