PONE-D-21-15770Public attitudes towards free-roaming dogs and dog ownership practices in Bulgaria, Italy, and UkrainePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Smith,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

For details please see the reviewer reports below.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

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I Anna S Olsson, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: With much interest I have read and reviewed the manuscript on the study of ‘Public attitudes towards free-roaming dogs and dog ownership practices in Bulgaria, Italy, and Ukraine’. The study discusses 1) feelings, thoughts and preferences regarding stray/free roaming dogs, which are studied as attitudes towards these dogs, 2) the practice of neutering owned dogs and allowing owned dogs to roam, which are studied as dog ownership practices. The study also determines 3) dog acquisition and abandonment practices. Data was collected in three countries, descriptive data is presented and the three topics are studied for associations with demographic variables, including country of origin of the respondent and for associations with for instance feelings of fear for stray/free roaming dogs.

I would recommend the study to be accepted for submission by PloSOne and feel the study has value as it covers a study area that is of much relevance to dog welfare and the animal-human bond. A strong point of the study is that it was done in three countries, allowing for comparison between these countries’ respondents. Yet, the manuscript would benefit from some improvements, for which I would suggest:

Abstract

• Would you have enough words left to add information on the study method? The abstract now moves from aim (line 21) directly to results (line 23).

• Line 27 indicates associations between ‘public attitudes and dog ownership practices’. However, is it not 1) associations between attitudes and gender (…) and 2) associations between dog ownership practices and gender (…) that you studied?

• Line 30 and 33: are the studied variables jointly leading to higher probabilities or separately? You now use the word ‘and’. Would ‘or’ be a better choice?

• Please consider a different final sentence for the abstract. The current choice suggests something that was not studied and working cohesively towards a shared goal may require another approach than stated here.

Introduction

• The final sentence of the first paragraph (line 48-50) doesn’t seem to connect this paragraph to the next. It is not the assessment of management programs that is key to your study, right? The next paragraph is on public attitudes and their role in dog population (management). Therefore, it may help the flow of your text to stay with your topics and to choose a connecting sentence with content on these topics. (As to avoid that the reader expects the next paragraph to provide details on assessment of population management). A similar disruption of text flow is in line 64-65. Here ‘Reduction in numbers (…) disease control (20-22)’, hints upon the (out of scope) topic of carrying capacity. However, you wish to discuss the role of public attitudes. Perhaps rephrase to something like: ‘Without a change in demand for dogs in the community, new dogs may be bought, adopted or not prevented from moving into a community. The latter shift in dog populations may be consequential to the community’s habitat offering food, shelter, and/or social requirements’. (And check if the references still apply.)

• In line with the suggestions on terminology below, your readers will be helped by indicating somewhere in the introduction how you define/study ‘attitude’ and ‘ownership practices’ in this study, as both concepts theoretically cover a broad range of factors.

Consistency in terminology and choice thereof

• Please check the manuscript for consistency in terminology and choice thereof. For example, both ‘free-roaming dogs’ and ‘stray’ are used.

• Another example is the use of the word ‘social factors’ in line 37-38 of the abstract, however, is this a correct reflection of the factors that you studied?

• In the introduction: ‘strategies’ or ‘intervention (programme)s’, or both? (line 54 and 56)

• Is the OIE quote formulated as a definition? ‘there should be’ indicates that it is a list of requirements, not a definition?

• Are ‘dog abandonment level and reasons’ dog ownership practices? Are ‘acquisition reasons and manners’ dog ownership practices?

• Line 484: new terminology of ‘culture’: do you need to introduce this new terminology here? Of can you stay closer to one of the terminologies/definitions/concepts previously used/addressed in your study?

Study sample

• Would it be possible to add early on a clarification on the study sample: was it one study sample that was questioned on both topics (attitudes versus ownership practices)? From S2 Table 2 I would conclude that you used one sample and for some questions only the responses of the dog-owners were used. The clarification of variables (eg Table 1) provides the answer in the levels of dog owner versus non-dog owner. However, an earlier clarification would help the reader and please do consider to include the ratio. P.s. You may even reconsider using the word ‘public’ in ‘public attitudes’ in the title. The nature of the study may have attracted only a certain part of ‘the general public’. The study approach of social media targeting may also have affected who is in the sample. Like many studies (on dogs) the female-male ratio is disbalanced in this study also. These matters were discussed nicely in lines 558 onwards, and you may want to opt to adjust the title accordingly.

Data and Methods

• Table 1 indicates percentages of >7.5% missing values for ‘religion’, ‘do not like stray presence’, ‘feel threatened’, would you want to comment on this in the discussion, particularly on the latter two?

Results

• The descriptive analyses are given in percentages with the numbers of overall respondents in line 206. This facilitates readability of the text, but the downside is less accuracy of the info, which would increase by adding (N=xx of xxx).

• In the statistical analyses section subsections are titled with ‘effect of…’ this is correct as it refers to the statistical method/model used, however it may unintentionally suggest a cause-effect relationship to less experienced readers. As PloSOne is open access, you may want to consider to change the titles of the subsections. A minor thing in these titles is that there is some inconsistency in ‘on answer to’, ‘on answering’, ‘on the question’. Shorter, more aligned formatting will help the reader. Please also look at the title on page 18 again: is ‘respondent experience’ precise enough for readers to know what the section is about (and note the dot at the end of the title).

• In Table 2 the description under Model 3 would benefit from adding the topic (of stray dog presence), as was done in the other cells of this row. Some of the lower listed probabilities in this Table have three decimal places, whereas above these all have two (eg final column for children in household ‘0.593’ and see in particular Model 4 – age and below There also seems to be an indication ‘t0’ in column Model 3, 6th row from below).

Discussion

• The first paragraph of the Discussion section on Ownership practices seems to address elements not studied. For instance ‘feeding and vaccination’. Also, was ‘quantifying the prevalence of ownership practices’ key of what you did? In addition: would you not want to mention the attitudes here also?

• The discussion could be more strongly structured. You could opt for a structure of summing up key results and then discussing the findings, after which you discuss limitation. Alternatively, you could present a key result and discuss it. You could also look at stronger starts of each paragraph. For instance, line 402 now starts with ‘There were (…)’ and line 450 with ‘This study found evidence’: such sentence parts make your writing less concise. Consequentially, it is harder for the reader to find the flow or logic between the paragraphs.

• Regarding the content of the discussion:

- Line 404 onwards indicates ‘a lack of public awareness of local shelters’, but a few sentences onwards you indicate how availability of dogs on the streets may affect ‘acquisition’. Yet, without indicating that this could also be an explanation for lesser uptake from shelters, that is if dogs are available more so ‘close by on the street’, why go to a shelter?

- Line 411 re. ‘low number of giving up’: well done that you cite the literature and possible underreporting. An addition could be to reflect a little on how your approach to gather participants may have impacted on your results? (Could these participants have been more highly engaged with their dog or with dog ownership?) You do touch upon this in lines 431 onwards and there is a nice section on it from line 500 onwards, so perhaps by restructuring the Discussion this comment becomes superfluous.

- With regard to line 411 onwards, there are some references on neutering percentages in study samples. It may put your data in perspective? (See for instance Diesel G, Brodbelt D, Laurence C. Survey of veterinary practice policies and opinions on neutering dogs. Vet Rec Open. 2010;166(15):455-458. & Bennett PC, Rohlf VI. Owner-companion dog interactions: Relationships between demographic variables, potentially problematic behaviours, training engagement and shared activities. Appl Anim Behav Sci. 2007;102(1-2):65-84. And this ref may also be of interest: Rohlf VI, Bennett, PC, Toukhsati S, Coleman G. Why do even committed dog owners fail to comply with some responsible ownership practices? Anthrozoös. 2010;23(2):143-155.)

- Lines 450-461: and how about your study’s finding of owners thinking ‘a dog should reproduce at least once’: could lower education levels also mean lesser knowledge of possible effects (and lack thereof) of reproducing on a dog’s health and behaviour? You may have a nice opportunity here to write about attitude, knowledge, skills and behaviour and argument the statement you make later how attitudes need to be addressed as well when aiming for effective dog population management.

- Line 463 onwards: would you not want to link with mental health (next to health)? You can discuss your findings on respondents that were bitten/had family bitten and not liking the presence of stray dogs, which may indicate mental health risks for these respondents?

- Line 476: yes, and why would you anticipate this lower likeliness? Some brief words on more highly engaged dog owners being more likely to partake in studies on dogs (as discussed well in the limitation section)? Well done that you indicate percentages from other studies for comparison: an addition could be to indicate whether the study approaches differed from yours?

- Lines 538-545: You end this interesting paragraph with age as a targeting option. Would you not want to add how the attitude aspect that associated neutering in your study could be addressed specifically?

- Line 548: Mind that questionnaires do not measure on behaviour itself.

Further suggestions

- Abstract (line 20): ‘behaviour and outlook’, but your aim (one sentence lower) regards attitudes of dog owners and non-dog owners & practices of dog owners. Is ‘behaviour and outlook of local communities’ the right step up to your study aim? (Also in line 94 of the Introduction).

- Abstract (line 23 & 26): This study – this questionnaire: you may want to reword it (esthetical reasons only).

- Abstract (line 35): Can your findings help to ‘inform’ or ‘shape’ management interventions?

- Introduction (line 61): ‘these factors’: is it clear to the reader which factors?

- Introduction (line 83): ‘encouraging’ – but note that legislation may have an effect other than or next to an encouraging effect.

- If available, indications of ‘other reasons’ (eg Results line 239) would be informative when percentages are high.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript that details dog ownership behaviors and attitudes towards free-roaming dogs in Bulgaria, Italy, and Ukraine. The study employed an online questionnaire and recruited participants via social media. The data showed differences in self-reported behaviors and attitudes between countries, and found statistically significant associations between demographic factors such as age, gender, education, and the measured outcomes.

The submitted article satisfies PLOS ONE’s 7 publication criteria. It is very well written and technically sound, and the limitations are adequately addressed in the discussion. There are a few instances in which the authors draw conclusions or make statements that go beyond the reach of their data, but this can be easily fixed with minor editing.

Going beyond the data: At several points in the manuscript the authors discuss the efficacy of free-roaming dog population control (e.g., abstract, lines 37, 95), but efficacy was not assessed in their study. They surveyed attitudes and behaviors, then hypothesized how those behaviors might affect efficacy, but they did not assess it as they claim.

Causality is sometimes implied, but causal relationships cannot be determined from the questionnaire data. This is true when the authors describe the relationship between demographic data and attitudes and behavior: I would caution against saying there was a “significant effect of gender/age/education/feeling threatened” on response variables because cause and effect were not assessed. Instead, I suggest saying there was a statistically significant association between gender/age/etc. and the response variable.

I have concerns about the advertisements used for recruitment. The four advertisements are very different, and depending on which advertisement a participant saw, their responses may have been biased. For example, Advert 3 includes the language “stray dog overpopulation is a global problem which is of public health, animal welfare and environmental concern,” whereas Advert 1 simply states that they want a wide range of opinions on stray dogs. This is problematic and needs to be addressed in the methods and/or discussion. How were these advertisements distributed? Was Advert 1 used in one country or in one language while Advert 3 was used in another? If so, significant differences cannot necessarily be attributed to region as they could instead be attributed to the condition of the advertisement. If they were randomly distributed across country/language then it may not be a confound, but there could still be an effect of advertisement and this should be discussed.

Line 119 – do you mean Power analysis (instead of sample size)?

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: I.R. van Herwijnen

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Plos review July 2021.docx

PONE-D-21-15770R1Public attitudes towards free-roaming dogs and dog ownership practices in Bulgaria, Italy, and UkrainePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Smith,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

I apologise for the late decision regarding your revised submission; there was some delay in getting responses from the reviewers and January was an unusually busy month when I wasn’t able to dedicate as much time to my editorial commitments as I would have liked. I will do my best to speed up the next steps of the procedure.

I recognise that your revision has addressed nearly all reviewer comments. There are a few remaining issues that need addressing, as you will see detailed at the bottom of this message.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 31 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

I Anna S Olsson, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

This paper presents a questionnaire study carried out in three countries: Ukraine, Italy and Bulgaria. However, the author list represents research institutions in Italy and the UK and international organisations based in Austria and Belgium. Please comment on the absence of Bulgarian and Ukrainian researchers as authors of the paper. Also, please justify the choice of the three countries for the questionnaire study.

Statistical analysis: I’m not familiar with the methods you have used for the statistical analysis, but it seems to me that a justification should be presented for the use of different approaches (Bernoulli logistic regression versus ordinal probit models) depending on which outcome variables you analysed.

Results section overall: I appreciate your detailed and comprehensive presentation of the outcome of the statistical analysis, but for the paper to be accessible to the wider readership that the study topic merits, ideally this presentation should be complemented with a more straightforward summary of the results. Please consider summarizing in words the most important associations that you found, potentially as a first paragraph of the Results section. Your paper is likely to be of interest to practitioners in dog population management (e.g. shelter directors, veterinary officials), and it is important that they are able to read and understand the main findings! 

219-313 For readability, consider only including the percentage of responses, and not the n=x of y, in the written description of the results. You are also presenting these results in figures and supplementary material, and in particular the supplementary material is the best option for the additional detail.

Lines 307 Is the last sentence of the figure legend not redundant?

Line 303 Have you used the term CNR earlier and defined it? If it is – as a I think – used here for the first time it should be written out rather than using the abbreviation.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Dear authors,

Thank you for addressing all comments thoroughly and adequately. I have re-read your manuscript with much interest and look forward to seeing it published.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Ineke R. van Herwijnen

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: R1_Review_Free Roaming Dogs.docx

Public attitudes towards free-roaming dogs and dog ownership practices in Bulgaria, Italy, and Ukraine

PONE-D-21-15770R2

Dear Dr. Smith,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

I Anna S Olsson, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: