Human-animal interaction is suggested to be a main feature within livestock production. The quality of handling, for instance, appears to be greatly depending on the attitudes and behaviour of the stock people. Various studies have been conducted on relationships between human and animals, but few have looked upon differences in human-animal interaction and attitudes between countries. Two countries often discussed in livestock production are The Netherlands and Sweden. It would be of interest to compare these two countries to find out whether (assumed) differences are reflected in the attitudes between animal handlers. The first aim of this study was therefore to determine whether there are differences in the attitude between dairy farmers and dairy stock people in Sweden compared to dairy farmers and dairy stock people in The Netherlands. The second aim was to observe if there are signs of differences in the human-cattle interaction, within a sample of Swedish and Dutch dairy farms. Data on attitudes towards dairy cattle and the work with dairy cattle was obtained by means of a questionnaire based upon ‘Welfare Quality’ material. Questionnaire data were categorized within four validated sub-scales ‘patience during moving’, ‘patience during milking’, ‘importance of contact’ and ‘punish during milking’. Only data from respondents having completed all questions in either questionnaire were used in statistical analysis, i.e. 38 and 61 for Sweden and The Netherlands respectively. Median score and quartiles were calculated for each of the four sub-scales. Data on actual behaviour was obtained by behavioural observations performed on in total six dairy farms. Farms were equally distributed between the two countries and observations were made on three morning and three afternoon milkings per farm. Observed behaviours of humans and animals were categorized by type, nature of human-cattle interaction, i.e. positive/neutral/negative and visual/tactile/vocal. Some of the behaviours observed were excluded from statistical ...