Owner-reported prevalence and severity of fear and anxiety in dogs

Anxiety and fear in animals affect their current, and potential long-term, welfare. The prevalence of this problem has been studied by various authors, but considerable variety exists in reported values, methods used to gather data, and location of the dogs. Because preferred breeds and the way dogs are raised and kept vary considerably by country, the location of the animals studied can affect reported data. In order to obtain robust estimates in this regard for the United States, data from 43,517 dogs enrolled by their owners in the Dog Aging Project (DAP) were used to determine the prevalence and severity of anxiety/fear shown by these dogs. Behaviors of anxiety and fearfulness were assessed based on owners’ responses to nine questions. These questions were divided into four multi-question categories (anxiety/fearfulness in response to unfamiliar people, unfamiliar dogs, unfamiliar occurrences in the environment, and grooming). Ratings used by owners were based on a 5-point scale between 0 (no problem) and 4 (extreme fear). Data were analyzed to determine the prevalence of this problem at each rating level. Overall, 91.0% of dogs in the study received at least one rating of level 2 (mild/moderate fear/anxiety) or higher in severity across all nine questions. Specifically, the studied dogs were reported to show fear/anxiety toward unfamiliar people (22.3% of dogs); unfamiliar dogs (47.4%); unfamiliar situations, objects, or noise (25.5%); and grooming (33.0%).