Association Between Owners’ Attitudes Toward Companion Dogs and Their Opinions on Unprescribed Owner-Administered Injection of Their Dogs

ABSTRACT

The popularity of companion animals in South Korea has increased rapidly in recent years. However, the injection of companion animals with unprescribed vaccines or antibiotic treatments by their owners without veterinary consultation has emerged as a serious animal welfare concern. To develop strategies for addressing this issue, first it is necessary to understand the determinants of such behavior. We considered that direct questioning of dog owners via a survey about their experiences of administering injections would be unreliable, hence an exploration of the determinants of owners’ opinions about self-administered injections was deemed a viable alternative. In this regard, as an exploratory study we conducted an online questionnaire survey that was completed by 654 companion dog owners aged between 19 and 39 years residing in Seoul, South Korea. The questions pertained to the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the owners, their attitudes toward their companion dogs, and their opinions on the provision of unprescribed owner-administered injections. A 5-point Likert scale was used to assess their opinions about unprescribed injections, with responses categorized as negative (disagree, strongly disagree) and non-negative (neutral, agree, strongly agree). Multivariable logistic regressions were used to assess the association of explanatory variables with whether the owners held negative opinions regarding unprescribed owner-administered injections. The results revealed that owners with more favorable attitudes toward their dogs tended to have negative opinions about unprescribed owner-administered injections (odds ratio = 3.50, 95%; confidence interval = 2.42–5.11), but no significant effect of household income. Although further research is required to confirm the causal relationships, improvement of owners’ attitudes toward their companion dogs may be important for addressing the problem of unprescribed injections.

KEYWORDS:

• Companion dogs
• human–animal interaction
• Pet Attitude Scale-Modified
• socioeconomic status
• unprescribed owner-administered injections

Acknowledgements

The authors express their deep gratitude to Dr. Cheol-Yong Hwang and Dr. Goo Jang, professors of the College of Veterinary Medicine, Seoul National University, for advising on the questionnaire development.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Institute of Health and Environment, Seoul National University.