RESEARCH Temperament test for re-homed dogs validated through direct behavioral observation in shelter and home environment Paola Valsecchi a , Shanis Barnard a , Cinzia Stefanini b , Simona Normando c a Dipartimento di Biologia Evolutiva e Funzionale, Universita`degli Studi di Parma, Parma, Italy; b Associazione Vita da Cani, Arese, Milano, Italy; and c Dipartimento di Scienze Sperimentali Veterinarie, Universita`di Padova, Padova, Italy. KEYWORDS: Canis familiaris; dog; rescue shelter; temperament test; validation procedure Abstract This study was the first attempt to carry out a validation of a temperament test (TT) for shelter dogs that addressed the topics of inter- and intra-raters agreements, test-retest reliability, and validity. The TT consisted of 22 subtests. Each dog was approached and handled by an unfamiliar per- son and made to interact with a same- and an opposite-gender conspecific. Dogs were tested twice in the shelter and once in their new homes 4 months after adoption to evaluate consistency in behavioral assessment. Playfulness, trainability, problem solving abilities, food possessiveness, and reactivity to sudden stimuli were also evaluated. Testers scored dogs’ responses in terms of confidence, fearfulness, and aggressiveness. Results highlighted strengths and limits of this TT that was devised to help shelter staff in matching dogs’ personality and owners’ expectations. Methodological constraints when work- ing with sheltered dogs are unavoidable; however, the test proved to be overall feasible, reliable, and valid although further studies are needed to address the critical issues that emerged. Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Introduction One of the most frequently referenced definitions of temper- ament, borrowed from human psychology, is how an individ- ual reacts to novel or challenging situations (Pervin & John, 1997; Wilson, 1998). A set of related behaviors is considered to be a temperament trait when it is stable and consistent across time and situations, and when its variations are lower within individuals than between individuals (Bell et al., 2009). Individual differences in sociability toward human beings (Brown et al., 2009) and conspecifics (Gibbons et al., 2010), as well as fear (Lansade et al., 2008), are temper- ament traits that can strongly affect both individual welfare (Hansen and Jeppensen, 2006) and productivity of domestic animals (Petherick et al., 2009). Thus, the assessment of tem- perament characteristics of domestic animals has become an issue of wide interest. Among domestic animals, significant attention has been placed on the assessment of temperament in the dog (Svartberg and Forkman, 2002), which is one of the most popular pets living in human households and plays different roles, from companion to social aid. The knowledge of dogs’ temperament can be useful in several situations such as in the selection of dogs for specific tasks (Batt et al., 2008; Sinn et al., 2010) or for breeding (Svobodova ` et al., 2008), in the profiling of sheltered dogs to obtain a good match with Address reprint requests and correspondence: Paola Valsecchi, PhD, Dipartimento di Biologia Evolutiva e Funzionale, Universita ` degli Studi di Parma, Viale Usberti 11/A, 43100 Parma, Italy. E-mail: paolamaria.valsecchi@unipr.it 1558-7878/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jveb.2011.01.002 Journal of Veterinary Behavior (2011) 6, 161-177