Development of a measure of positive and negative aspects of dog owners\u27 attachment to their pets

This thesis describes the development of the Assessment of Dog Owners\u27 Behaviors and Experiences, Version I (ADOBE-I), a multi-scale measure of positive and negative aspects of dog ownership. In Study 1 a pool of 265 items was administered online to 352 participants on Mechanical Turk (M-Turk). Exploratory Factor Analysis of responses was used to construct the ADOBE-I, which includes 58 items and five scales, Dog-Owner Bond, Legal Problems, Hostile Dog, Obedient Dog, and Care for Dog\u27s Health, and one supplemental scale, Dog as Child. In Study 2 the psychometric properties of the ADOBE-I scales were examined in a sample of 96 participants on M-Turk. All ADOBE-I scales except one were found to have adequate to excellent internal reliability. Supporting concurrent validity, the ADOBE-I scales were found to be substantially and meaningfully correlated with other existing pet measures. A series of hypotheses were tested as to why some people develop problematic attachments to their dogs. Contrary to a prediction based on the hoarding theory of dog-owner attachment, the length of time of dog ownership was not significantly correlated with the dog-owner bond. Furthermore, attachment to a dog was not significantly correlated with feelings of loneliness. Lastly, some of the ADOBE-I scales were found to be correlated with the Big Five personality traits. Specifically, the ADOBE-I Care for Dog\u27s Health scale was found to be positively correlated with Conscientiousness, and the ADOBE-I Legal Problems scale and Hostile Dog scale were negatively correlated with Openness and Agreeableness. The ADOBE-2, a revision of the ADOBE-I with several new scales, is also introduced