Prevalence of different aggression types and assessment of related determinants in a population of Iranian domestic dogs

Abstract

Prevalence of different aggression types and some related risk indicators were studied in 434 dogspresented to the School of Veterinary Medicine at Shiraz University over a one-year period (From March2010 to June 2011). After taking case histories and examining all dogs, related questionnaires werecompleted for each dog and the nine classical types of aggression were evaluated. 25.3% of all cases hadbitten at least one person or animal during their life. The most frequent aggression type was conflict(dominance) aggression (36.6%) followed by fear (20.9%) and protectiveness (20.9%) aggression,intraspecific (7.8%), medical (3.9%), redirected (2.6%), pain (2.6%), maternal (2.6%) and predationaggression (1.9%). Sex, age and indoor/outdoor keeping had a significant effect on conflict aggression. Males (P