Search

Temperament and Heredity:
Testing Our Puppies’ Temperaments
by Cecilie Strømstad and Henning Lund
Boxerhaven Boxers, Norway

These are some of the things we do to evaluate our puppies’ temperaments. We have also tried some of the tests used to evaluate the temperaments of working dogs here in Norway, but this is more a "homemade" test based on our experience plus elements from various other test systems.

Observations are made all throughout the puppies’ time with us. We start by observing how the puppies behave at two weeks. Optimal behaviour is sleeping as much as possible, finding their mother, eating with determination, then sleeping again. We see that those that are very temperamental at this age will be so in later life as well (some get furious if you lift them up while they are eating). At this age, we see the following behaviours as deviations: crying a lot, using a lot of energy to find their mom, "running" around the whelping box crying, not suckling properly, or sleeping less than their littermates.

3-4 weeks:

Observations are made the first time they are let out of the whelping box -- which one is the first, how far do they go, do they find their way back or just stay out there crying for help? All these behaviours are normal. I haven’t seen anything I would describe as deviations at this stage. At about 4 weeks they are taken into the living room for the first time. We take the pups there one at a time, with no adult dogs present, to see what they will do. Some will hide between our feet at first, some will start investingating the room at once, sniffing around, and others will present all different variations of that behavior.

At 5 weeks we introduce them to the great ourdoors. We put the puppies out one at a time, without humans or other dogs, and stay behind a wall to see what they do. Some will behave as above, and a few will sniff our tracks back to us and find us. Optimal behaviour in these two situations will vary depending on what the dog is intended for -- the very confident puppy that is fine on its own is NOT the best dog for a first time owner. At the same time, we introduce different objects, like the vacuum cleaner, placed on the living room floor where there was no vacuum cleaner yesterday. One puppy at the time is put in the room, and observations made. If they seem confident, we turn on the motor when they have finished investigating it, and walk away a bit, to see what they do. Some will fall flat to the floor, some run for cover, some run back to the vacuum, and so on. Here is where we see how long it takes the pups to overcome their fear. Fear reactions are good and normal, but the puppies need to overcome them.

At around 6 weeks we do the obstacle testing. We have an open dorway from the hall to the living room. We build an obstacle of light materials, which is easy to go through by finding one or two easy ways, but looks solid to the puppy (we test one puppy at a time here, too). We place the puppy in the hall and stay in the living room to see what the puppy does. We have seen all of the following reactions: running straight throught the obstacle; finding a way through or around systematically and quickly by looking for it; pushing randomly at any part of the obstacle; sitting down and screaming for help; or just falling asleep.The interesting part is when you repeat the exercise to see if the puppy has learned anything. :-) The outcome of this test is also very important to us in deciding what the puppy is going to be used for. I will not sell the screaming, helpless little one to an obedience home, and the one that runs straight through the obstacle will not go to a novice home (I like the smart ones myself!!).

At this age we also introduce different noises. This is a group exercise mostly -- we drop pots and pans on the floor, take the pups out and let them hear the neighbour’s Harley Davidson start, see what they do when cars and trucks pass our fence. Again, fear reactions are normal, but the pups need to overcome them.

One of the most important tests is simply observing how the pups interact with our other dogs: How do they respond to play invitations, how do they play, do they respond well to corrections?

We try to motivate most of our puppy buyers to train their boxers to some extent, and some of the more demanding puppies are only sold to people who will train them for obedience or working tests. Most of our dogs have very strong temperaments. I don't think we have bred any I would label as timid or shy, so I wouldn’t know how that would look like in a small puppy.