About the Authors

Birgit Deboutte

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Veterinary and Biosciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University, Merelbeke, Belgium

Louis Vandekerckhove

Roles Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Morphology, Imaging, Orthopedics, Rehabilitation and Nutrition, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University, Merelbeke, Belgium

Emmelie Stock

Roles Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Morphology, Imaging, Orthopedics, Rehabilitation and Nutrition, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University, Merelbeke, Belgium

Kaatje Kromhout

Roles Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Morphology, Imaging, Orthopedics, Rehabilitation and Nutrition, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University, Merelbeke, Belgium

Anthony Morin

Roles Data curation, Resources, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Breeding and Canine Development, CESECAH, Clermont-Ferrand, France

Jimmy H. Saunders

Roles Resources, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Veterinary Morphology, Imaging, Orthopedics, Rehabilitation and Nutrition, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University, Merelbeke, Belgium

Luc Peelman

Roles Methodology, Resources, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Veterinary and Biosciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University, Merelbeke, Belgium

Bart J. G. Broeckx

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Bart.Broeckx@UGent.be

Affiliation Department of Veterinary and Biosciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University, Merelbeke, Belgium

Competing Interests

I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: the PhD grant of the first author (B.D) is funded by the chair “Assistance Dogs Purpose Dogs” at Ghent University. This chair is generously funded by the non-profit organization “Purpose Dogs”. The dataset of the Belgian assistance dogs breeding program was from the same organization. They did not influence the analysis, results or report writing in any way. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.