Investigating the influence of neuter status on paw preference in dogs and cats

ABSTRACT

Motor lateralization is commonly observed through preferential paw use in dogs and cats. Previous studies have uncovered sex-related differences in paw preference, hypothesizing that these differences may be related to sex hormones. The current study aimed to compare neutered and entire individuals to further investigate whether paw preference is influenced by sex hormones. Dog and cat owners were required to fill in a questionnaire with demographic information such as sex and neuter status of their pets. They then carried out two simple paw preference tasks within their homes: a “reaching for food” task and a “reaching for a toy” task. This study revealed an overall preference among the 272 dogs and 137 cats tested to use their right paw in both tasks. In cats, the degree of paw preference (i.e., regardless of the direction) was significantly influenced by an interaction between neuter status and life stage. Also in dogs, both life stage and an interaction between neuter status and life stage tended to influence the degree of paw preference. Post-hoc power analysis revealed a lack of statistical power, suggesting that future studies using a larger sample size are needed to further investigate potential effects of neuter status on paw preference.

KEYWORDS:

• Cat
• dog
• lateralization
• neutering
• paw preference

Acknowledgements

We thank all the willing dog and cat owners who volunteered their time to partake in the study and Dr Tom Pike for his help with the statistical analysis of data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available as Supplementary Material.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.