Has your __dog just always been naturally apprehensive of strangers, even aggressive toward them? Research published in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior suggests that there’s a link between dogs that show a left paw preference and aggression toward people they’ve never met before.
That’s right, dogs, just like humans, can be right-pawed, left-pawed, or ambilaterally pawed (favoring both paws equally). Although, while only a small percentage of humans are left-handed, about 10%, about half of all dogs show a preference for their left paws.
Following ideas hypothesized in the Valence-Specific Hypothesis which states that the right hemisphere of the brain is associated with negative emotion and the left hemisphere is associated with positive, researchers sought to determine if a relationship existed between paw preference and overall temperament. Because left-handed people are generally right-brained, and vice versa, it was assumed that the same hand/brain relationship exists in dogs.
To test for paw preference, 73 pet participants were given a Kong toy stuffed with food and observed while they held the toy. They were then rated on a scale from -100 (strong preference for using left paw) to +100 (strong preference for using right paw). Additionally, a temperament questionnaire was given to each pet parent.
While researchers found no evidence of a relationship between overall temperament and paw preference, they did find one interesting occurrence – those dogs with a high left-paw preference also tended to show a higher level of aggression toward strangers.
Research study co-author Dr. Luke Schneider, a post-doctoral research officer at the University of Adelaide in Australia, told The Huffington Post, “I reported a statistically significant relationship between stranger-directed aggression and the presence of a paw preference. Dogs without a paw preference demonstrated lower aggression scores. When I looked more closely at the dogs with a paw preference, it appeared that it was those dogs with a preference for the left paw that were driving this relationship.”
Schneider said this study shows that human and canine brains are much more alike than originally believed.
So, if your __dog is naturally apprehensive of strangers, even aggressive toward them, it could simply be the way he’s wired!
