Fig 1.
Schematic representation of the individual questionnaire responses and manual cleaning process prior to full analysis of the survey data.
Households did not have to complete all three linked questionnaires within the overall survey to be included in analyses.
Table 1.
Permitted child-dog interactions collated from caregivers in response to the multiple-choice question “Which of the following is your child/children allowed to do with your dog?” (n = 301).
Table 2.
Caregiver expectations versus realities of puppy training/management soon after acquisition in response to the multiple-choice question “Thinking back to when your dog was a puppy, how did the following aspects of their care meet the expectations you had prior to acquiring them?”.
Table 3.
Impact of previous dog ownership experience on caregiver expectations versus realities of puppy training/management soon after acquisition. Significant differences at the 5% level identified by post-hoc comparisons are highlighted by emboldened text.
Table 4.
Expectations versus reality for child involvement in dog care by caregivers whilst their dog was < 6 months old (n = 335) and at the time of the survey in 2023 (n = 327).
Table 5.
Impact of previous dog ownership experience on caregiver expectations versus realities of child involvement in dog care at the time of the survey. Significant differences at the 5% level identified by post-hoc comparisons are highlighted by emboldened text.