The science
What Dogmetry measures
Dogmetry measures personality — the stable ways a dog tends to meet the world — with the Dogmetry Dog Personality Inventory (DDPI): five factors (Sociability, Emotional Reactivity, Energy, Trainability, Boldness), each made of three finer facets, each facet measured by its own questions, from a pool of 75 original items. It measures personality, not behavior problems.
The five-factor structure follows the strongest convergence in the recent dog-personality literature — the same family of models used to understand human personality, adapted to what research shows is measurable in dogs.
Why we ask the owner
The person who knows a dog best is the one holding the leash. Research on owner ratings shows they hold up: owners' judgments of their dogs' personalities align with those of outside observers and with behavioral coding, at levels comparable to how well people judge other people. Every question asks how your dog usually is — not one odd moment.
Why we recommend three sittings
One questionnaire is a snapshot of one day. Dogmetry recommends three sittings, at least a couple of weeks apart, and averages them into a stable profile. Averaging across occasions cancels day-to-day noise — the meta-analytic literature on dog personality consistency shows repeated identical measurement is exactly the condition under which consistency is highest. The spread between your sittings is shown, not hidden: dogs show different sides on different days, and that is information.
Why there are no breed profiles here
A study of over 18,000 dogs found that breed explains only about 9% of the variation in individual dogs' behavior. Your dog is an individual first. That's why Dogmetry compares dogs with all dogs, never against breed stereotypes — and why we call it the honest comparison.
Why comparison is built on 500 dogs
Saying "your dog is bolder than most dogs" requires knowing what most dogs are like — measured with this instrument. We do not borrow numbers from other tests (different questions, different samples, false precision). So we waited: comparison opened only after more than 500 dogs had been measured with the DDPI. Today every percentile comes from a frozen reference of 528 dogs from our validation study — the label on every profile says exactly who is in it — and the reference grows at announced milestones as more Dogmetry dogs join.
Where the science stands
The DDPI has been through two validation waves. The first (171 dogs) established the instrument; the second extended it to 528 dogs across six English-speaking countries and replicated every reliability figure — all five factors between .84 and .92, all fifteen facets at or above .70. That 528-dog pool is the frozen reference behind every comparison, so your dog's percentiles can't drift under you. What's next, honestly: a study of how owners' own personalities color their ratings, and a check that dogs measured in the app match dogs from the panel. We say what we know, and only that.
Building it in the open is the point: every profile makes the underlying science stronger — and research use of data happens only with your explicit, separate consent, always anonymized.
Read the full technical report
How we built and tested the measure — item development, the validation study, the numbers behind every claim on this page. The full technical report (v1.1) — no paywall, no summary spin.