A dog’s breed doesn’t determine much about its behavior (opens in new tab)

As someone who does research in this area, broadly speaking (behavioral individual differences and genetics), I can't help but wonder how much rater effects are playing a role, or washing out findings. Everything it seems is being studied through the lens of human raters, which presumably would add variance and also might not map onto actual dog behavioral differences very well (on the other hand, if the interest is in human experiences of dog behavior, maybe it is on target).

I've been reading through the paper though and there's a lot there so maybe I just missed something.

I've owned dobermans and golden retrievers, and their personalities diverged significantly in stereotypical ways. I doubt my judgment here is a function of bias, but I wouldn't know, would I?

I also agree with the observation that there is a correlation between dog size and intelligence. Intelligence is certainly a strong personality factor, and size is correlated with breed. I think this helps explain why so many miniature dogs are particularly "yappy".

https://data.world/sharon/what-is-the-correlation-between-do...

"But overall, only around 9 percent of dog behavior was explained by breed."

That's a lot if 9% of the time one breed is trying to lick you while the other is trying to bite you. I could believe that around 91% of the time you can't tell the difference between doberman and golden retriever behavior. It depends on the stimuli.