Scientist proves what we already knew
An article (subscription required to view) in The Economist a while back may be of interest to dog lovers. I have placed a comment (in italics) in the text.
Animal personalities are as clear-cut and distinctive as human ones
SOMETIMES it takes science a while to prove the obvious. Any dog owner could tell you that dogs have personalities, and could describe that of their own pooch. And to be fair to the science of animal behaviour, that would also have been true of any researcher in the field 70 or 80 years ago. But the creed of behaviourism, which began to take over the subject in the 1930s, eschewed such sentimentality. In an attempt to bring rigour to the field, animals were thought of as machines (which, in a sense, they are). [What? Is the author serious?] The analogy, however, was pushed too far, and became doctrinal rather than merely useful. The study of personality differences between individual animals dwindled.
Samuel Gosling, however, is one of a generation of behavioural scientists who not only recognise animal personality, but are reviving the study of it, as he explained to the AAAS meeting. Dr Gosling, who works at the University of Texas, in Austin, studies dogs and hyenas, as well as people. Both dogs and hyenas are social carnivores. And both, he has shown, have lots of personality.
The article goes on to describe the experiments. Dr. Gosling and his team extensively interviewed people about their furry friends’ behaviors. In the end, the researchers were able to sort out some key traits of personality that differ between dogs.
The researchers identified four principal dimensions of canine personality. They are sociability, emotional stability, affection, and “competence” (which is a mixture of intelligence and obedience).
I agree with The Economist that the study was an exercise in proving the obvious. That said, when I consider my friend Buster (currently sitting at my feet), there is no doubting his sociability and affection!
You have questions. 
My dogs sure have a personality! Cookie is a leader type dog. She assumes herself the Top Dog over all dogs that she meets. Almost no dog dares to challenge her. Once on a walk (she was off-leash because she had gotten out of the house and followed me) we went past a fence where a dog was trying to tare the gate down by digging furiously at it so he could meet us. Cookie walked over - head and tail held high, ears standing up straight - and gave that dog a look. The dog stared at her for a minute and continued digging. Then Cookie growled. That dog stopped digging right then and there.
My other dog, Gray Dawntreader, is very submissive. He doesn’t like strangers as much as Cookie, but he likes them. The only time that I’ve ever seem him display dominance is when he and Cookie walk up to the Doberman on the other side of the fence. Treader pretty much ignored the Doberman (all he was interested in was marking at the moment), but when the Doberman tried to get his attention he just growled and continued his work.
Cookie takes advantage of Treader’s submission by bullying him. If I accidentily step on her foot or close a door on her tail, she blames it on Treader. She scares him pretty badly, but she never hurts him. I break up the “fight” and look at Treader and he’s just fine, just shaken up. Treader gets back at her by barking at her when she’s under that desk that I’m sitting at. He knows that she can’t get out unless I scoot my chair back for Cookie. It’s funny! There Treader is barking and there Cookie is - trapped under the desk - and trying to scare him out of his barking fit by threatening him with loud growls. These dogs crack me up sometimes!
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