Amanda Gardner of USA Today has been looking into research about domestic dogs. The January 5 edition of the publication Current Biology reports that when people make eye contact with dogs, the animals are more likely to track the person’s eyes as they move around the room than if no eye contact is made with the dog.
This is approximately equal to the behavior of six-month-old babies, the researchers report.
"These results support the notion that dogs are sensitive to the cues signaling humans' communicative intent in a way that is analogous to preverbal human infants," said study author Jozsef Topal.
A study published in the July 2011 issue of Learning & Behavior showed that domestic dogs were more prone to beg food from someone gazing at them than from someone who was paying no attention to the dog.
Stanley Coren, an expert in dog intelligence, finds that dogs have the development abilities of a two-year-old human. The average dog, he finds, can learn 165 words.
Dogs appear more likely to follow our gaze if we look at them first. Using a high-pitched voice also seems to help. Dogs are less likely to follow our gaze when not looked at directly and when sopoken to in a low-pitched voice.
The USA Today article quotes a researcher: "The [dog's] gaze was only triggered when preceded by communicating intent. It does seem to be that dogs do look at humans and follow gestures," said Dr. Nicholas Dodman, director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in North Grafton, Mass. "This is intuitive to anyone who owns a dog, that dogs seem to be more in tune with us than some scientists believe."
Summarized from:
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/pets/dogs/story/2012-01-05/Like-babies-dogs-pick-up-on-human-intent/52395162/1
This is approximately equal to the behavior of six-month-old babies, the researchers report.
"These results support the notion that dogs are sensitive to the cues signaling humans' communicative intent in a way that is analogous to preverbal human infants," said study author Jozsef Topal.
A study published in the July 2011 issue of Learning & Behavior showed that domestic dogs were more prone to beg food from someone gazing at them than from someone who was paying no attention to the dog.
Stanley Coren, an expert in dog intelligence, finds that dogs have the development abilities of a two-year-old human. The average dog, he finds, can learn 165 words.
Dogs appear more likely to follow our gaze if we look at them first. Using a high-pitched voice also seems to help. Dogs are less likely to follow our gaze when not looked at directly and when sopoken to in a low-pitched voice.
The USA Today article quotes a researcher: "The [dog's] gaze was only triggered when preceded by communicating intent. It does seem to be that dogs do look at humans and follow gestures," said Dr. Nicholas Dodman, director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in North Grafton, Mass. "This is intuitive to anyone who owns a dog, that dogs seem to be more in tune with us than some scientists believe."
Summarized from:
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/pets/dogs/story/2012-01-05/Like-babies-dogs-pick-up-on-human-intent/52395162/1
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