The brachycephalic paradox: The relationship between attitudes, demography, personality, health awareness, and dog-human eye contact

Abstract

Brachycephalic (flat-faced) dogs’ popularity is rising worldwide despite the numerous health problems they often face. This is the brachycephalic paradox which led to a dog welfare crisis. To take meaningful steps in solving this crisis, we need to understand the appealing features of these dogs, and the characteristics of brachycephalic dog enthusiasts. We assumed that individuals who like these dogs have lower knowledge about the associated health problems, a unique personality profile, and highly value the tendency of these dogs to form eye contact with humans. We conducted an online survey with 1156 respondents. A Multinomial Log-linear Model was used to analyse respondents' attitudes towards brachycephalic dogs (positive, negative, or neutral), while a Binomial Generalized Linear Mixed-Effects Model was used to analyse their preference for eye contact with dogs. Some of the results were contrary to our expectations. People with a positive attitude towards brachycephalic dogs associated more health problems with brachycephalism and did not prefer photos of dogs making eye contact (looking into the camera) over those looking away. They were also found to be younger, more often women, have children, lower levels of education, a higher level of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and dog-directed emotional empathy. The results suggest that the tendency of brachycephalic dogs to form eye contact does not play a role in their popularity and that high emotional empathy and knowledge about health problems do not discourage people from liking these dogs. Our study can also serve as a basis for educational campaigns by demonstrating that factual knowledge about health problems alone is not enough to reverse the brachycephalic dog welfare crisis.