Why Do Even Committed Dog Owners Fail To Comply With Some Responsible Ownership Practices?
This study of 1,016 dog owners investigated the relationship between demographic, attitudinal, and other variables, and responsible dog ownership behaviors to determine why even responsible dog owners sometimes fail to practice responsible behaviors.
Even responsible dog owners sometimes fail to undertake responsible behaviors, including confinement, registration, microchipping, desexing, obedience training, and regular socialization practices. Compliance with these practices was generally high among these owners, but varied dramatically, from 98% for confinement of dogs to 64% for obedience classes. According to this analysis, such behaviors could be predicted from attitudinal and dog-owner relationship variables independent of demographics. Normative expectations were a recurrent predictor of owner compliance.