Large samples of dog DNA and behavioral information are hard to come by, so two research projects are asking “citizen scientists” to collect it from their pets.
“We know a lot more about the bodies of our dogs and how they can break down, more than what we know about their brains and behavior,” Hare said. “The reason we do not know about genes involved with brain and behavioral problems is there has never been a large scale study combining behavioral and genetic data on thousands of dogs.”