The Adaptation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to the Hierarchy of Dogs’ Needs Using a Consensus Building Approach

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The ability to recognize and meet dogs’ needs is central to providing them with good quality of life and overall welfare. This ability is particularly important for dogs that live in shelters and rescue organizations. Unfortunately, humans often struggle to accurately recognize dogs’ needs because they tend to confuse them with their own needs. To combat that tendency, this study sought to develop an objective framework of dogs’ needs. A well-established model of human needs (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs) was borrowed from the social sciences and adapted to be relevant to dogs for this purpose. This adaption process involved identifying 37 specific dog needs from the scientific literature and grouping those needs into seven need groups. Those need groups were organized into a hierarchy with levels based on their importance. The adapted hierarchy of needs and the original hierarchy were sent to a group of canine science experts. They were asked to assess several aspects of the adapted hierarchy in comparison to the original and give their feedback, largely to ensure that the former adequately represented the scope of dogs’ needs. After three rounds of feedback, the group of experts had reached as close to a consensus as possible on all aspects of the adapted hierarchy except for items pertaining to the prioritization of any need groups for specific dog categories (e.g., senior dogs). The next phase of this project involves the development of a tool to assess dogs’ quality of life before and after they are adopted from shelters and rescue organizations. During that phase, issues of whether any need groups need to be prioritized for specific dog categories will be readdressed. ABSTRACT: It is crucial for good dog welfare that humans be able to accurately and adequately recognize and meet dogs’ needs. However, humans may do a poor job of recognizing dogs’ needs due to their tendency to anthropomorphize. The aim of this study was to develop a framework for dogs’ needs that would help humans to recognize and meet their actual needs, thereby improving dogs’ quality of life. Using the Delphi method, to reach as close to a consensus as possible from an expert panel, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs was adapted to become the Dogs’ Hierarchy of Needs. To do so, the relevant scientific literature was reviewed to identify 37 specific dog needs, which were group into seven need groups. Those groups were then organized onto five need levels, which were as analogous to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as possible. The expert panel was asked to assess various aspects of the adapted hierarchy in comparison to the original, including face validity, whether they agreed with how the need levels were ordered in terms of importance/priority, and whether they felt that any need groups should be more or less prioritized for any specific dog categories (e.g., senior dogs). After three rounds of expert feedback, there was sufficient consensus for all aspects except items pertaining to the prioritization of any need groups for specific dog categories. That aspect of the adapted hierarchy will need to be readdressed in the next phase of this project: the development of a tool to assess the quality of life of dogs that reside in shelters/rescue organizations and post-adoption once they have been rehomed.