Getting A Poodle
Matching Partners
This section describes the art of matching a dog and their human partner through personality characteristics. The text in the page has been extracted from an article Jillian wrote for the International Partipoodle Gazette (Volume 4, Issue 2 - April 2008).
Assessing Personalities
We all know that dogs, like humans, have individual personalities. We also know that sometimes we find a dog who meshes perfectly with us, and we say they are a "once in a lifetime" companion. Yes, they are perfect for us, but they aren't the one and only one we can ever have. By assessing personality types, that perfect match can be made again and again -- and that's how service dogs are placed with the right client.
There are many different modes of assessment, but one that works very well is Wilson Learning's four basic personality styles. The quadrants are analytical, driver, amiable, expressive: everyone shows characteristics from multiple areas (if not all) -- but one or two tend to dominate. Here is a brief description of each social style:
| ANALYTICAL | Slow, quiet, thoughtful, prefers to be on their own, doesn't like physical contact |
| DRIVER | Fast, intense, formal, risk-taker, likes to be in charge, also doesn't like touching |
| AMIABLE | Slow, easy going, quiet, friendly and inviting, forgiving, likes giving hugs |
| EXPRESSIVE | Animated, impatient, creative, focus of attention, funny, back-slapper, etc. |
Amiables usually make the best service dogs, because they naturally want to help out without causing any trouble, are gentle, and get along with everyone. That is what a service dog breeding program focuses on achieving.
To evaluate a person, there is a one-page questionnaire given to five people to fill out who are from different parts of the subject's life (parent, child, boss, co-worker, employee, friend ... ). The questions relate to adaptability, willing to control, buckling under pressure, truthfulness and are on a rating scale of from 1-7 in how strongly the question applies.
For dogs, we use the same questionnaire but only have trainers or other people who have worked directly with the dog fill it out. There are no right or wrong answers, just opinions -- and there must be some truth if that was an impression someone received. The marks are graded, averaged, and graphed.
Most people and dogs can be classified by a primary and a back-up social style, with the back-up being stated first-- an analytical amiable is a gentle, friendly personality that also tends to think things through and make careful decisions.
Matching Partners
When people look for a human significant other, we naturally seek an opposite personality -- that is how a relationship stays balanced. However, in a dog, we are looking for a friend, and especially in the case of a service dog, one who always looks to the person for a cue directing him towards the correct response. Because of this, their social styles should be very similar.
While we are matching personalities, we may as well choose a dog that is slightly less assertive and social so that they naturally defer to their partner's level of interaction between each other and in social situations: this is done by matching the secondary trait of the service dog (who is primarily amiable), with the primary trait of their new partner.
