Built from evidence. Honest about what comes next.

Short literature synthesis

Personality is dimensional, contextual, and species-specific.

Feline studies repeatedly support stable, interpretable differences involving fearfulness or neuroticism, activity and playfulness, human-directed sociability, cat-directed sociability, impulsiveness or regulation, and responses to handling. Large owner-report instruments such as the Feline Five, Fe-BARQ, and Mikkola and colleagues’ seven-trait model do not produce one identical taxonomy; their convergence is most useful at the broader construct level.

Canine research likewise converges around fear or insecurity, activity and excitability, human and dog sociability, responsiveness to training, and behavior regulation. The DPQ, C-BARQ, MCPQ-R, and large Helsinki surveys use different structures and contexts, so the dog assessment preserves dog-specific cooperative responsiveness rather than forcing a mirrored cat model.

Why seven traits?

Seven dimensions give enough breadth to separate meaningfully different everyday patterns without presenting a clinical-length instrument. The cat model covers fear and novelty sensitivity, activity and exploration, human affiliation, cat sociability and tolerance, handling and sensory sensitivity, behavioral regulation, and predatory and play motivation. The dog model covers fear and novelty sensitivity, activity and excitability, human affiliation, dog sociability and tolerance, trainability and cooperative responsiveness, behavioral regulation, and chase and play motivation.

The 40 questions per species are original, observable-behavior items carefully crafted from convergent findings in this literature review. They do not reproduce a published proprietary questionnaire, and the public methodology intentionally does not publish the full item bank.

Scoring in plain language

Caregivers rate usual behavior over four weeks from 0 (“never”) to 4 (“almost always”), or choose “not observed / not applicable.” Behaviorally opposite items are reverse keyed. Each trait is the equal-weight mean of its available items multiplied by 25; at least two-thirds of that trait’s items must be answered. There is no imputation, percentile, rarity, or population comparison.

When safe same-species exposure did not occur, that entire five-item sociability domain is skipped and shown as unavailable. Available raw traits are compared equally with versioned prototype vectors. The closest vector supplies the primary archetype and the next closest supplies a secondary streak.

Limits and safety boundary

Owner report is practical and ecologically useful, but it can reflect opportunity, memory, interpretation, caregiver expectations, age, health, and environment. Young pets and recently known pets may finish, with an explicit caveat. The current item structure, thresholds, prototypes, and recommendation mapping still require independent psychometric study.

Six separate safety questions identify concerns that should not be turned into personality labels. Sudden change, pain, serious biting risk, severe fear, self-injury or repetitive behavior, and sudden toileting changes can prompt veterinary or qualified-behavior guidance. These answers never affect scores or archetypes.