2.2. Survey
As a representative population for urban and suburban
dog keeping conditions in Austria, registered Viennese dog
owners were selected as study objects. In Austria, the
registration of dogs at the municipality is regulated by law
and around 70% of the dogs living in Vienna are assumed to
be registered in Vienna. 51.392 dogs were registered in
2007 (MA 5, 2008). In January 2007, the Ombuds Office for
Animal Protection sent the questionnaire to a total of 5000
randomly chosen dog owners, comprising approximately
10% from each of the 23 Viennese districts. The questionnaire
was sent with a covering letter and a reply-paid
envelope. The covering letter consisted of a short text to
motivate owners to participate in the study and a coupon
that gave them the opportunity to receive dog food
incentives and to participate in a prize draw sponsored by
an animal nutrition company (Royal Canin Austria). A total
of 1405 questionnaires were returned by March 2007
(response rate 28%). Since the target group of the study was
companion dogs kept in their owner’s living space, we
excluded respondents who mainly kept their dogs in
kennels (n = 1), in separate rooms (n = 8) or in the garden
(n = 8). Dogs that had ‘‘Schutzhund’’ training (n = 42),
which would be likely to change their expression of
aggressive behaviours, and respondents who completed
less than 70% of the items in the dataset (n = 75) were also
excluded from the study. Five of the excluded participants
met more than one exclusion criterion. The remaining
1276 questionnaires were available for analysis.