Ineke van Herwijnen

• Junior Assistant Professor at Utrecht University

Firework (noise) aversion is seen in cats and dogs relatively often and comes with a risk of animal welfare impairment. Affected animals may show behaviours like freezing, hiding, fleeing, but also inappropriate elimination, loss of appetite and (social) withdrawal. In The Netherlands, firework regulation has been a much-debated topic and we aimed...

To examine the dog ownership factors characteristic to a population of dogs confiscated after a human and/ or animal-directed biting incident, we compared bite risk assessment reports of 159 confiscated dogs in the time frame 2008, 2009, 2010 (tf1) and of 215 confiscated dogs in the time frame 2020, 2021, 2022 (until mid-May; tf2). The reports were...

Dogs need to adapt to a human environment to enhance their welfare and to avoid risks of undesired dog behaviour and relinquishment. Crucial to this adaptation may be how an owner interacts with the dog. Owner–dog interactions may be influenced by the human caregiving system with regard to how care, protection and resources are provided. This narra...

Parents raise children in consistent ways, and these parenting styles affect child wellbeing and societal adjustment. Recently, we identified such parenting styles in the owner–dog relationship. Dog owners of the authoritarian- correction orientated (AUC) type stand out for demandingness. Authoritative dog owners adopt either an intrinsic-value ori...

Dog-directed parenting is an aspect of the owner-dog relationship that describes the overarching emotional sphere in which the dog's guidance and training take place. How dog-directed parenting styles express in specific owner-dog interactions is presently unknown. However, such knowledge can help to advise dog owners on appropriate parenting of th...

Overweight/obese dogs are at increased risk of health issues and it is up to the dog owner to uphold successful weight management. In children, overweight relates to their parent’s permissive style of parenting. We predicted that permissive dog-directed parenting likewise associates with a dog being overweight (including obesity). If styles in pare...

Male dogs are often castrated based on the thought that it facilitates well-behavedness. However, the causal evidence for this from prospective studies lacks and the existing associative studies present mixed results depending on the studied behaviours. We aimed to gain insight into possible factors driving an owner’s decision to castrate their mal...

Consistent owner-dog interaction patterns such as dog-directed parenting styles could reflect in the leash tension applied when walking a dog. Rein sensors are commonly used to measure tension applied to a horse's bit and our research aim was to evaluate the performance of this methodology for measuring leash tension. We evaluated the consistency o...

Dog ownership satisfaction relates to the quality of life of both owner and dog, and when seriously compromised may even lead to dog abandonment. Knowledge on determinants of dog ownership satisfaction is limited, obstructing solutions for promoting satisfaction, and here we quantified causes making dog owners less than very satisfied with their do...

Parents interact with children following specific styles, known to influence child development. These styles represent variations in the dimensions of demandingness and responsiveness, resulting in authoritarian, authoritative, permissive or uninvolved parenting. Given the similarities in the parent to child and owner to dog relationships, we deter...

Items measuring the uninvolved parenting style. PSDQ items in the uninvolved style following Blakely Kimble (2009) and Baumrind (2013) (PDF)

Second step 32-item dog-directed PSDQ Principal Component Analysis. Dutch dog owners (N = 518) filled out a 32-item Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ) adapted for assessing dog-directed parenting styles. Answers on a five-point Likert scale were analysed by Principal Components Analysis, omitting items with loadings < │0.4│for the...

32-item child-directed PSDQ Principal Component Analysis. Dutch dog owning parents (N = 518) reported on child-directed parenting in 32 items adapted from the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ). Answers on a five-point Likert scale were analysed by Principal Component Analysis and presented are the loadings ≥ |0.4| and percentages...

62-item dog-directed PSDQ Principal Component Analysis. Dutch dog owning parents (N = 518) reported on dog-directed parenting in 62 items adapted from the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ). Answers on a five-point Likert scale were analysed by Principal Component Analysis and presented are the loadings ≥ |0.4| and percentages of...

Overview of PCA-item loadings. Results of loadings after rotation from PCA-analysis for 32/62-PSDQ (Robinson et al., 1995) and new dog-directed parenting styles in 518 Dutch dog owning parents; presented are the loadings ≥ |0.4|. (PDF)