Italian pointing dogs and the other pointing dog breeds: are there behavioral differences?

According to the Fédération Cynologique Internationale’s nomenclature, all pointing dogs are clustered together into group 7. The aim of this study was to assess if there are behavioral differences between Italian pointing dogs (IPD) and other pointing dog breeds (OPD) belonging to group 7. An online survey was carried out. The questionnaire included information about owner’s data, dog’s data, and dog’s management, together with the Italian version of the Canine Behavioural Assessment and Research Questionnaire(100) (C-BARQ). Eighty owners of IPD and 76 owners of OPD filled in the questionnaire. The two groups were balanced for dogs’ sex, age and housing conditions. Following the C-BARQ scoring method, the answers provided by owners were transformed in scores for 14 categories of canine behavior: stranger, owner and dog directed aggression; dog rivalry; non-social fear; stranger and dog directed fear; touch sensitivity; separation-related behavior; attachment/attention-seeking; trainability; chasing; excitability; energy level. The Mann-Whitney U test (p < 0.05) was used to compare the scores of the two groups for each category. The only statistically significant difference was found for separation-related behaviors, whose scores resulted higher for IPD than for OPD (U = 2120.5, p = 0.048). Results suggest that dogs belonging to group 7 are very similar from a behavioral point of view. However, Italian pointing dogs seem to be more prone to show separation-related problems. Owners and behaviorists should be aware of such predispositions, in order to effectively prevent and treat it.