Personality Test for the Puppies

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     Dogs too have unique personalities. Their personality can be checked at a very young age through a test. When you know your dog's personality it becomes easier for you to train it.

While it is not true that a puppy test allows to you buy a perfect dog, it can definitely help you in bringing home a mentally stable and easy going one. Nevertheless, the experience and training techniques are far more important in the mental and physical development of dog.

There are certain conditions of the puppy test and we shall take a look at them.

- The test has to be performed in a quiet place which does not have any external distractions for the dog. The place should be unknown to the dog.

- The test should be conducted on the puppy when it is between 5 to 7 weeks old. At this age, the puppies are not fully attached with the humans, however their personalities are already built.

- The test should be performed by a person who is a stranger to the puppy, which will ensure that the results are unbiased and trustworthy.

There are several tests that exist for testing the dog's personality. Let's take a look at one such test. This test is known as the Campbell test. This test marks puppies for 5 different criteria.

- Social attraction

- Ability to follow

- Response to obligation

- Social domination

- Acceptance to be lifted

To test social attraction, the dog's reaction is checked by the testing person by sitting at a distance from it. It is checked if the dog approaches the person, if yes then how does he keep his tail, high or low? It is checked if the dog explores his surrounding or he simply tries to run away.

In order to check the dog's ability to follow, the tester will simply put a puppy next to him and walk a little and then check if the dog follows him or not. The other things to be checked are whether the dog jumps while walking or tries to bite the persons ankles. Does the dog keep his distance while following? Or does he simply wander off?

To check how the dog responds to the obligation, he is put on his back on the ground and a hand is placed over his chest. It is checked whether the dog violently tries to bite the hand and get away, or shows initial protest and then calms down or whether he simply lays quiet and tries to lick the person's hand. Be sure to do this on a soft surface or you may injure the dogs back.

During social domination testing, the tester will merely sit close to the puppy and hit it gently. The clues will come from whether they try to bite, climb upon a person's body or just try to run away from the tester.

Finally, for testing how the puppy reacts to being lifted. The dog is lifted from the ground by keeping the arms under his chest so that the puppy doesn't see the person. Here too, it is tested if the dog violently tries to bite the hand and get away, or shows initial protest and then calms down or whether he remains quiet and licks the persons hand.

The combination score of all the areas determine the overall personality of your dog. If you are new to keeping a dog, you should try bringing in a dog who is not very dominant as you may find it difficult to handle it.