4 key behavioral differences between male and female dogs, according to new survey

You’ve probably heard a whole lot of conjecturing about the differences between male and female dogs — maybe your parents told you that girl dogs keep the house tidier, or the guy at the shelter told you boy dogs get too worked up over their fantasy football leagues. Okay, maybe these are ridiculous examples, but there really are a lot of gender myths out there. Now, one of the largest studies on dog behavior is shining some actual good, hard scientific data onto the topic. Citing a September 2025 survey of 50,000 pet parents, Kinship shares how male and female dogs differ in four key ways.

The study is part of the Dog Aging Project (the DAP), a giant initiative that asks pet parents to fill out an annual survey about their dog. Pups of all breeds, ages, and sexes are represented. The DAP calls itself a “community science project” because it relies on the continued participation of thousands of pet parents each year to amass reliable survey numbers.

Pet parents filled out the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire, a widely used survey that asks respondents to answer questions ranking their dog’s behavior on a five-point scale. Researchers classified the answers into four behavioral categories: fear, attention/excitability, aggression, and trainability.