Advancing canine welfare assessment in kennels: Evaluating the validity of Field Instantaneous Dog Observation (FIDO) scoring in commercial breeding kennels (2025)

Mugenda, L., Shreyer, T., Croney, C.

Abstract

Accurate assessment of social fear in dogs housed in commercial breeding kennels is necessary to inform their behavioral management, including interventions needed to support their welfare. The Field Instantaneous Dog Observation (FIDO) tool, which was developed to quickly identify areas of welfare concern for dogs in commercial kennels, includes a behavioral measure of social fear that has been examined for reliability, but its validity has yet to be established. We therefore investigated: 1) if dogs’ responses to stranger approach changed when they were locked into the inside portions of their pens (to avoid loss of data) versus when free access to the outdoor portions of their pens allowed them to avoid such interactions, and 2) if the dogs’ responses to a stranger’s approach in their home pens were associated with their behavioral responses to an unfamiliar person in an outdoor arena. Eighty pair-housed dogs from four USDA-licensed commercial breeding kennels were tested. Using the FIDO scoring, the dogs’ responses were categorized as red, indicating a fearful response to approach, green, indicating an affiliative or neutral response, and yellow, indicating an ambivalent response. Percentage of agreement and weighted kappa statistics were calculated for the FIDO scores of the dogs when locked indoors or when allowed free outdoor access. Behavioral measures from the arena test, such as latencies to approach the stranger and proximity to the stranger were captured from video, and variables were reduced by applying a principal component (PC) analysis. Multivariate multiple regression analysis was applied using the PCs as outcome variables, and FIDO scores as predictors. Moderate to substantial agreement was found for dogs’ red and green FIDO scores between locked in and free access scoring conditions (all ps ≤. 0023, 95 % CI). Dogs scored as red in their pens using FIDO showed more stranger avoidance in the arena test than dogs scored as green (p = 0.039), indicating the validity of the tool’s assessment of fear in response to approach by an unfamiliar person. This finding suggests that the FIDO tool may be useful in helping to identify dogs whose responses to unfamiliar people suggest a need for intervention to reduce fear of them, a crucial element in supporting their welfare, especially for those intended to be rehomed at the end of their breeding careers.