Doginburgh Inventory – A study in Royal Society Open Science lays out a home-friendly scoring system for canine pawedness, categorizing dogs as strong or weak left/right-pawed or ambilateral. Researchers say the approach could help standardize how scientists study brain lateralizati
The first time you watch your dog reach. brace. or step—really watch—you start to notice something that can feel oddly personal: a habitual tilt in how they move. Now. a new study gives that instinctive observation a formal place in science. with a test designed to classify dogs by pawedness and a scoring method owners can run at home.
Published Wednesday in Royal Society Open Science. the research from the University of Bari Aldo Moro in Italy introduces a structured paw preference inventory for dogs. The system sorts animals into categories including “strong left-pawed. ” “weak left-pawed. ” “ambilateral. ” “weak right-pawed. ” and “strong right-pawed.” The researchers describe it as the “Doginburgh Inventory. ” named after the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory used for humans.
The point isn’t just to label a dog. It’s to connect movement to the brain. In the study. the authors focus on brain lateralization—the tendency for one side of the brain to handle certain tasks more than the other—and how that relates to behavior. emotions. and cognition. not only in dogs but also across other species.
That logic comes with a familiar twist for anyone who’s seen what “handedness” looks like in people. In humans, the right side of the brain guides the left hand, while the left side controls the right hand. The same relationship is described for dogs.
To make the classification usable, the researchers evaluated dozens of dogs across four tests. Two are “manipulation” tests, and two are locomotion-based. The team frames them as straightforward to repeat at home: “easy to replicate at home. ” according to study co-author Marcello Siniscalchi. a professor of veterinary physiology at the University of Bari Aldo Moro.
In one test, dogs were given a Kong toy—a rubber cone with rounded edges—filled with treats. Researchers recorded which paw the dogs used to stabilize the toy while searching for the food, and they repeated the test several times.
In a second manipulation task, researchers tracked which paw dogs used to reach for treats hidden under furniture such as a couch or bed.
A third test looked at stairs. Dogs were measured for which paw they preferred when moving from sitting at the top of some stairs to traveling down the steps.
The fourth test also involved stepping, but in a different setting: researchers tracked which paw dogs preferred when they stepped down a single ledge during a leashed walk.
To keep the results meaningful, Siniscalchi tells owners not to influence the dog’s movements in any way. If you repeat the leash test, he suggests walking on both sides of your dog to check for consistency. He also warns that the measurement is easy to do. but “be careful. ” and to pay attention to details that could skew results.
Once the four tasks are completed, the study lays out a scoring process that turns each dog’s paw choices into a number. Owners can do the same calculations.
For each task, tally how many times the dog used the right paw (R) and the left paw (L). Then use the equation: (R – L) / (R + L). The study says each task should produce a decimal value between –1 and 1. Multiply that decimal by 100, yielding a number between –100 and 100. That value places the dog into one of five categories for that test: “absolutely left” (–100 to –60). “left” (–60 to –20). neutral (–20 to 20). “right” (20 to 60). or “absolutely right” (60 to 100). Each category corresponds to a value of –2. –1. +1. or +2. which the researchers describe as the dog’s pawedness score for each test.
Combining those results across all four tests is more involved, but the method is spelled out. The researchers say to add up the total positive scores (R) and the total negative scores (L) separately. and then repeat the same equation: (R – L) / (R + L). In an example scenario used in the study. a hypothetical dog scores –1 on the Kong test. +2 on the treat reach test. +2 on the stairs. and 0 on the walking step test. Using the equation given in the study, the calculation becomes (4 – 1) / (4 + 1). Multiply that decimal by 100 again.
Because dogs may not show the same strength of preference across every test, the researchers also factor in consistency. They divided the total number of tests where the dogs showed a paw preference by the total number of tests. For instance, if a dog shows preference in three out of four tests, the consistency score would be 0.75.
The final step multiplies that consistency score by the pawedness number for all tests. In the same example from the study, the overall computation is [(4 – 1) / (4 + 1) × 100] × 0.75 = 45, which the researchers describe as categorizing the dog as “weak right-pawed.”
Even with all that math, the researchers stress that pawedness isn’t uniform across dogs. In the study. some dogs showed a clear left or right preference. but there was no overall trend for pawedness across all the dogs. Dror also points out that dogs may use different paws for different purposes. saying: “It’s interesting to see that. according to the current study. in different situations. dogs may exhibit a different extent of paw preference.” Dror adds that more research is needed to understand why.
For Siniscalchi, the immediate win is standardization. He hopes other scientists adopt the scoring system to “standardize and accelerate research on pawedness in dogs,” calling it “a small starting point.”
Pet owners are also being pulled into the effort. Siniscalchi wants a dataset large enough to match what humans make possible: “We want to have a very. very huge dataset” of paw preference. “like in humans.” If the measurement becomes “widespread” among animal caregivers worldwide. he says. researchers could gather more data to study the phenomenon.
The idea is simple enough to try this weekend—watch which paw your dog uses. don’t steer them. repeat carefully. and keep the numbers straight. But behind the friendly premise is a serious scientific goal: turning everyday animal behavior into comparable measurements that can reveal how brain lateralization may shape the way dogs move. respond. and feel.
dog pawedness Doginburgh Inventory brain lateralization Royal Society Open Science canine behavior animal cognition veterinary physiology paw preference test
So… my dog is probably weak right-pawed then? lol
I read “turns observations into data” and thought it was gonna be like, a chip in the paw or something. But it’s just an at-home scoring thing? Seems kinda pointless unless it actually proves the brain thing.
Wait, so you just watch where they step and then it tells you their brain lateralization?? I guess my dog is ambilateral bc she switches paws when she’s mad. Science is wild.
Dog pawedness inventory sounds like one of those things that will be wrong half the time because dogs don’t do stuff consistently at home. Also “strong” vs “weak” left/right? Like weak paw = bad dog?? I’m confused. I feel like my vet would call it arthritis before any “inventory” would matter.