What is the questionnaire?
Researchers who have been working on a dog guide tool at the University of Nottingham, (UK) have successfully created and tested a questionnaire-style decision tool which can help dog trainers monitor and evaluate a dog’s behaviour. This tool can therefore be used to predict which puppies have a higher percentage of completing dog training. Typically, working dog organizations assess behaviours of dogs they breed to be trained since not all of them are suitable to make a choice.
Tweets about guide dog training
This questionnaire style decision tool is called Puppy Training Supervisor Questionnaire (PTSQ). The tool can successfully predict outcomes of 
young dogs aged 5-12 months with an 84% accuracy. The objective is to identify dogs which are not suitable to become guides early enough before they endure time-consuming and costly formal training. Also, the PTSQ helps guide trainers understand specific behaviours of a young dog to facilitate their training processes in future. Each dog is different, with its own characters and personality mainly influenced by their life experiences. Today, dog trainers use the PTSQ to understand characters and personalities of each young dog to effectively identify dogs that are most suitable for guiding work and vice versa.
The Results
This research evaluated not only the reliability but also the accuracy using this questionnaire-style decision tool. To achieve this, supervisors who train young dogs assessed different but distinct young dogs of 5, 8 and 12 months and then submitted their assessment reports. The results completed by these supervisors were 1,401 in total, and they showed consistency over the three age ranges used. Among the dogs included in the study, about 58% qualified with 27% being unsuited to succeed in guiding work because of their behaviours. 19% were unsuited due to health reasons although some dogs which had exceptional character and temperament were selected to breed.
If the need arises, a follow up can be made in future to know about the working life of the dogs that completed training. This tool has been a breakthrough for dog trainers because now they understand more about dog behaviours at a young age to avoid wasting time and money while training them.