Can dogs be left handed?

Can dogs be right- or left-pawed in the same way as humans are right- or left-handed? Short
answer – Yes! How can we find out which they are? Should it affect how we interact with our
dogs? Does it have any other implication on their physical or mental abilities?

Are you right or left-handed? You will have no doubt about your answer. You (or your parents) will
have discovered this when you were very young, probably because of which hand you preferred to
hold a pencil or spoon in. Is it possible for your dog to be right or left-pawed? I’m sure that very few
dog owners are aware that dogs share this trait with us and I’m sure even fewer know which
preference their dog has.

The Science
There have been numerous small-scale studies into this interesting topic, including the University of
Adelaide in Australia (led by Dr Luke Schneider) and scientists at Embark who research canine DNA.
The largest study to date was in 2021 by a research team led by authors Kirsty Laverack and Elisa
Frasnelli of the University of Lincoln in the UK. They analysed data collected in the BBC’s ‘Test Your
Pet’ survey which included almost 18,000 dogs.

The 2021 research team reached some interesting conclusions:

 About 43% of dogs are right-pawed, 31% left-pawed and 26% ambilateral.
 Gender makes a difference too. With females, 60.7% were right-pawed and 39.9% were left.
With males 56.1% were right-pawed and 43.9% left.
 Age is another factor. Older dogs have a higher incidence of being right-pawed than younger
dogs, in the males that were tested.

There has been debate amongst scientists as to whether the dominant paw may actually be based
on the activity the dog is doing. For example, a dog may be right-pawed when playing with a
particular toy and left-pawed when walking. Further research would be necessary to assess this.

The earlier study in Australia (involving only 73 dogs, therefore arguably of limited validity) also
investigated emotional patterns in handedness by looking at various aspects of behaviour such as
excitability, aggression, fearfulness, trainability and sociability. They found that left-pawed dogs
were more likely to show stranger-directed aggression. 

Of course there are many other factors which could also influence this finding such as age, gender, health, past experience and genetic factors.

Dog’s brains seem to be organised in a similar way to humans – the left side of the brain controlling
the right side of the body and vice versa, as well as different areas controlling different emotional
responses. Handedness indicates the dominant side of the brain and there is mixed evidence to
suggest that this affects personality and emotions. For example some researchers found left-handed
people more prone to negative feelings and right-handers more prone to positive feelings and a
study of convicted criminals found a higher incidence of left-handedness than amongst the general
population.

Whether this can be applied accurately to dogs is debatable, although it certainly seems possible.
For example the direction of the tail wag of a dog is determined by whether he is feeling positive or
negative about the situation (positive to the right and negative to the left) and is consistent with the
emotions associated with each half of the brain.

The Embark scientists compared agility dogs with show dogs and found no difference. They also
compared different dog breeds. The only significant finding was that Retrievers showed a much
higher incidence of being left-pawed (72%), but the number of dogs involved in the study was very
small and therefore inconclusive.

Another study found that trainee guide dogs tended to be more successful if they were right-pawed.
This is very interesting and I hope warrants further investigation.

What does all this mean for me and my dog?
Knowing whether your dog is right or left-pawed could potentially give you some insight into their
personality, whether they’re more likely to react positively or negatively in particular situations but,
as already mentioned, other factors such as past experiences, health, age and gender will have at
least as much of an influence and probably more so.

This knowledge could impact how you approach training your dog. For example if you’re trying to
teach your dog to ‘high five’ or ‘wave’ then it would make sense to start with his dominant paw, this
would probably be easier for him initially.

If you would like to find out whether your dog is right or left-pawed, here are a number of
suggestions to try. You will need to repeat each exercise many times and note how he reacts. It’s still
not necessarily conclusive but could certainly give you some interesting insights.

 Fill a Kong toy with something tasty and observe how often your dog uses his right or left
paw to hold it still.
 From a level standing position, see which leg the dog uses to take his first step forward.
 Put a little of the same food into two bowls. Place the bowls at 45 degree angles in front of
the dog and see which one he prefers to go to first.
 When launching themselves up the stairs, into the car or onto the sofa, dogs are more likely
to use their dominant leg to pull themselves up.
 Does your (male) dog always stand on the same leg to pee?
 When your dog circles before settling in their bed, do they always turn in the same
direction?
 If your dog is retrieving a toy, which way do they turn to change direction and return to you
– is it always the same way?

Have fun experimenting!