Anthrozoös

A multidisciplinary journal of the interactions of people and animals

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Development of the Monash Dog Owner

Relationship Scale (MDORS)

Fleur Dwyer, Pauleen C. Bennett & Grahame J. Coleman

To cite this article: Fleur Dwyer, Pauleen C. Bennett & Grahame J. Coleman (2006)
Development of the Monash Dog Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS), Anthrozoös, 19:3,
243-256

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 Development of the Monash Dog
Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS)
Fleur Dwyer, Pauleen C. Bennett and Grahame J. Coleman
Anthrozoology Research Group, Animal Welfare Science Centre, School of Psychology,
Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine, Monash University,Victoria,Australia

Abstract
With increasing scientific and clinical attention being paid to the formation,
nature and consequences of human–companion animal relationships, there is a
need to develop scales with which to assess such relationships in a rigorous,
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empirically valid manner. Accordingly, the aim in this study was to develop a psy-
chometrically sound, multi-dimensional questionnaire with which to assess
human–companion dog relationships. A multi-step process involving over 1,000
participants resulted in the development of a scale with 28 items, the Monash Dog
Owner Relationship Scale or MDORS. The MDORS has three sub-scales,
Dog–Owner Interaction, Perceived Emotional Closeness, and Perceived Costs,
that appear to be relatively stable and interpretable across participant groups and
that appear to represent important and diverse aspects of the human–companion
dog relationship. It is envisaged that the future use of this scale will allow
researchers to significantly increase our understanding of human–companion dog
relationships by permitting direct comparisons across participant groups drawn
from different demographic or cultural contexts. It may also permit clinicians to
analyze relationships between dog owners and their dogs in more detail and depth
than is possible using existing scales.
Keywords: canine, companion animal, dog, human–animal interaction,
human–animal relationship; pet bonding scale

C ompanion animals are an important part of life in western society. Over 50

percent of households in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United
States of America report owning companion animals (BIS Shrapnel Global
Marketing Intelligence and Forecasting 2003). Recently there has been a surge of
scientific, clinical and public interest in the types of relationships formed between
humans and companion animals. This has resulted in a substantial increase in our
understanding of the nature of human–companion animal relationships (Hart
1995; Beck and Katcher 1996; Podberscek and Gosling 2000), how they are main-
tained and why they fail (Patronek et al. 1996; Marston and Bennett 2003) and,
importantly, the physical, social and psychological consequences of such relation-
ships for both animals and humans (Wilson and Turner 1998; Odendaal and
Meintjes 2003). Despite the advances being made, conducting research in the area
has remained difficult for several reasons. One of these is the lack of appropriate
measurement tools with which to conduct scientific investigations.

Address for correspondence: Dr. P. C. Bennett, School of Psychology, Psychiatry and

Psychological Medicine, Monash University, P.O. Box 197, Caulfield East, Victoria, 3145, Australia.
Ph: +61 3 9903 1144; fax: +61 3 9903 2501; e-mail: [email protected]

Dwyer, et al. Anthrozoös, 19(3) – 2006 243

 In an effort to address this limitation, several attempts have been made to extend
experimental paradigms traditionally used to study human–human relationships to
human–companion animal relationships (Topál et al. 1998). Other researchers have
devised various scales with which to assess the owner’s view of the relationship they
share with a companion animal (Templer et al. 1981; Poresky et al. 1987; Wilson,
Netting, and New 1987; Lago et al. 1988; Johnson, Garrity, and Stallones 1992; Staats
et al. 1996). These technical developments have permitted the field to advance to a
point where it is now possible to develop more sophisticated scales, reflecting our
increasing knowledge of the characteristics of human–animal relationships. With
notable exceptions (Lago et al. 1988; Johnson et al. 1992; Kafer et al. 1992;
Triebenbacher 1999), many of the scales currently being used have not been subject-
ed to rigorous scientific analyses. Those that have been evaluated have frequently
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been found to be psychometrically inadequate, including items that do not have good
statistical properties or that do not load reliably on the various factors presumed to be
represented in the scale. Very few have established reliability and validity. Others
include only a small number of items, the combined semantic content of which may
not adequately reflect the multidimensional nature of the construct being measured.
Indeed, there is often some confusion over the exact construct being addressed.
Some scales, for example, claim to measure attachment to pets (Wilson et al.
1987; Johnson et al. 1992). Within the psychological literature the term ‘attach-
ment’ has a very specific meaning (Ainsworth 1989) and it is not yet established
that this pertains to human–companion animal relationships. Ongoing research is
attempting to clarify the situation (Prato-Previde et al. 2003) but, in the interim, it
is probably not appropriate to assume that humans are “attached” to their com-
panion animals or vice versa, much less that the items in existing scales are able
to measure this elusive concept (Collis and McNicholas 1998). Also, many of the
existing scales understandably focus on the positive aspects of companion animal
ownership. Given the range of relationships observed in the community and the
enormous number of animals relinquished and abandoned on an annual basis
(Marston and Bennett 2003), it may be more appropriate for measurement scales
to attempt to balance questions about the positive aspects of companion animal
ownership with items pertaining to more negative aspects.
Another important limitation with existing scales is that many attempt to meas-
ure the human–companion animal relationship independently of the species of
companion animal owned. This may have been appropriate when the study of
human–companion animal relationships was in its infancy, but it is now established
that the results obtained using some existing scales are confounded by species dif-
ferences. For example, the Pet Attitude Scale (Templer et al. 1981) contains two
items that are clearly more relevant to dogs than to other companion animals. These
items assess feelings of safety and increased exercise due to companion animal
ownership. When they were included in a study conducted by Zasloff (1996), dog
owners, not surprisingly, showed a significantly higher degree of “attachment” to
their companion animal than did other companion animal owners. When the analy-
ses were repeated with the two items deleted, however, there were no differences in
the scores of dog owners and other companion animal owners (Zasloff 1996).
Similarly, the Pet Relationship Scale (Lago et al. 1988) includes the item “I take my
pet along when I go jogging or walking.” If this scale is used to compare different
244 Anthrozoös, 19(3) – 2006 Dwyer, et al.
 types of pet ownership, dog owners are likely to score more highly than those own-
ing other animals, perhaps independently of the nature of any psychological rela-
tionship shared between owner and animal. This must be taken into account when
interpreting any experimental data obtained using the scale.
It was concluded by Zasloff (1996) that clarifying the commonalities and dif-
ferences in human interactions with various companion animal species is impor-
tant. There is a need, therefore, for scales to be developed that permit comparisons
between the owners of different types of companion animals, perhaps by includ-
ing only questions examining the emotional nature of human–companion animal
relationships, rather than items probing shared activities or functions. There is also
a need, however, for scales to be developed that enable relationships with one type
of companion animal to be explored in some depth. Only when the dimensions
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underlying species-specific relationships are established will it be possible to

begin to make valid comparisons across the different species.
Dogs are amongst the most popular companion animals in western society
(BIS Shrapnel Global Marketing Intelligence and Forecasting 2003) and appear to
occupy a unique niche. They have been part of human society for longer than any
other domesticated species (Serpell 1995a) and, although mankind’s relationship
with dogs has fluctuated widely throughout recorded history (Serpell 1995b), at
least some modern humans appear to share a very close relationship with their
companion dog, likened by some people to the relationship between parent and
child or other family members (Phineas 1974; Salmon and Salmon 1983; Beck
and Katcher 1996; Katz 2003). Indeed, many more dogs are now acquired exclu-
sively for the purposes of providing companionship than for any other reason
(Albert and Bulcroft, 1987; 1998; MacCallum and Beaumont 1992; Kobelt et al.
2003). Rather than comparing human relationships with dogs to human relation-
ships with other animals, therefore, it may be appropriate to initially further this
field of enquiry by developing a scale that permits the measurement of
human–companion dog relationships in some depth. To facilitate this process, the
aim in this research was to develop a multi-dimensional scale which could be used
to assess the relationship between owners and their companion dogs.
The starting point for the development of the scale was Social Exchange
Theory, a well established psychological theory specifying that human relation-
ships are maintained only when the perceived costs and benefits are either balanced
or when the perceived benefits outweigh the perceived costs. This theory was first
proposed to apply to human–companion animal relationships by Netting et al.
(1987). Based on this theory, we undertook from the outset to examine both posi-
tive and negative aspects of dog ownership. And rather than taking the approach of
beginning with a human–human relationship theory, such as attachment theory, and
developing items specifically derived from this theory, we attempted to remain as
atheoretical as possible during the initial stages of scale development. We used lit-
erature searches and focus groups to identify relationship dimensions believed to be
relevant and then tested a large number of items on a small pilot sample. The results
from these initial analyses were used to develop a fairly comprehensive scale that
was then administered to a large sample. From this we used statistical techniques,
primarily principal components analysis, to identify the most appropriate items for
inclusion in the final scale, the Monash Dog Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS).
Dwyer, et al. Anthrozoös, 19(3) – 2006 245
 Methods
Participants
As outlined briefly in the introduction, a multi-step process was used to devel-
op the MDORS. Different participants took part in each stage of the process. As
part of the initial development process a focus group was conducted, in which
five participants took part. These were selected on the basis of convenience but
represented both genders (2 male, 3 female) and a range of ages (early 20s to
mid 60s), occupations (vet, council ranger, university lecturer and researcher,
student, retiree) and living situations (single, couple, family). Later, a small
independent sample of 27 persons was used to pilot a preliminary version of the
questionnaire. Because this was a laborious undertaking, the pilot sample was
drawn from amongst the friends, family and work colleagues of the researchers.
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It was fairly heterogeneous, however, with both sexes (11 males, 16 females)
and a wide range of ages represented by the respondents. Four participants were
aged between 18 and 25 years, eleven were between the ages of 26 and 35, three
between 36 and 45, five between 46 and 55 and four over the age of 55. The
respondents were all current or past dog owners and included tradespersons,
professional persons, students and homemakers. The types of dogs owned were
varied, with approximately half mixed-breed and half pure-bred, and a range of
sizes and ages.
For the major part of this study, a large sample of 1125 self-reported dog own-
ers was recruited from dog clubs and veterinary clinics in Victoria, Australia (n =
458), and via the internet (n = 667). There were 216 (19.2%) males and 909
(80.8%) females in the sample. Participant ages ranged from 18 to over 76 years,
with 53.1 percent between 36 and 55 years of age. A large number of participants
in the study (81.4%) reported owning a pure-bred dog, while only 18.5 percent of
them reported owning a mixed-breed dog. A majority owned a dog that they clas-
sified as large (51%), with 21% owning dogs classified as small, 15.3% classified
as medium and 12.6% classified as extra large. The participants had obtained their
dogs from various sources, including breeders (54.2%), pet shops (8.2%), animal
shelters (10.4%) and friends or relatives (8.1%). Most had obtained their current
dog as a puppy, with about half being obtained before or at two months of age and
about 90 percent being obtained by 12 months of age.
Because of the large number of participants, it was decided to split the sam-
ple into three separate sub-samples for statistical analysis. This permitted a visual
comparison of the stability of the factor structure obtained for each sub-sample.
Because there were many more females in the sample than males, it was decided
to split the sample by gender first and then to split the female participants ran-
domly in half. This permitted us to observe if there were substantial differences
between males and females, which would have been obscured by the large num-
ber of females in the overall sample. Having two groups of females of about equal
size provided similar power in each analysis so that the stability of the factor solu-
tions could be assessed in comparable samples, and prevented us from having to
collect an entirely new sample for the purposes of an independent validation study.
The male sample consisted of 216 participants. One female group consisted of 454
participants, the other consisting of 455 participants.

246 Anthrozoös, 19(3) – 2006 Dwyer, et al.

 Procedure
Several literature reviews were conducted in mid 2001 to identify potential dimen-
sions of canine–human relationships. A wide range of search terms were used to
direct these searches, ranging from broad terms such as “human–animal relation-
ship” through to more specific ones like “attachment” and “bonding.” Data bases
included in the searches were Medline, PsychInfo and Biol Abstracts. Potentially
relevant books were also accessed using the Monash University library catalogue,
Amazon.com, and the Internet. Abstracts were used to identify relevant papers and
these were then scrutinized for appropriate material. A comprehensive (20,000
word) literature review was used to organize and summarize the information
obtained. As advised by Beed and Stimson (1985), Poresky (1989) and Parker
(1992), a focus group was then used to confirm the dimensions identified in the
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literature review and to probe for additional dimensions of dog ownership that
may be relevant.
Participants in the focus group were provided with an information pack con-
sisting of a name tag, an explanatory statement and consent form, blank paper and
a pen for writing notes if desired, and five photocopied pictures showing humans
engaging in various emotive activities with dogs (one from Esordi 2000, and four
from Katcher and Beck 1983). The focus group was conducted over one two-hour
session, with the mediator using a pre-developed focus group plan and the photos
provided to guide the session and elicit opinions about the nature of human–com-
panion dog relationships. On the basis of the literature review and focus group dis-
cussion, 192 questionnaire items were constructed. All items were developed in a
multiple-choice format with five forced-choice response options. These varied
according to the nature of the question. For example, for one item “My dog costs
too much money,” the response options were “strongly agree,” “agree,” “neither
agree nor disagree,” “disagree” and “strongly disagree.” For another, “How often
do you hug your dog?” the options were “at least once a day,” “once every few
days,” “once a week,” “once a month” and “never.”
In order to attract a large number of participants to the final study, it was con-
sidered necessary to reduce the initial 192-item pool to a sub-sample of 60 items,
which could be presented on three single-sided pages. A small pilot study using
the initial 192-item questionnaire was therefore conducted with 27 participants
who were asked not only to respond to each item but to indicate, by writing com-
ments on the response form, if they found any item ambiguous, difficult to under-
stand, redundant or otherwise problematic. Several item-selection criteria were
then used to reduce the number of items to a more practical number. First, the pilot
data were subjected to various principal components analyses, with different
parameters being used to explore relationships between the variables. Although
the number of participants was very small, these analyses permitted us to identify
items that were highly inter-correlated with other items (> 0.85). Some of these
were discarded as being redundant. Second, we were also able to examine the opti-
mal factor structure of the questionnaire and, once a three factor model had been
selected, to identify items that loaded strongly on more than one factor (> 0.6) or
that failed to load satisfactorily (< 0.4, Tabachnick and Fidell 1996) on any of the
factors identified in the analysis. These were discarded as being overly complex or

Dwyer, et al. Anthrozoös, 19(3) – 2006 247

 poorly associated with the main factors characterizing human–companion dog
relationships. Third, the variability in responses to each of the items was exam-
ined. If there was no variability (all or almost all of the 27 participants gave the
same response), the item was discarded as being unable to discriminate between
different types or different depths of human–companion dog relationships. For
example, for one item, “I pat my dog,” every participant marked “strongly agree”
as their response. Including this item in the final questionnaire would therefore
have provided no useful discriminative information about the respondent. Finally,
the remaining items were screened to assess whether the participants in the pilot
study had found any of them difficult to understand, ambiguous or problematic to
respond to. Any item that was identified as problematic by two or more of the 27
participants was discarded.
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After items that did not meet the selection criteria were eliminated, there were
still many more items remaining (>100) than was deemed desirable. It also
appeared that the scale was unbalanced, with many more items loading on the
strongest factor than on two subsequent factors. It was not known whether these
factors would be replicated in a larger sample but, to further reduce the number of
items and to attempt to balance the scale, the fifteen highest loading items on each
of the three factors identified in the principal components analysis were identified
and retained. The remaining items were then scanned to ascertain which of them
appeared to be likely to be sensitive to aspects of human–companion dog rela-
tionships not assessed by the items already selected, according to the knowledge
acquired from the literature searches, focus group, and pilot study. This was
inevitably somewhat subjective, but a consultative process was used to select items
deemed most important according to three different researchers, all well informed
about the area of interest. Fifteen additional items were selected for inclusion
using this method, resulting in a total of 60 items being retained. For example, the
item “How often do you wish you did not have a dog?” was retained, despite hav-
ing a high mean score (4.77) and low variance (0.19), despite the fact that it was
left unanswered by one of the 27 participants, and despite the fact that its factor
loading score did not fall within the top 15 items for any of the three factors iden-
tified when all 192 items were entered into the principal components analysis.
This item was thought to be potentially of clinical significance and did load far
more highly on one factor (0.58) than on the other two factors (-0.37 and 0.20),
even in the small sample used for the pilot study.
It was noted that the 60 items identified fell into two groups, one consisting
of items probing factual information, such as “How often do you take your dog in
the car with you?” and “How often do your groom your dog?” and the other con-
sisting of attitudinal items or perceptions of the relationship, such as “My dog
gives me a reason to get up in the morning” and “How often do you think having
a dog is more trouble that it is worth?” For ease of administration these were divid-
ed into two separate parts, the resulting 60-item questionnaire being named the
MDORS-60.
The MDORS-60 was distributed to local dog clubs and veterinary surgeries,
placed on the Internet and advertised in local media and on dog owner e-mail dis-
cussion groups. To analyze the data obtained, the sample was split into three
groups, as described previously. The data from each sub-sample was subjected to
248 Anthrozoös, 19(3) – 2006 Dwyer, et al.
 several principal components analyses, each followed by varimax rotation. This
procedure rotates factors orthogonally, maximizing large loadings and minimizing
small loadings on a given factor so that the detection of a simple structure (each
item loading on one and only one factor) is optimized (Tabachnick and Fidell
1996). The optimal factor structure for each data set, defined as the solution for
which the number of factors best described the data in terms of simple structure
and interpretability, was identified independently. For each data set we then iden-
tified items loading strongly (> 0.6) on more than one factor and items loading
poorly (< 0.4) on all factors. We also ranked each item according to the amount of
variability obtained in each data set.
The factor solutions were then examined for stability across the three sub-
samples. We identified items that loaded on the same factor for each independent
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sub-sample of participants and those that were considered to have reasonable vari-
ability (top 75% of item rankings). When items that loaded strongly on a single
factor, were stable across groups, and had adequate variability in all three sub-
samples had been identified, additional principal components analyses were con-
ducted including only these items.
Results
The literature review process revealed that dog owners, scientists and veterinary
clinicians identify a number of costs and benefits associated with human–canine
relationships. Major perceived costs included the companion animal being messy
and damaging possessions, disrupting normal routines, inducing feelings of guilt
about their behavior, and sometimes favoring one person over another. Some dog
behaviors were also seen to be problematic, the most frequently identified being
aggression, inappropriate elimination behavior, destructive behavior and excessive
noise. The perceived benefits associated with dog ownership appeared to fall with-
in a number of theoretical frameworks, and included improvements in the owner’s
quality of life, physical and psychological health benefits, the provision of social
support, companionship and unconditional love, affectional bonding (sometimes
labeled as attachment), the opportunity to engage in social activities, such as obe-
dience training and dog sports, and opportunities for physical contact. Focus group
members also stressed the importance of the affectionate nature of dogs, being
able to share activities with the dog, having responsibility for the dog, the mone-
tary cost of owning a dog, feeling needed by the dog, physical protection, and feel-
ings of guilt engendered by dog ownership.
When these various dimensions were represented as items on a questionnaire,
reduced and refined according to the procedures described above, and administered
to a large sample as the MDORS-60, it was found that, for the first part of the scale,
probing factual items (“I take my dog in the car with me”), a one factor model was
the most appropriate solution. This factor was interpretable and contained nine items
that met the selection criteria. When the principal components analysis was re-done
using only these items, it was found that the factor structure was the same for all three
independent sub-samples of participants, and that the one-factor solution accounted
for approximately 20 percent of the variance in this part of the questionnaire. The
items and the factor loadings obtained for them across the three sub-samples are pre-
sented in Table 1. These items have been retained as Part I of the MDORS.
Dwyer, et al. Anthrozoös, 19(3) – 2006 249
 Table 1. Factor loadings for the one-factor solution for Part I of the MDORS when
only these items were included in the analysis.

Factor One
Female Female Males
Group 1 Group 2
Items
How often do you play games with your dog? 0.645 0.621 0.628
How often do you take your dog to visit people? 0.574 0.645 0.521
How often do you give your dog food treats? 0.566 0.456 0.603
How often do you kiss your dog? 0.558 0.499 0.518
How often do you take your dog in the car? 0.534 0.656 0.484
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How often do you hug your dog? 0.506 0.470 0.633

How often do you buy your dog presents? 0.506 0.556 0.529
How often do you have your dog with you while
relaxing, i.e., watching TV? 0.493 0.309 0.481
How often do you groom your dog? 0.479 0.468 0.471

When the second part of the MDORS-60 was analyzed, it was found that a
two-factor model provided the most appropriate representation of the data. The
factors were relatively stable, readily interpretable, and the items included within
them had reasonable variability within the sample tested. The first factor, Factor
One, contained items tending to reflect the perceived emotional closeness associ-
ated with companion dog ownership. Items in this factor of “Perceived Emotional
Closeness” relate to social support, bonding, companionship and unconditional
love. Conversely, the items in the second factor, Factor Two, relate to the negative
aspects of companion dog ownership. Items in this “Perceived Costs” factor
address the costs of caring for a companion dog including monetary aspects,
increased responsibility, and restrictions placed on the owner because of the dog.
In the final factor solution Factor One had 10 items and Factor Two had 9 items.
These are presented in Table 2. When a principal components analysis was carried
out with only these 19 items included, it was found that, for both female sub-sam-
ples, the factors remained stable. For males, the factors were the same but one
question (‘How often do you feel that having a dog is more trouble than it is
worth?’) loaded on both factors at greater than 0.32, the commonly accepted
threshold for item loadings on a factor (Tabachnick and Fidell 1996). Because this
item loaded at 0.535 on one factor but only at -0.341 on the second factor in the
male sub-sample, and had been stable across the two larger female sub-samples,
it was deemed to be acceptable and was retained in the final version of the
MDORS. The two factors in Part II of the MDORS accounted for approximately
30% of the variance in this part of the questionnaire.
To ensure that additional factors had not been overlooked in the principal com-
ponents analyses reported, a series of additional analyses were undertaken specify-
ing a set number of factors or using different factor loadings as cut off points for the
inclusion of individual items. The results of these analyses are not shown but, despite
conducting an exhaustive series of analyses, no superior solutions were identified.

250 Anthrozoös, 19(3) – 2006 Dwyer, et al.

 Table 2. Factor loadings for the 19 items retained in Part II of the MDORS, when
only these items were included in the analysis.

Factor One Factor Two

Female Female Males Female Female Males
Group 1 Group 2 Group 1 Group2
Items
My dog helps me get
through tough times. 0.786 0.701 0.662 -0.163 -0.115 -0.218
My dog is there whenever
I need to be comforted. 0.773 0.681 0.741 -0.132 -0.180 -0.182
I would like to have my dog
near me all the time. 0.713 0.722 0.745 -0.233 -0.074 -0.186
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My dog provides me with

constant companionship. 0.694 0.676 0.700 -0.184 -0.167 -0.185
If everyone else left me my
dog would still be there for me. 0.691 0.624 0.594 -0.081 -0.201 -0.072
My dog gives me a reason
to get up in the morning. 0.689 0.600 0.640 -.053 -0.233 -0.218
I wish my dog and I never
had to be apart. 0.687 0.709 0.633 -0.230 -0.167 -0.199
My dog is constantly
attentive to me. 0.548 0.481 0.502 -0.166 -0.127 -0.103
How often do you tell your
dog things you don’t tell
anyone else? 0.535 0.499 0.536 -0.078 -0.034 0.001
How traumatic do you think
it will be for you when your
dog dies? 0.413 0.437 0.665 -0.075 0.018 -0.064
How often do you feel that
looking after your dog
is a chore? -0.151 -0.090 -0.209 0.742 0.703 0.722
It is annoying that I some-
times have to change my
plans because of my dog. -0.180 -0.158 -0.177 0.729 0.767 0.670
It bothers me that my dog
stops me doing things I enj-
oyed doing before I owned it. -0.203 -0.150 -0.226 0.702 0.701 0.573
There are major aspects
of owning a dog I don’t like. -0.162 -0.207 -0.260 0.672 0.632 0.649
How often does your dog
stop you doing things you
want to? 0.020 0.119 0.071 0.660 0.631 0.617
My dog makes too much mess. -0.180 -0.246 -0.097 0.649 0.600 0.581
My dog costs too much
money. -0.072 -0.176 -0.177 0.649 0.526 0.499
How hard is it to look
after your dog? -0.112 -0.083 0.022 0.572 0.594 0.634
How often do you feel that
having a dog is more trouble
than it is worth? -0.253 -0.171 -0.341 0.527 0.650 0.535

Note: Loadings in bold indicate the factor upon which each item loaded most highly.

Dwyer, et al. Anthrozoös, 19(3) – 2006 251

 Finally, a reliability analysis was conducted with the entire sample of 1125
participants. This revealed that Cronbach’s coefficient alphas for both of the sub-
scales in Part II of the questionnaire were above 0.80 (Perceived Emotional
Closeness = 0.84, Perceived Costs = 0.84) and therefore classified as good.
Cronbach’s coefficient alpha for the sub-scale that constitutes Part I of the
MDORS, however, was just below a generally acceptable level of 0.70, attaining
a value of 0.67.
Discussion
The aim in this research was to develop a multi-dimensional scale, which could be
used to assess the perceived relationship between owners and their companion
dogs. The outcome of the study is the MDORS, a 28-item, pencil and paper scale
that requires the respondent to simply select one of five possible responses for
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each item. These are labelled from 1–5 and can be summed to represent sub-scale
scores. The MDORS consists of three sub-scales that can be used independently
or as part of a more comprehensive assessment. It assesses the extent to which
owners and dogs engage in shared activities, the perceived emotional closeness of
the relationship, and the perceived costs of the relationship for the dog owner.
Although further empirical work is required to establish the ecological validi-
ty of the scale and its clinical and empirical relevance, we believe that the MDORS
is unique in being the only available human–companion animal relationship scale
that specifically assesses relationships with one species of companion animal. It is
also, to our knowledge, the only scale that has been developed on the basis of the
statistical properties of the items as well as their theoretical relevance, and it is the
only scale that includes a comprehensive assessment of the perceived costs of com-
panion animal ownership as well as an equivalent analysis of the perceived bene-
fits. The factor structure of the MDORS has been assessed in three independent
samples and found to be consistent. Also, although one of the sub-scales has less
than desirable statistical reliability, the statistical reliability of the other two sub-
scales is strong. It was disappointing that the factors identified did not account for
more of the variance in the final solution than was the case; however, this probably
reflects the complexity of human–companion animal relationships and their diver-
sity. Additional studies are needed to identify other factors within these relation-
ships and efficient ways of eliciting these factors with a simple scale.
The factors found in the development of the MDORS are consistent with
existing literature but add to it. The items in the Dog–Owner Interaction sub-scale
reflect both general activities related to the care of the dog, such as grooming the
dog, and more intimate activities, such as kissing and hugging the dog. Such activ-
ities indicate the amount of time spent together in a relationship as well as the
opportunity for shared emotional experiences and reciprocal interactions, which
are known to be important elements in the formation of affectional bonds (Voith
1985). Within Sub-scale Two, “Perceived Emotional Closeness,” are items relat-
ing to social support, affectional bonding, psychological attachment, companion-
ship and unconditional love. Although all of these characteristics have previously
been identified as important in human–companion dog relationships (Hart 1995;
Beck and Katcher 1996; Podberscek and Gosling 2000), it is theoretically signif-
icant that they fell together in a single factor in our study. Additional research is
252 Anthrozoös, 19(3) – 2006 Dwyer, et al.
 required to establish whether there are multiple dimensions to the perceived affec-
tional relationship between dog and owner, or whether a unidimensional model is
really most suitable.
The emphasis in the scale on the perceived costs of human–companion dog
relationships is somewhat surprising and may be theoretically and clinically sig-
nificant, as much previous work has focused almost exclusively on the perceived
benefits (Wilson and Turner 1998; Newby 1999; Podberscek and Gosling 2000).
Although a decision was made at the outset to specifically include items assessing
the perceived costs, it is instructive that these items remained in the MDORS after
the item reduction processes reduced the number of items from 192 to 28. It seems
that, while many of the other theoretical constructs commonly used to describe
human–companion dog relationships, such as psychological attachment, social
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support, affection and companionship, can be collapsed into one “Perceived

Emotional Support” dimension, owners perceive many costs associated with dog
ownership that are statistically independent of these perceived benefits. Since it is
well established that the maintenance of human–human relationships depends on
the balance between perceived costs and benefits (Netting et al. 1987), the
MDORS may provide a means of establishing at-risk human–companion animal
relationships or predicting which relationships will succeed or fail. Such informa-
tion would be invaluable in clinical settings and in situations where dog owners
are considering whether to retain or relinquish their companion dog. There are also
numerous potential research applications, with researchers being able to compare
sub-scale scores across different demographic groups or before and after some
kind of clinical intervention.
While the procedures used to develop the MDORS were designed to mini-
mize subjectivity in item selection and an emphasis on any particular theoretical
framework, it was impossible to eliminate these influences entirely. In addition, it
should be noted that the MDORS is only suitable for administration to adults, and
only for adults who are current dog owners, able to comment on an existing rela-
tionship. It was not developed to assess human–companion animal relationships
in children, where different facets of the relationship may be important, or to
assess whether a particular person is likely to benefit from dog ownership. Also,
whilst the importance of exploring differences in human–companion dog rela-
tionships due to cultural or social factors is recognized, this scale was directed par-
ticularly towards companion dogs in western societies and should not be used
elsewhere without further research being conducted.
It is highly likely that our sample of participants, while large, was biased by the
methodology used. It has previously been reported that only 24% of dog owners
attend obedience training (Coren 1999) and it seems equally probable that only a
small proportion of dog owners would choose to complete a questionnaire available
in a veterinary surgery or access a survey via a website following media exposure.
We did not analyze differences between participants who completed hard copies of
the questionnaire and those who accessed the website, but this may prove a fruitful
avenue for further research. The applicability of the MDORS to the general popula-
tion of dog owners also awaits further research. Determining the validity of the scale
across a variety of contexts and generating normative data will be the next important
steps in establishing the usefulness of the MDORS. At present the scale can be used
Dwyer, et al. Anthrozoös, 19(3) – 2006 253
 in group settings to determine whether differences in human–companion dog rela-
tionships exist and to investigate patterns in human–companion dog relationships.
The MDORS has no norms, however, so what constitutes an average, high or low
score on each sub-scale remains unknown.
In conclusion, we believe that we have taken an important first step in devel-
oping a multidimensional scale with which to assess the relationship between dog
owners and their current companion dogs. Care has been taken to develop a psy-
chometrically sound scale that addresses both perceived costs and perceived ben-
efits, as well as the extent to which the owner and the dog engage in various shared
activities. We are now conducting additional studies to verify the results, establish
the ecological validity of the MDORS, and develop normative data. It is hoped that
other researchers will also take up the challenge to develop the tools needed to
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extend this exciting area of research.

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