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Is Your Dog Right-Pawed or Left-Pawed? Here's How to Figure It Out, According to a New Study
Key takeaways
- Isparta et al., Royal Society Open Science, 2026 under CC-BY-4.0 Are you a righty or a lefty?
- Now, scientists have devised a new assessment to measure paw preference in our barking pals, described in a study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science on June 10.
- Studies also indicate that canines with weaker paw preferences seem to react more strongly to loud sounds, and that ambilateral dogs show more traits of aggression and fearfulness.
S. Isparta et al., Royal Society Open Science, 2026 under CC-BY-4.0 Are you a righty or a lefty? That trait—the preference of using one side of the body over another—is known as laterality. And it’s not unique to humans. Dogs, among other animals, also have a favorite paw to use when holding a toy or taking a first step.
Now, scientists have devised a new assessment to measure paw preference in our barking pals, described in a study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science on June 10. They’ve named it the “Doginburgh Inventory” after the test used to examine hand dominance in humans, the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory.
The tool can help researchers understand how brain lateralization relates to “behavior, emotions and cognition, not only in dogs but also in other species,” says Shany Dror, an animal cognition researcher at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, who was not involved in the work, to Jackie Flynn Mogensen at Scientific American.