Dog personalities change over time

Dog personalities are shaped over time and according to the interactions they have with their owners and the world.

Dog personalities change over time
dog personality traits

Main titles

  • Dogs have personality traits that shape how they react to different situations.

dog personality traits

“When humans go through big changes in life, their personality traits can change. We found that this also happens with dogs – and to a surprisingly large degree. We expected the dogs’ personalities to be fairly stable because they don’t have wild lifestyle changes humans do, but they actually change a lot. We uncovered similarities to their owners, the optimal time for training and even a time in their lives that they can get more aggressive toward other animals.” - William Chopik, professor of psychology.

  • Dogs' personalities affect important life outcomes such as biting behaviour and chronic illness.
  • Correlations were found between personality and age, and also human to dog personality similarities.

Study: Michigan State University, 2019