Link to the paper in Science: Ancestry-inclusive dog genomics challenges popular breed stereotypes.

Environment and socialization remain the largest determining factor.

Unsurprisingly, most stereotypes about dog breeds are pseudoscience that come from the eugenics movement. In particular, “popular knowledge” around pitbulls and bulldogs is just thinly veiled racism.

interview on the study from the verge: https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/28/23043508/dog-breed-behavior-genetics-study-stereotypes

The research did find some genes associated with traits like human sociability and howling frequency. But overall, only around 9 percent of dog behavior was explained by breed.

“Dogs are individuals,” said Marjie Alonso, a study author and executive director of the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants. “What a dog looks like is not really going to tell you what the dog acts like.”

Edit: modern “purebred” breeding literally came from eugenicists, that’s why this old political cartoon even exists. Documentary on pedigree dogs and their many issues: https://vimeo.com/166015460

  • politicsenjoyer [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    3 years ago

    Awesome, I guess I can just own a husky in my apartment just like a chihuahua and not worry about it, because its breed characteristics of being high energy and needing physical exercise (even compared to similar sized dogs) were just make believe! I guess retrievers being gentle, shiba inus being willful, and pitbulls having strong latching tendencies is all just a collective delusion.

    Dog breed characteristics are absolutely real, and even considering them comparable to human genetic behaviors is basically doing race science believers’ work for them. “Behaviors” among humans are completely different than an instinct driven animal like a dog, which is why evopsych and race science shit are trash science.

    Looking at the actual study, the problems that cause the obviously bogus result are:

    • They are going by survey responses. I can’t even start to explain how this does nothing except aggregate beliefs. Who is gonna be like “oh yeah my sweet baby pitbull Cupcakes is extremely aggressive to other dogs and children and exhibits strong latching instinct!”
    • Dangerous dog breeds often attack instinctually in ways that are completely different than their socialized nature. If you say your dog has never done something, that’s not the same as saying the dog doesn’t have a tendency towards it.
    • They had to further muddle the data by trying to highlight a linear correspondence between breed DNA and reliability of that behavior. That’s not how DNA works. For example, Corgi visual phenotypes are fairly dominant so breeding them with anything else will be guaranteed to look more like a Corgi. If you assume behavior is determined by DNA, the same idea applies.

    If you want to insultingly compare this to human eugenic atrocities, then try going over to eastern Europe and do a survey of 20,000 people on what behaviors they’ve observed from different groups of people. Let me know how great the survey approach turns out there.

    I think where this more likely applies is how every dog breed has a laundry list of ultraspecific behavioral tendencies that really tend to be nonsense in the same way wine tasting notes are often silly. They’re way too specific and determined by limited subjective experience and bias. But you can absolutely identify broad characteristics among breeds.