University of Bari Team Publishes Doginburgh Inventory, a New Test for Canine Paw Preference
The four-task assessment expands paw-preference categories from three to five and links direction and strength of laterality to behaviour and immune response.
Researchers at the University of Bari Aldo Moro published the doginburgh inventory on 2026-06-10 in Royal Society Open Science. The inventory adapts the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory to dogs and uses four tasks to measure both the direction and strength of paw preference. Two manipulation tests require dogs to steady a food-filled Kong toy and to retrieve snacks from under low furniture.
Two movement tests record which paw a dog uses first when descending a five-step staircase from a seated position and when stepping down while walking. Researchers score multiple trials to place each dog in one of five categories: strong left, weak left, ambilateral, weak right or strong right.
Marcello Siniscalchi, a veterinary physiologist who has studied dog laterality for over two decades, said the new method addresses inconsistency in earlier work.
"Over the years, scientists have used different ways to measure paw preference," he said. " Data collected with the inventory show that left-pawed dogs tend to display more pessimistic behaviour and greater caution when taking risks, and that they produce a weaker immune response after rabies vaccination.
Right-pawed sheep-herding dogs have shown heightened aggression toward livestock, while ambilateral dogs appear more anxious during thunderstorms.
The study states that both direction and strength of paw preference affect physiology, immune function and behaviour. One dog tested at home showed a strong left-paw preference; researchers later learned its right paw had been removed after cancer treatment.
The team plans future studies on how age and breed influence paw preference and will compare doginburgh scores with owners’ Edinburgh inventory results to test whether dogs mirror human handedness.
