Dogs Watch Human / Human interactions

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minkee
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Dogs Watch Human / Human interactions

Post by minkee »

The study itself seems a bit, well, ropey. Although admittedly I haven't read it in detail, but I think it's a neat thing to think about regardless. Here's the article I read, which also links to some other studies about dogs watching humans:

http://www.popsci.com/article/science/d ... IXdJvwy.30

and here's the research article itself: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi ... ne.0079198

I know that Scout watches our human/human interactions because she'll give us a telling off if she thinks we're cross with each other. I don't know if that counts?
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Nettle
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Re: Dogs Watch Human / Human interactions

Post by Nettle »

Dogs are very astute, as Scout has shown, at interpreting human/human interaction. It's often a safety matter, especially with redirected aggression from the humans. Humans being loud or flaky with each other make a dog feel unsafe.

As for the experiment - the scientists tried hard but ignored certain things that are obvious to doggie people. Such as the dog's incredible sense of smell. That some dogs aren't food-motivated. That dogs know when we are genuine and when we are pretending. That dogs in a strange place with strange people and no owner present are likely to shut down and not want food. They did touch briefly on 'less sociable' dogs being less inclined to follow human communication. I wonder how many of those dogs lived en famille, and how many were yard dogs?

I would have liked to have known the breed mix of the 'discards'. The very high number of discards should have alerted the scientists to the effectiveness/limitations of the experiment.

Really, nothing was proven. The results equate with randomness. It was a brave effort but - as wolf studies have already shown - you can't create a useful experiment using a random mix of dogs and expect it to have relevance to all dogs.

And there was no 'control' experiment.
A dog is never bad or naughty - it is simply being a dog

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minkee
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Re: Dogs Watch Human / Human interactions

Post by minkee »

I wonder if - if the interactions went like this

"Person A - your food is so delicious!" Person A smiles and is happy

"Person B - your food is awful!" Person B scowls and frowns

then the more anxious dogs simply gravitated towards the happy friendly seeming person.


I'm trying to think how Breeze displays any awareness of what's passing between me and another human, but honestly I can't think of much. He seems mostly oblivious unless someone is VERY highly strung or very obviously distraught or so on. Actually there is one human / human activity in which he is very interested but lets just say his interest isn't welcome and the content of that activity isn't suitable for a forum such as this!
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Nettle
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Re: Dogs Watch Human / Human interactions

Post by Nettle »

I think there is a lot of truth in
minkee wrote:the more anxious dogs simply gravitated towards the happy friendly seeming person.
A dog is never bad or naughty - it is simply being a dog

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