Dear Akita lovers!

I am a master’s student of Zoology with Animal Behaviour at Bangor University. My current research investigates vocalisation behaviour in the domestic dog, and its potential to vary by breed regardless of individual personality or environment. I am collecting my behavioural data through an owner-directed questionnaire which asks about the typical vocal behaviour of a person’s dog. We ultimately aim to use our findings to reduce the rate of dogs unnecessarily relinquished to shelters due to unmet or violated behavioural expectations.

The Akita represents a unique group within the species, falling within the ‘ancient breeds’ who are much closer genetically to their ancestor, the grey wolf, than modern European breeds. Unfortunately, since the Akita is such a rare breed, they are routinely underrepresented or ignored in empirical studies. Even studies looking specifically at the ancient breeds often analyse samples represented predominantly by Huskies. Often, any data we do have for Akitas cannot be appropriately analysed because there are too few individuals (indeed, we currently have 0 in our data!). To derive meaningful results from our samples, they must be large enough for us to consider the sample representative of the general variability in behaviour exhibited by Akitas. I am also unaware of any vocalisation stereotypes with the breed, so it would be very interesting to see their results in this survey! Your participation in this survey will allow us to properly investigate the vocal behaviour of this unique breed and represent them adequately in at least one part of the domestic dog behaviour field.

The survey is entirely voluntary and anonymous, and requires approximately 10 minutes to complete. We request a photograph of your dog (not containing any people) to verify that the breeds people state are actually what we are analysing. We also request weight and height in kilograms and centimetres. This is just for consistency; you can convert imperial measurements into the metric system if you like, or just make sure to include which system of measurement you're using so I can convert it later! All relevant information is provided on the first page of our survey (before you have to start answering questions).