The ‘Doginburgh Inventory’: from hands to paws in assessing canine motor laterality

Domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are one of the most important animal species in comparative laterality research, especially for motor function. However, although paw preference in dogs may vary depending on the task, most studies assess motor laterality based on a single test, and even those using more than one task typically analyse them separately. Moreover, current approaches allow us to determine dogs as left-pawed, right-pawed or ambilateral; they do not identify intermediate categories such as ‘strong’ or ‘weak’. Therefore, we aim to develop a new inventory that integrates indices derived from different motor laterality tests (two manipulation-based: Kong test and food reaching test; and two locomotion-based: stationary first stepping test on stairs and dynamic first stepping test on a transition platform). This new inventory, adapted from the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory used in humans, introduces novel metrics to assess an overall laterality profile in dogs, providing for a more detailed investigation of how motor laterality modulates physiological and cognitive processes in canine species.