Abstract
Guide dog puppies are brought up in the families of puppy walkers (PWs) during approximately the first year of their life. We investigated whether there were differences in the undesirable behaviors during puppyhood between the puppies brought up by novel and experienced PWs. Purpose of this investigation is to give every PW proper information and education about puppy behavior and training. A total of 178 PW families (experienced PWs;76, novel PWs;102), were recruited from the Japan Guide Dog Association. They completed a questionnaire when their puppy was 3 months old. That questionnaire had 5 close-ended question (house-breaking, jumping up, barking, pica (non-food item stealing) and pulling on a leash) and open-ended question about other undesirable behaviors. The number of problems were 3 for experienced PWs and 4.2 for novel PWs on average (p < 0.01). "House breaking", "jumping up", "destructiveness" and "play biting toward people" had a significantly higher occurrence ratio in novel PWs (p < 0.01). It was suggested that previous experiences were helpful in these problems. And it was thought that they were able to apply their previous experiences to other dogs in these problems. "Barking", "pica" and "pulling on a leash" showed little difference in the occurrence ratio. It was thought that education and training for the individual was necessary concerning these issues.
