Dog's personality may not be related to its breed, research finds

A Beagle attends the American Kennel Club Presents The Nation's Most Popular Breeds Of 2015 at AKC Headquarters on February 22, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images) Elizabeth Kelly said her English springer spaniel was "friendly, but she’s also kind of the queen bee." Suly Ortiz described her yellow Lab as "really calm, lazy and shy."And Rachel Kim's mixed-breed dog is "a lot of different dogs, personality wise — super independent, really affectionate with me and my husband, but pretty, pretty suspicious of other people, other dogs."That kind of enthusiasm from pet owners inspired Karlsson’s latest scientific inquiry.

She wanted to know to what extent are behavioral patterns inherited — and how much are dog breeds associated with distinctive and predictable behaviors?The answer: While physical traits such as a greyhound’s long legs or a Dalmatian’s spots are clearly inherited, breed is not a strong predictor of any individual dog’s personality.The researchers' work, published Thursday in the journal Science, marshals a massive dataset to reach these conclusions — the most ever compiled, said Adam Boyko, a geneticist at Cornell University, who was not involved in the study.Dogs became humanity’s best friend more than 14,000 years ago, as the only animal domesticated before the advent of agriculture.But the concept of dog breeds is much more recent.

Around 160 years ago, people began to selectively breed dogs to have certain consistent physical traits, like coat texture and color and ear shape.The researchers surveyed more than 18,000 dog owners and analyzed the genomes of about 2,150 of their dogs to look for patterns.They found that some behaviors — such as howling, pointing and showing.