https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:3705 Why Do People Choose a Particular Dog? A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Factors Owners Consider Important When Acquiring a Dog, on a Convenience Sample of Austrian Pet Dog Owners Udvarhelyi-Tóth, Kata Mária Kata Mária Udvarhelyi-Tóth Iotchev, Ivaylo B. Ivaylo B. Iotchev Kubinyi, Eniko Eniko Kubinyi 0000-0002-4468-9845 Turcsán, Borbála Borbála Turcsán 0000-0002-0197-5243 MDPI journal article open access eng Selecting a dog that is incompatible with the owner's expectations can negatively impact both parties. Previous studies on dog acquisition have primarily focused on shelter environments, using closed-ended questions to assess hypothetical preferences. In contrast, our study employed open-ended questions with a convenience sample of Austrian dog owners (N = 1077) to retrospectively explore why the owners chose their dogs. We also examined consistency in owners' responses and the influence of owner characteristics (age, education, household composition, previous dog experience, purpose of acquisition) on their reasons. Content analysis revealed 24 codes; the frequency of codes was 2.4/response. The most frequent codes were breed-based choice (29%), choosing on a whim, without careful consideration (24%), work/sport skills (22%), and rescuing a dog (17%). The least frequent were the age (1%), health (1%), sex (1%), and guarding skills (0.6%) of the dog. Twelve codes were consistent over time, and ten were consistent across dogs, indicating that the owners showed a consistent preference for certain traits. Except for the owner's education level, all characteristics affected the likelihood of mentioning at least one code. Most associations were found with the presence of children in the household: owners with children preferred friendly, easily manageable, and easy-to-train dogs and were less likely to adopt or rescue compared to owners living without children. Our findings also highlight discrepancies between spontaneous (free-text) reports and responses to closed-ended questions, underscoring the importance of qualitative data in better understanding the motivations behind and the factors influencing dog acquisition. Animal Shelters Behavior Benefits Welfare Friends http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/api/object/o:3705/download 10.3390/ani14182634 https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:605 application/pdf Animals issn:2076-2615 VoR Animals 14 18 881.05 kB 2024