Development of a dog owner caregiving style scale (Lincoln Owner Caregiving Questionnaire, LOCQ) and its relationship with behaviour problems in dogs

There is increasing recognition that a dog’s relationship with its owner is a form of attachment bond with similarities to the human infant-carer bond. However, it seems less recognised that infant attachment style is typically a response to parental caregiving style, i.e., the style of caregiving by the dog’s owner may play an important role in the development of the attachment style of a dog. We therefore aimed to develop a reliable owner-response-based instrument to assess behaviour directed towards their dogs, focused on different ‘parental’ caregiving styles which give rise to four forms of attachment in the child (Secure, Ambivalent, Avoidant and Disorganised), and compare the relationship between these styles and behaviour problems in dogs. A questionnaire with 40 items (7-point Likert scale) based on the four styles of caregiving was made available online where dog owners were asked to show how much they agreed with each item and report if their dogs had behaviour problems. A total of 982 participants answered the questionnaire and Principal component analysis and other validation methods were conducted. Owners whose dogs were not reported having any behaviour problem were compared with those who reported different behaviour problems in their dogs by Multinomial Generalised Linear Model. Results showed good validity (item reliability, face and content validity, and convergent and discriminant validity) for the new caregiving questionnaire for dog owners (Lincoln Owner Caregiving Questionnaire, LOCQ) which is composed by three Caregiving style dimensions: Ambivalent, Avoidant and Disorganised. Additionally, it was found that having a high score in the Disorganised and/or Avoidant caregiving styles significantly predicted the presence of some problem behaviours in a dog. Specifically, compared to owners of dogs without behaviour problems, owners with high scores for the Disorganised caregiving style predicted dogs with separation related problems or with more than one behaviour problem, owners with high Avoidant caregiving style scores predicted dogs with Fear, and owners with high scores for both Disorganised and Avoidant caregiving styles predicted dogs with Aggressivity problems. Hence, we have developed a reliable tool for evaluating dog owner caregiving style based on Attachment theory and showed its relationship with problem behaviour. Although causal relationships cannot be inferred, these results will be highly valuable when evaluating and developing treatment for behaviour problems in dogs, and to improve the welfare of dogs and their owners.