Scientific based, international protocol for assessing dogs mentality for AAI purpose.
What is PADA?
Personality assessment for dogs in AAI.
Pada is an effective screening test for dogs working in animal-assisted interventions (AAI) based on scientific research. The system allows the selection of dogs based on the appropriateness of its psyche, physical condition and whether the dog is safe to work with. PADA was developed by a group of international experts from Norway, Poland and Hungary.
Personality test of dogs
Personality Assessment for Dogs in Animal Assisted Intervention is a scientific-based method to asses dogs’ mentality. Tests and trials that are used were chosen to show personality traits that we seek in AAI working dogs: (lack of) fearfulness, sociability, responsiveness to training, (lack of) aggression, boldness and activity.
Illustration owned by ICofA
Finding the right answers...
The problem of selecting dogs for work is raised multiple times at conferences and workshops in the AAI milieu. International guidelines contain only general statements about “suitable psyche”, “good physical condition”, and “attitude towards contact with people”. Today if and how these traits are checked, is up to each specific organizations to decide. This means the "quality control" of dogs working in AAI can vary from non existing to scientifically approved testing.
PADA as a first step
Illustration owned by ICofA
PADA measures whether dogs are suitable, and have the right personality to become therapy dogs; however, this is only a pre-selection test, meaning that dogs passing PADA need more training to learn skills needed in AAI. PADA is the first, necessary step for every dog before it can start working. After thorough training, the AAI-team must also pass a practical exam related to which clients the team shall work with.
Not only dogs
As you could notice, PADA refers to domestic animals, and not only dogs. Despite the fact that dogs are the most inserted type of animal in AAI, cats, horses and farm animals are inserted as well and do not diminish any value to the interventions. PADA developed tests for each of these categories.
PADA TEAM
Meet our team of experts who were involved in the research in the PADA project. With the huge, varied experience and different scientific backgrounds, our team developed a useful, efficient tool to test dogs’ personality for AAI.
Ádám Miklósi
Hungary
Director of the Family Dog Project, Eötvös Loránd University. Head of Ethology, Eötvös Loránd University. Dr. Miklósi founded the Family Dog Research Project in 1994. As the first research group to study the behavioral and cognitive aspects of the dog-human relationship, the Family Dog Project is one of the largest dog research groups in the world with over 75 published papers in peer-reviewed journals, and it is widely viewed as the formative research center for dog cognition. Dr. Miklósi's research interests span behavioral lateralization, animal learning and communication, and genetic determinants of behavior.
Mandy van Laar
The Netherlands
President of DAI Academy in The Netherlands
Mandy is the founder and owner of the DAI Academy in The Netherlands in which she offers several courses, workshops and educational material and methods regarding dog behavior and dogs in Animal Assisted Interventions. She is educated in Veterinary Assistance, Animal Management and Cynological instructor and is a behavioural expert for dogs and dog training. She also offers courses regarding Dog Assisted Coaching, fear of dogs and with many years of experience in AAI, besides being a PADA Evaluator, she is also the first point of contact at international level for everyone in contact with PADA .
Andrea Temesi
Hungary
Andrea is an assistant research fellow at the Department of Ethology at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. She has a degree in biology from the University of Pécs, my PhD is in progress at the Department of Ethology. In her PhD research she was focusing on the effects of the positive-human animal interaction. Took part in the PADA project and in the Genius Word Learning Dog Project.
Christine Olsen
Norway
Co-funder of International Center of Anthrozoology, dr Christine Olsen has a master degree in ethology, higher education in special needs education and rehabilitation, and a PhD in public health focusing on animal-assisted interventions. Her research is frequently cited and is rated in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Almetric. Dr. Olsen is also a dog behaviorist and dog trainer, and screens dogs personality around the Europe. She travels with her lectures about AAI, dog mental test and animal welfare as a speaker on international conferences.
Line Sandstedt
Norway
Line Sandstedt is managing director of the Norwegian Centre of Anthrozoology.
She is a lector in science and a postgraduate in special needs education and coaching. Sandstedt is also a dog behaviourist and dog trainer, and screen dogs personality for AAI. Sandstedt gives courses in dog training both nationally and internationally. She is responsible for all of the education given by Dyrebar Omsorg, both dog training and training of human-animal teams. Line has worked for the organization since 2006.
Judit Abdai
Hungary
Judit Abdai has a PhD in ethology and is currently a research fellow at the MTA-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group in Hungary. Her main research area is animal-robot interaction, and I mostly work with dogs and lately cats. Within animal-robot interaction, she investigates different phenomena, including the perception of inanimate objects as animate, problem solving and jealous behaviour.