Young puppies are always appealing. We pick them up
and look them in the eye and feel that, of course, they should come home with
us. If it’s close to Christmas, then it’s very difficult to say no and move on,
especially if we’re visiting an animal shelter.
All dogs seem to be able to stare at us so that we
have to talk to them. Although looking
sad, they may be scheming how to manipulate us into giving them an early dinner
or going for an extra walk. The question is: are they born with that ability or
do they learn how to recognize a ‘soft touch’?
Passalacqua et
al tackled this one head on with three different breed groups of dog (1).
The three types were genetically different so that inherited traits would also
be different. They chose herding/hunting dogs like collies, primitive dogs like
ridgebacks, and molossoid dogs like mastiffs and boxers.
They ran through a series of manipulative
experiments for the dogs to solve to get food and threw in one that was
unsolvable. A human was also in the room and the pleading looks for help, if
any, were recorded. They started with 2 month old puppies, then ones at 4½
months old, and finally, full grown dogs.
At
2 months old none of the dogs looked at their human for guidance. At 4½ months, the hunting/herding
group was starting to ask their human to get off their butt and help. By the
time they were full grown, this group were clearly more demanding of equality
of effort in getting the job done, after all they had treats owing.
The
report concluded that although most adult dogs keep a pretty careful watch on
your face and learn to manipulate you as they grow up, they ones bred for
strong cooperation, such as the herding/hunter types, are much better at it and
more expectant of equal division of labor.
- C.Passelacqua, S.Marshall-Pescin, S.Bernard, G. Lakatos, P.Valsecchi and E.P. Previde, Animal Behaviour, In Press, (2011).
