New Study: Dogs Communicate Situationally Elastic with Humans

They take into account the knowledge level of the humans and their predictable reaction. "Dogs can therefore understand the informational value of their actions," she explains with colleagues in the journal "Frontiers in Psychology".

The researchers asked twenty-one mixed-breed and purebred dogs one after the other to participate in an experiment. One of them hid sausage in one of three boxes, which were hung too high for the animals to reach. The dogs could always watch, but the owners only in half of the cases. The four-legged friends then showed the uninformed owners three times as often where the sausage was hidden compared to the informed ones. The dogs nudged their human partner with their nose and then ran to the respective box or fixed their gaze on it. The owner then went there and gave their best friend the sausage as a reward.

Dogs: Cooperation is Used, Competition Outwitted

Twenty-three more four-legged friends came to another experiment in the area with the three hanging boxes. The owners each hid a sausage in one of them and left. Instead, one of two other women entered: The dogs had previously learned to recognize one as "cooperative" because she gave them sausage. The other was practically a "food competitor" for them, as that woman had eaten the treat in front of their eyes. The dogs not only showed the "cooperative" humans very clearly three times as often in which box the sausage was, but they even avoided glancing at the box with the delicacy when the "competing" woman was in the room.

"The results of this study suggest that the pointing behavior of dogs goes beyond merely signaling the location of the object," the researchers wrote in the publication: "It represents conscious communication aimed at influencing the partner's behavior."

(APA/Red)

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