| Fear-status |
Binomial (case/control) variable, where the case dog shows fear either towards strangers or in new situations/places, or unfamiliar dogs at minimum 40% of situations and at maximum 100% in both situations. Control dogs are not reported to show fear in any of the above-mentioned circumstances or fear towards strange dogs. The decision to group these social and situation anxieties is based on the initial inspection of data, where all these fears were observed to be significantly correlated (Human & New situation rs = 0.423, p<0.0001 N = 3068; Humans & Dogs rs = 0.420, p<0.0001 N = 3038; Dogs & New situations rs = 0.332, p<0.0001 N = 3009). |
| Noise sensitivity –status |
Binomial (case/control) variable, where case dogs have noise reactivity >0 towards loud noises (thunder, fireworks, gunshot). Control dogs are not reported to show fear in any of the above-mentioned circumstances. |
| Noise reactivity score |
Categorical variable. Describes the frequency and intensity of fearful reactions towards loud noise. Calculated as follows: (sum of fearful behavioral reactions to fireworks) x frequency of fear reaction to fireworks + (sum of fearful behavioral reactions to thunder) x frequency of fear reaction to thunder + (sum of fearful behavioral reactions to gunshot) x frequency of fear reaction to gunshot. |
| Shyness score |
Categorical variable. Describes the frequency showing fear towards unfamiliar people, dogs and in new situations. Calculated as sum of frequencies of showing fear towards strangers + dogs + in new situations. |
| Separation anxiety -status |
Binomial (case/control) variable, which is based only on one question “Does your dog show separation anxiety?” Answers stating that the owners are not certain were excluded from the analysis. |
| Socialization (Environmental factor) |
Categorical variable. The sum variable of frequencies of how much the dog met strange women, men, children, dogs, visited the city, travelled by car or bus, when the dog was between 8–12 weeks of age. |
| Maternal care quality (Environmental factor) |
Categorical variable, which is based on the answers on the question "How did the mother of your dog took care of the puppies?", the owner could choose from the following statements, which were graded into 1–7 scale: (Mother took extremely good care of the puppies and spent a lot of time with the puppies / Mother took good care of the puppies / Mother took relatively good care of the puppies, but sometimes it had to be pushed back to spend time with the puppies / At the beginning, the mother spent some time with its puppies, but later started to avoid being with the puppies / Mother did not want to spent time with the puppies, even at the beginning, but nursed enough, so the puppies were not taken from its mother / Mother did not take care of puppies; puppies were taken to a surrogate mother, or they were bottle fed). In addition, the owner could choose "I don’t know," or "If any of the options was not suitable, please tell in your own words." If the owners only described the behavior in their own words, it was translated into a categorical number (1–7) based on the evaluation of KT. |
| Exercise (Environmental factor) |
Categorical variable. The daily amount of exercise was calculated including the daily time reported in exercise and multiplying this with either: 1 (dog mostly in leash), 2 (part of the walk free and part of the walk in leash), or 4 (free during most of the walk). |
