Neophilia and Neophobia in Dogs: How Dogs Respond to the New

1. What Novelty Does to a Dog

1.1 Two Responses to the Same Object

Every animal that lives in a changing environment faces the same problem. Something new can be a resource, such as food, shelter or a play partner, or it can be a danger. Exploring it yields information, and avoiding it reduces risk. Neophilia describes the tendency to approach and investigate what is new. Neophobia describes the tendency to avoid it or to approach it only hesitantly. In the study literature on wolves and dogs, exploration is described as important for gathering information about the environment, while neophobia may reduce exposure to danger but also constrain exploration (Moretti, Hentrup, Kotrschal & Range, 2015).

Both tendencies can be active at once. A dog that stretches its neck toward a strange object, sniffs it with its weight on the hind legs and jumps back when it moves is showing interest and caution in the same few seconds. A single line from "curious" to "fearful" loses exactly this information, which is why the same dog can look bold in one situation and cautious in another (how approach and avoidance compete).

1.2 Approach, Contact and Investigation Are Different Measures

Studies of novelty responses usually record several separate behaviors: whether the animal approaches at all, how quickly it comes within a certain distance, how quickly it touches the object, how long it investigates or manipulates it, and whether it jumps back or flees. These measures do not always move together. In one study of hand-raised wolves and dogs, the two species did not differ in how quickly they approached novel objects, but the wolves were slower to make contact, fled more often and investigated the objects for longer (Moretti et al., 2015). A single number such as "latency to approach" would have missed most of that pattern.

The same study offers a second warning. Six of the thirteen dogs did not approach the object in at least one test, while the wolves always approached. The authors interpreted this as a sign of less interest in the dogs rather than more fear (Moretti et al., 2015). Not approaching can therefore mean avoidance, but it can also mean indifference. Without additional measures, such as fear-related body language or fleeing, the two cannot be told apart.

1.3 How Novelty Is Tested

Two families of tests dominate. In novel object tests, an unfamiliar object is placed in a familiar environment and the animal's behavior toward it is recorded. In choice tests, a new object is offered alongside one or more familiar objects, and the measure is which one the animal chooses, or how long it interacts with each. A methodological review in a recent study notes that neophobia has traditionally been measured by placing food or another motivator near a novel item, whereas neophilia has usually been studied by presenting a novel object outside a foraging context, where the animal has no reason to interact with it other than its novelty (Rivas-Blanco, Gonnet-dit-Revel, Range, Tebbich & Marshall-Pescini, 2025).

A dog that approaches food next to a strange object is weighing hunger against caution. A dog that plays with a new toy rather than an old one is showing a preference for novelty. The two tests answer different questions.

2. The Basic Finding: Dogs Like New Things, Briefly

2.1 The Choice Test

The study most often cited for neophilia in dogs is short and small. Seventeen dogs were offered a novel toy in a line-up with two familiar toys. The unfamiliar object was chosen first in 38 of 50 tests, which the authors interpreted as a strong preference for novel over familiar items. They proposed that neophilia may be an adaptive trait that helped dogs adapt to living with humans (Kaulfuß & Mills, 2008).

The preference itself is clear in this sample. The evolutionary explanation remains a hypothesis: a later direct comparison of wolves and differently housed dogs did not find stronger neophilia in dogs (section 3). The title of the paper also points to implications for studies of dog cognition. One implication follows directly from the preference itself: if dogs prefer new objects, then the novelty of the items used in a cognitive task can influence what a dog chooses, independently of what the task is meant to measure. The same idea is discussed in relation to boredom, where the attraction of new objects is one strand of the evidence (what boredom research says about the need for stimulation).

2.2 Interest Fades Quickly

Dogs can show a marked preference for novel toys, but this preference may decline rapidly across repeated presentations. A study of sixteen kennel-housed Labrador retrievers began with the observation that dogs are reported to show "intense but transient neophilia" toward novel objects (Pullen, Merrill & Bradshaw, 2012). The dogs were given one toy repeatedly in 30-second periods until they stopped interacting with it. Then they received a second toy that differed in color, odor or both. Interest returned with the new toy, regardless of which kind of contrast was used. Changing the interval between presentations of the first toy, from ten seconds to ten minutes, did not change how quickly the dogs lost interest. The authors concluded that the dogs habituated to the overall properties of the toy rather than to a single sensory feature (Pullen et al., 2012).

Habituation is a basic learning process, and it explains why a new toy rarely stays new for long (how habituation and sensitization work). The attraction is to the novelty of the object, and once the novelty is gone, so is much of the attraction. The sample was small, of one breed and kept in kennels.

2.3 Novelty Interest Is Not a Pure Measure

In a large personality test battery for companion dogs, the factor labeled "Novelty seeking" was built from reactions to novel objects and distracting stimuli. The authors described it as combining interest in novel stimuli with interest in appetitive stimuli, such as food and a ball (Turcsán et al., 2018). In other words, when interest in the new was measured in pet dogs, it did not separate cleanly from general interest in things that are attractive. A dog that scores high on novelty seeking may simply be a dog that is easily engaged by objects.

3. The Evolutionary Angle in Brief

3.1 Wolves Explore Longer, Dogs Make Contact Sooner

Comparisons between hand-raised wolves and dogs are covered in depth elsewhere (what controlled dog–wolf comparisons show), so only the findings relevant to novelty are summarized here.

In adult animals at the Wolf Science Center in Austria, eleven wolves and thirteen dogs, raised and kept in the same way, were tested with novel objects alone, with a pack mate and with the whole pack. As described above, approach latencies did not differ, but wolves made contact more slowly, fled more often and investigated longer. The authors read this as greater interest in novelty combined with greater neophobia in wolves (Moretti et al., 2015). In puppies from the same facility, seventeen wolves and eighteen mixed-breed dogs were tested in a novel environment at five weeks and with novel objects at six and eight weeks. Wolves were more persistent in exploring both the environment and the objects at all ages, while there were no differences in fear-related behaviors or in time spent near humans (Marshall-Pescini, Virányi, Kubinyi & Range, 2017). The authors concluded that such motivational differences need to be taken into account when the two species are compared in cognitive tasks.

3.2 More Neophilia or Less Neophobia?

The hypothesis that dogs became more neophilic during domestication was tested directly with ten wolves, six pack-living dogs and six pet dogs. After an exposure phase in which one object stayed in the enclosure for several days, the animals were given the now-familiar object together with a new one. There were no apparent differences between the groups in the latency to approach the new object or in which object was approached first. All groups interacted more with the new object (Rivas-Blanco et al., 2025). The authors concluded that, contrary to the hypothesis, they found no difference in neophilia between wolves and dogs, and suggested as a possibility that early dogs may have differed from wolves through reduced neophobia rather than through increased neophilia.

This is a careful conclusion from a very small study with old animals, with mean ages between about eight and eleven years. It shifts the question: if dogs differ from wolves, the difference may lie less in how attractive the new is and more in how threatening it feels.

3.3 A Developmental Shift

A longitudinal study added a developmental angle. Twelve Alaskan huskies from two litters and thirteen gray wolves from three litters, hand-raised from ten days of age, were tested with a different novel object at six, ten, fourteen, eighteen, twenty-two and twenty-six weeks. The expectation had been that wolves would become fearful earlier. Instead, the wolves' fear response toward novelty did not change over time, while the dogs strongly reduced theirs, so that a species difference in the latency to approach appeared from eighteen weeks of age (Hansen Wheat, van der Bijl & Temrin, 2019). There was no species difference in the latency to make contact.

The authors suggested that dogs lose sensitivity toward novelty with age, rather than showing a later onset of fear. With one breed and small litters, this is a hypothesis about development, not an established mechanism.

3.4 What the Comparison Can and Cannot Say

All of these studies used captive, hand-raised animals with small samples. They show how equally raised wolves and dogs differ under the same conditions, not how a family dog of a particular breed responds to a new object at home.

4. Individual Differences: Temperament and Personality

4.1 The Shy–Bold Axis

Personality research in dogs describes consistent individual differences in behavior. A widely cited review sorted the many trait names used in earlier studies into seven broad dimensions: reactivity, fearfulness, activity, sociability, responsiveness to training, submissiveness and aggression (Jones & Gosling, 2005). Responses to novelty do not form a separate dimension in this scheme. They are spread across reactivity and fearfulness, which is one reason the terminology in the novelty literature is inconsistent. The broader framework of temperament and coping styles is covered elsewhere (how temperament and coping styles are defined).

In Swedish work with a standardized behavior test, five traits were described: playfulness, chase-proneness, curiosity/fearlessness, sociability and aggressiveness, with one higher-order dimension interpreted as a shyness–boldness continuum (Svartberg & Forkman, 2002, as summarized by Turcsán et al., 2018). Curiosity/fearlessness is the trait most directly related to novelty in this scheme. Its name already shows the problem: curiosity and the absence of fear were measured as one thing.

Owner surveys use the same concept. An Australian survey described boldness as one end of a shy–bold axis, a "super-trait" influencing several other traits (Starling, Branson, Thomson & McGreevy, 2013b), and a Finnish study described a shyness–boldness continuum with large variation within and across breeds (Tiira & Lohi, 2015).

4.2 Novelty Seeking in a Test Battery

The Vienna Dog Personality Test, or VIDOPET, was carried out with 217 privately owned Border collies in 15 subtests. Five factors emerged: sociability-obedience, activity-independence, novelty seeking, problem orientation and frustration tolerance (Turcsán et al., 2018). Novelty seeking reflected how interested a dog was in novel objects and distracting stimuli. The authors noted that the situations in their test were relatively mild compared with many earlier personality tests, which often confronted dogs with frightening stimuli. Their novelty seeking factor therefore captures mainly interest in the new, not resistance to fear.

A test with a startling object therefore measures something closer to fearfulness, a test with a quiet, unfamiliar object something closer to curiosity, and the same dog can score differently on the two.

4.3 What Boldness Predicts

Boldness measured in adulthood has some predictive value. In a Swedish data set of 2,655 German Shepherds and Belgian Tervurens, a shyness–boldness dimension assessed at twelve to eighteen months predicted performance in working trials, and bolder dogs also succeeded at a younger age (Svartberg, 2002). This is an association in working-dog breeds tested in a standardized setting. It shows that the dimension is meaningful, not that bolder dogs are generally better dogs.

4.4 Avoidance as the Clearest Signal

Early work with potential guide dogs analyzed many measurements across many stimuli: approach, avoidance, the nature of contact with the stimulus, tail position and posture. Avoidance responses were in most cases the measures most highly correlated with the fearfulness assessed by the guide-dog trainers themselves (Goddard & Beilharz, 1984). Measurements were also more closely correlated when they were based on similar responses, used similar stimuli or were taken close together in time. For novelty responses, this means two things. Avoidance is a more reliable sign of fear than slow approach alone, and a dog's reaction to one kind of new thing predicts its reaction to a very different new thing only to a limited extent.

5. Genes, Breed and Their Limits

5.1 Fearfulness Is Partly Heritable

Genetic contributions to fearfulness were documented early. In the guide-dog population mentioned above, a function measuring general fearfulness showed significant genetic variation and no non-genetic variation between litters. Labradors were the least fearful of the four breeds examined and German shepherds the most, and there was significant genetic variation within breeds (Goddard & Beilharz, 1985). In a Swedish service-dog program, behavioral characteristics measured in an eight-week puppy test showed medium-high to high heritability (Wilsson & Sundgren, 1998).

Heritability describes how much of the variation between individuals in a population, under particular conditions, is associated with genetic differences. It does not say how much of one dog's caution is "genetic", and it does not mean that experience has little effect (what heritability does and does not mean).

5.2 Breed Differences Exist at Group Level

Breed differences in boldness have been reported in owner surveys. In the Australian study, breed and breed group had significant effects on boldness. Retrievers were bolder than flushing and pointing breeds, and tending and loose-eyed herding breeds were bolder than heading and cattle-herding breeds. The authors suggested that historical breed purpose may influence such tendencies (Starling et al., 2013b). An analysis integrating behavioral data from more than 14,000 dogs of 101 breeds with breed-averaged genetic data found high among-breed heritability for 14 behavioral traits (MacLean, Snyder-Mackler, vonHoldt & Serpell, 2019).

5.3 Breed Predicts Little for the Individual Dog

Group differences are not individual predictions. In a study of 18,385 purebred and mixed-breed dogs, 2,155 of which were genotyped, most behavioral traits were heritable, with heritability above 25 percent, but breed explained only 9 percent of the behavioral variation between individual dogs (Morrill et al., 2022). A cautious Labrador and a bold German shepherd are therefore not exceptions to a rule but ordinary members of their breeds. This is the central argument of the article on breed and behavior (why breed is a weak predictor of individual behavior).

In practice: In our experience, it pays to read the individual dog rather than its breed description. Owners of a "confident" breed sometimes see a cautious dog as a failure, and owners of a "sensitive" breed sometimes overlook clear signs of distress as normal for the breed. Both read the label, not the dog.

6. Stable or Changeable?

6.1 What the Meta-Analysis Shows

A meta-analysis of 31 studies found substantial overall consistency of dog personality over time, with a mean correlation of 0.43. Consistency was higher in older dogs, with shorter intervals and when the same measurement tool was used both times. In puppies, fearfulness was among the least consistent dimensions, together with responsiveness to training and sociability; in adults, no differences between dimensions were found (Fratkin, Sinn, Patall & Gosling, 2013).

A correlation of 0.43 means that dogs tend to keep their rank order relative to other dogs, but with considerable room for change. For novelty responses, the meta-analysis suggests that a puppy's fearfulness is a weak guide to the adult dog, while an adult's pattern is somewhat more stable.

6.2 Early Tests Predict Little

Longitudinal data confirm this. In a cohort of Border collies, 99 puppies were tested as neonates, 134 at 40 to 50 days and 50 as adults at one and a half to two years. There was little correspondence between individual behavior in the three tests, and exploratory activity was the only behavior significantly correlated between the puppy and adult tests (Riemer, Müller, Virányi, Huber & Range, 2014). In Swedish service dogs, puppy test results corresponded negligibly with adult performance although the traits were heritable (Wilsson & Sundgren, 1998). In guide dogs, adult fearfulness could be predicted to some degree from fearfulness at three months, with accuracy improving with age (Goddard & Beilharz, 1984). More on this in the article on puppy tests (what puppy tests can and cannot predict).

6.3 The New Does Not Stay New

Novelty responses have a special measurement problem: they change through the test itself. In the VIDOPET, the novelty seeking factor had the lowest test–retest reliability of the five factors. The authors pointed out that the same "novel" objects were used at the retest, so they could be expected to provoke slightly different reactions the second time (Turcsán et al., 2018). In Swedish data, curiosity/fearlessness increased from the first to the second test session, because fearful dogs became more confident when exposed to the same objects and situations a second time (Svartberg, Tapper, Temrin, Radesäter & Thorman, 2005, as summarized by Turcsán et al., 2020).

A second encounter with the same objects was thus associated with more confident behavior in fearful dogs. It also means that a novelty test can only be "novel" once.

7. Experience: Development and Environment

7.1 Very Early Development

Responses to novelty can be observed very early. In free-ranging dog puppies in Morocco, from 14 litters, the puppies were exposed to an unfamiliar human and a novel object at three, five and seven weeks of age; 105 puppies were tested at three weeks, 73 at five and 48 at seven. At three weeks, interaction, activity and tail-wagging toward the novel object predicted similar behaviors toward the human, which the authors took as evidence for a common tendency to approach novel stimuli rather than separate traits for sociability and object exploration (Lazzaroni, Cimarelli, Delaunay, Range & Marshall-Pescini, 2025). Individual consistency was found between three and five weeks but not between five and seven weeks, which the authors linked to the reduced sample at seven weeks or to developmental change.

The following weeks fall into the sensitive period, during which experience is thought to have a particularly strong influence on later responses to the unfamiliar (how the sensitive period shapes the puppy brain); the debate about later fear periods is covered separately (what is known about fear periods). In the hand-raised huskies described above, fear responses to novel objects decreased substantially between six and twenty-six weeks (Hansen Wheat et al., 2019).

7.2 Socialization and Everyday Life

Large owner surveys link fear of novelty to early and current living conditions. In a Finnish questionnaire study of 3,264 family dogs, fearful dogs had experienced fewer socialization experiences and lower quality of maternal care in puppyhood (Tiira & Lohi, 2015). In a later Finnish online survey covering 13,700 pet dogs, 6,945 dogs were included in the analysis of fear of novel situations. Frequent non-social fear, including fear of novel situations, was associated with less socialization during puppyhood, neutering, inexperienced owners, living without other dogs, less frequent participation in activities or training and a more urban environment. Breed differences and a tendency toward more non-social fear in small breeds were also found (Hakanen et al., 2020).

7.3 Association Is Not Cause

These are cross-sectional owner surveys. They show that fear of novelty and certain living conditions occur together, not that the conditions caused the fear. A fearful dog may be taken to fewer activities because it finds them hard, and socialization was reported retrospectively. The findings fit the idea that varied, manageable experience reduces fear of the new, but they cannot show how large any single effect is. The neurobiology of fear and anxiety is covered in a separate article (how anxiety is organized in the brain).

8. Novelty Across the Lifespan

8.1 Novelty Seeking Declines From Middle Age

The clearest age data come from Border collies. In a cross-sectional sample of 217 dogs aged six months to fifteen years, with a longitudinal retest of 37 dogs after an average of 3.8 years, novelty seeking did not change markedly until middle age, roughly three to six years, and then showed a steady linear decline (Turcsán, Wallis, Berczik, Range, Kubinyi & Virányi, 2020). Of all the traits measured, novelty seeking showed the strongest relationship with age. The longitudinal data did not fully confirm the cross-sectional decline, however: only three dogs decreased significantly and one increased. The authors pointed to familiarity with the test stimuli as a confound in longitudinal designs, which is the measurement problem described in section 6.3.

Other data point in the same direction. Boldness decreased with age in the Australian owner survey (Starling, Branson, Thomson & McGreevy, 2013a) and declined linearly in 119 pet dogs older than six years, with no effect of an enriched diet or lifelong training (Chapagain et al., 2020). In laboratory beagles, young dogs spent more time with novel toys and with a person than aged dogs (Siwak, Tapp & Milgram, 2001). The broader pattern is covered elsewhere (how behavior changes with age).

8.2 More Avoidance or Less Interest?

Two studies with family dogs used a moving toy dog as the novel object and came to results that are not identical. In a preliminary outdoor battery with 20 young dogs aged one to five years and 26 old dogs aged ten to fifteen, half of the old dogs but only 20 percent of the young dogs showed no signs of retreat, and 70 percent of the young but only 29 percent of the old dogs looked at the object for nearly the whole test. The authors described the old dogs as showing both less avoidance of and less interest in the novel object (Kubinyi & Iotchev, 2020). In an indoor battery with 20 young and 18 old dogs, each tested twice two weeks apart, the old dogs showed more object avoidance on both occasions, while the young dogs interacted longer with the toy (Piotti, Piseddu, Aguzzoli, Sommese & Kubinyi, 2022). The object interaction measure showed a retest effect, so the authors recommended against using it for repeated measurement.

Both studies agree that older dogs engaged less with the novel object, but they differ on avoidance. With small samples and different settings, the difference may be methodological, and "less avoidance" in an old dog can also mean less reaction overall rather than more confidence. The authors of the indoor study listed sensory decline, pain and other medical conditions among possible causes of anxiety in senior dogs (Piotti et al., 2022).

8.3 When the Change Matters

A gradual decline in interest in new things is part of normal aging in these data. A sudden change, or new fear of things that were familiar, is a different matter. In laboratory beagles, locomotion was highest in cognitively impaired aged dogs, which also showed undirected, stereotypical behavior patterns (Siwak et al., 2001). Cognitive dysfunction is covered in a separate article (how cognitive dysfunction shows in behavior). Sensory loss and pain can also change how a dog responds to its environment.

In practice: We see that older dogs often react more strongly to changes in familiar places, such as furniture that has been moved or a new object on the usual route, than to things in unfamiliar places. That is an observation from practice, not a study finding. When an older dog's reaction to novelty changes noticeably within a short time, a veterinary check, including vision, hearing and pain, makes more sense than training.

9. The Social Side of the New

9.1 Other Dogs as Support

The presence of others changes how dogs deal with the new. In the Wolf Science Center study, both wolves and dogs manipulated novel objects for longer when tested with a pack mate or with the whole pack than when tested alone. Sibling pairs investigated objects for longer than non-sibling pairs. The authors interpreted this as a form of risk sharing (Moretti et al., 2015). These were pack-living animals tested in their own enclosures, and how far the effect carries over to a family dog and its housemate is not known.

9.2 Owners as a Source of Information

Dogs also use people as a source of information about the new. In a social referencing paradigm, the owner gave a positive or negative emotional message about a potentially frightening object, an electric fan. Most dogs, 83 percent, looked referentially at their owner after looking at the object. The emotional message by voice and face alone made little difference to the dogs' behavior, but the owner's own movement did: dogs in the positive group moved closer to the fan and dogs in the negative group moved away, mirroring their owner (Merola, Prato-Previde & Marshall-Pescini, 2012b).

A second study compared owners and strangers as informants. Gaze alternation between the fan and the informant was shown by 62 percent of dogs with the owner and 52 percent with a stranger. With the owner as informant, a positive message led to more time approaching and near the object, and a negative message to longer latencies to approach and interact; with the stranger, fewer differences emerged (Merola, Prato-Previde & Marshall-Pescini, 2012a). Here, voice and face alone did change behavior when the owner was the informant, so the two studies are not fully consistent on this point.

9.3 Where the Owner Moves

The same principle has been shown with people rather than objects. In a study of 72 pet dogs, 36 shepherds and 36 molossoids, an unfamiliar person approached each dog in a neutral manner while the owner stayed still, approached the stranger or retreated. When the owner retreated, the dogs looked at the stranger sooner and took longer before their first contact with the stranger. Males looked to their owner for information less than females, and the molossoid dogs behaved more independently than the shepherds (Duranton, Bedossa & Gaunet, 2016). The wider literature on social referencing and social buffering is covered elsewhere (how dogs use their owners in uncertain situations).

A dog's response to a new thing is therefore not only a property of the dog but also of what the owner does, and in one of the studies the owner's movement carried more information for the dogs than voice and facial expression alone (Merola et al., 2012b). All three studies used single short test situations.

10. Measuring Novelty Responses and Their Confounds

10.1 Test Context and Familiarity

A novel object test only measures the response to the object if everything else is familiar. That is why some studies ran tests in enclosures well known to the animals, so that they would investigate the object and not a new environment (Moretti et al., 2015). In the puppy study, the novel object test was run twice in the same room, which the authors noted may have made the room at least somewhat familiar the second time (Marshall-Pescini et al., 2017). In practice, many tests mix a new place, a new person and a new object, and the dog's behavior then reflects all three.

Familiarity with the test procedure is a second confound: the retest effects described in sections 6.3 and 8.2 show that a novelty test changes the dog that takes it. Using many different objects, such as the 38 objects in the wolf and dog study (Moretti et al., 2015), reduces the influence of a single object but makes results harder to compare across studies.

10.2 Food and Other Motivators

When food is placed near a novel object, the test measures a trade-off, not pure neophobia (Rivas-Blanco et al., 2025). A very food-motivated dog may approach quickly despite fear, and a dog that is not hungry may stay away despite curiosity. The VIDOPET result that novelty seeking combined interest in novel and appetitive stimuli (Turcsán et al., 2018) shows that the same confound exists in tests without food: a dog that likes objects in general will score as more neophilic.

10.3 Questionnaires Versus Tests

Large data sets on fear of novelty come from owner questionnaires. One of the most widely used, the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire, was developed with data from 1,851 dogs and validated with 203 dogs seen for behavior problems, resulting in 11 factors from 68 items (Hsu & Serpell, 2003). Questionnaires capture everyday reactions over a long period and allow sample sizes that no behavior test can reach. They also depend on what owners notice and how they interpret it. Test batteries capture behavior in a controlled moment, with the risk that the moment is unrepresentative. Neither is a direct measure of the dog's inner state, and they answer somewhat different questions.

11. What Follows for Practice

11.1 Introducing New Things

The research supports several principles. Dogs tend to be attracted to novelty (Kaulfuß & Mills, 2008), but contact can be delayed even when approach is not (Moretti et al., 2015). Avoidance is a clearer sign of fear than slow approach (Goddard & Beilharz, 1984). Fearful dogs became more confident when they met the same objects a second time (Svartberg et al., 2005, as summarized by Turcsán et al., 2020), and owners' movement toward or away from a novel object influenced dogs more than voice and face alone (Merola et al., 2012b).

In practice: We let dogs decide on distance and pace when they meet something new. Placing a new object so that the dog can pass it at a distance, look at it and leave again, without being led toward it, works well in our experience. If the owner calmly approaches the object, touches it or sits down near it, many dogs follow in their own time. This is a practical application of the referencing findings, not a tested protocol.

11.2 Toys and Rotation

For toys, the habituation data suggest that interest is renewed by change rather than by a longer break (Pullen et al., 2012), which is the basis for rotating toys instead of leaving them out permanently. The evidence that more toys improve welfare in family dogs is thin. In a controlled study with 47 enrolled companion dogs, seven of which did not complete the study, short-term provision of toys for five minutes a day over twelve days did not significantly change activity, eating speed or a cognitive bias measure, and more complex toys did not differ significantly from less complex ones (Chan, Arellano & Horowitz, 2023). The broader evidence on enrichment is summarized elsewhere (what enrichment research shows for companion dogs).

Rotation therefore makes sense to keep objects interesting, but it is not a proven welfare intervention in itself.

11.3 Helping a Dog That Fears the New

For a dog that finds new things frightening, a standard approach in behavior therapy is systematic desensitization combined with counterconditioning: exposure starts at an intensity the dog can tolerate without fear, and the stimulus is paired with something pleasant (how desensitization and counterconditioning work). The studies in this article did not test such interventions, so they cannot say how effective they are for fear of novelty specifically.

The opposite approach is to lead or pull the dog up to the object and keep it there until it calms down. This can make a dog stand next to the object in the moment. The question is what the dog learns. It may learn that the object is harmless. It may also learn that avoidance does not work and that its owner puts it into situations it cannot leave. The cost may be a dog that freezes rather than relaxes, and an owner who is less useful as a source of security in exactly the situations where the referencing data suggest this matters.

In practice: As a rule of thumb from our work, we look for the distance at which the dog can still look at the new thing, eat and respond to its owner, and work from there. If the dog can no longer eat or react to its owner, we are too close. The right distance differs from dog to dog and from day to day.

11.4 When Caution Is Healthy

Not every cautious dog has a problem. Neophobia may reduce exposure to danger (Moretti et al., 2015), and caution and interest can coexist in the same animal. A dog that looks at a new object for a while, approaches slowly, sniffs and then moves on is showing an adaptive response, not a deficit. Concern is warranted when avoidance is strong and persistent, when the dog does not recover once the stimulus is gone, when it generalizes to many situations or when it restricts everyday life. Fear of novel situations is common in owner surveys (Hakanen et al., 2020), but frequency alone does not make it a disorder.

12. Summary at a Glance

Neophilia, the attraction to the new, and neophobia, the avoidance of it, are separate tendencies that can occur together. Approach, contact, investigation and avoidance are different measures and can point in different directions (Moretti et al., 2015). In a free-choice test, dogs preferred a new toy over familiar ones in most trials (Kaulfuß & Mills, 2008), and interest in a toy faded through habituation and returned with a different toy (Pullen et al., 2012).

Equally raised wolves explored longer and more persistently than dogs but made contact more slowly (Moretti et al., 2015; Marshall-Pescini et al., 2017). In this small sample, the direct neophilia comparison discussed here showed no statistically supported group difference (Rivas-Blanco et al., 2025), and in hand-raised huskies fear responses to novel objects decreased with age while those of wolves did not (Hansen Wheat et al., 2019).

Individual differences are described as a shy–bold axis or as novelty seeking (Svartberg & Forkman, 2002, as summarized by Turcsán et al., 2018; Turcsán et al., 2018). Fearfulness is partly heritable (Goddard & Beilharz, 1985; Wilsson & Sundgren, 1998), but breed explains little of the individual variation (Morrill et al., 2022), and early tests predict little (Riemer et al., 2014). Fearfulness and fear of novel situations were associated with less socialization and less active lives (Tiira & Lohi, 2015; Hakanen et al., 2020). Novelty seeking declines from middle age (Turcsán et al., 2020), and owners and other animals change how dogs respond to the new (Merola et al., 2012a, 2012b; Duranton et al., 2016).

13. Research Gaps and Critical Appraisal

13.1 Small Samples and Special Populations

The experimental core of this literature is small. The choice study tested 17 dogs (Kaulfuß & Mills, 2008), the habituation study 16 kennel-housed Labradors (Pullen et al., 2012), the direct neophilia comparison 10 wolves and 12 dogs (Rivas-Blanco et al., 2025), the developmental study 12 huskies and 13 wolves (Hansen Wheat et al., 2019). Most dog–wolf data come from captive, hand-raised animals at a single facility. These designs answer specific questions well but cannot describe the range of family dogs.

13.2 Single Breeds and Owner Reports

The best personality data on novelty seeking come from Border collies only (Turcsán et al., 2018, 2020). The largest data sets are owner surveys from Finland and Australia (Tiira & Lohi, 2015; Hakanen et al., 2020; Starling et al., 2013a, 2013b), with self-selected participants, retrospective reports and cross-sectional designs. Associations with socialization, urban living or neuter status cannot be interpreted causally. Exclusions, such as an owner declining a novel object test as too stressful for the dog (Turcsán et al., 2020), mean that the most fearful dogs may be underrepresented.

13.3 What Is Being Measured

"Neophilia", "novelty seeking", "curiosity/fearlessness" and "boldness" are related but not identical constructs. Tests that use frightening stimuli measure something closer to fear, tests with mild stimuli something closer to interest (Turcsán et al., 2018). Food near an object turns a novelty test into a trade-off (Rivas-Blanco et al., 2025). Few studies measure physiological indicators alongside behavior, so the emotional state behind approach or avoidance is inferred rather than measured.

13.4 Retest Effects and Longitudinal Data

Novelty is used up by testing. Retest effects were found for novelty-related measures in several studies (Svartberg et al., 2005, as summarized by Turcsán et al., 2020; Turcsán et al., 2018; Piotti et al., 2022). This makes longitudinal studies of novelty responses particularly difficult, and the one large longitudinal data set did not fully confirm the cross-sectional age decline (Turcsán et al., 2020). Studies that track the same dogs from puppyhood to old age with comparable, genuinely novel stimuli are missing.

13.5 Interventions

There are almost no controlled studies of interventions aimed specifically at fear of novelty in family dogs. The practical recommendations in section 11 rest on learning principles, on the social referencing findings and on experience, not on trials that compare methods for this problem. The one controlled toy study found no significant welfare effect over twelve days (Chan et al., 2023), which leaves open whether longer or different forms of novelty provision would have measurable benefits.

14. Conclusion

Dogs respond to the new with a mix of interest and caution. Their attraction to novel objects is real but fades quickly, and it is not clearly stronger than that of wolves. What may distinguish dogs is less a greater love of the new than a greater tolerance of it, which in hand-raised huskies developed during the first months of life. How a particular dog responds depends on a temperament that is partly heritable and moderately stable, on breed only to a small extent, on early and current experience, on age and on the company it is in.

For everyday life, a dog's reaction to a new object is not a fixed character test but a snapshot of a dog in a situation. Interest can be kept alive by change, caution can be eased with time, distance and a calm example, and a cautious dog is often simply a dog that wants information before it acts.

Key Insights (Takeaways)

• Neophilia and neophobia are separate tendencies that can occur at the same time; approach, contact, investigation and avoidance must be measured separately (Moretti et al., 2015).

• In a free-choice test, 17 dogs chose a new toy first in 38 of 50 tests, and in kennel dogs interest in a toy faded through habituation and returned with a different toy (Kaulfuß & Mills, 2008; Pullen et al., 2012).

• A small direct comparison found no greater neophilia in dogs than in wolves; in hand-raised huskies, fear responses to novelty decreased with age, while those of wolves did not (Rivas-Blanco et al., 2025; Hansen Wheat et al., 2019).

• Fearfulness is partly heritable and breeds differ at group level, but breed explained only 9 percent of behavioral variation between individual dogs (Goddard & Beilharz, 1985; Morrill et al., 2022).

• Puppy tests predict little; exploratory activity was the only behavior correlated between puppy and adult tests in one Border collie cohort (Riemer et al., 2014).

• Novelty seeking declined from middle age in Border collies, and older family dogs engaged less with novel objects (Turcsán et al., 2020; Kubinyi & Iotchev, 2020; Piotti et al., 2022).

• Owners' movements toward or away from a novel object or a stranger changed dogs' behavior, in one study more clearly than voice and facial expression alone (Merola et al., 2012b; Duranton et al., 2016).

• Caution toward the new is a normal response; it becomes a problem when avoidance is strong, persistent and restricts the dog's everyday life.

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