You can snuggle wolf pups all you want, they still won't 'get' you quite like your dogAfter 14,000 years of domestication, dogs have some of the same cognitive abilities as human babies.
Date: July 12, 2021
Source: Duke University
Summary: You know your dog gets your gist when you point and say 'go find the ball' and he scampers right to it. This knack for understanding human gestures may seem unremarkable, but it's a complex cognitive ability that is rare in the animal kingdom. New research comparing dog puppies to human-reared wolf pups offers some clues to how dogs' unusual people-reading skills came to be.
You know your dog gets your gist when you point and say "go find the ball" and he scampers right to it.
This knack for understanding human gestures may seem unremarkable, but it's a complex cognitive ability that is rare in the animal kingdom. Our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, can't do it. And the dogs' closest relative, the wolf, can't either, according to a new Duke University-led study published July 12 in the journal Current Biology.
More than 14,000 years of hanging out with us has done a curious thing to the minds of dogs. They have what are known as "theory of mind" abilities, or mental skills allowing them to infer what humans are thinking and feeling in some situations.
The study, a comparison of 44 dog and 37 wolf puppies who were between 5 and 18 weeks old, supports the idea that domestication changed not just how dogs look, but their minds as well.
At the Wildlife Science Center in Minnesota, wolf puppies were first genetically tested to make sure they were not wolf -- dog hybrids. The wolf puppies were then raised with plenty of human interaction. They were fed by hand, slept in their caretakers' beds each night, and received nearly round-the-clock human care from just days after birth. In contrast, the dog puppies from Canine Companions for Independence lived with their mother and littermates and had less human contact.
Then the canines were tested. In one test, the researchers hid a treat in one of two bowls, then gave each dog or wolf puppy a clue to help them find the food. In some trials, the researchers pointed and gazed in the direction the food was hidden. In others, they placed a small wooden block beside the right spot -- a gesture the puppies had never seen before -- to show them where the treat was hidden.
The results were striking. Even with no specific training, dog puppies as young as eight weeks old understood where to go, and were twice as likely to get it right as wolf puppies the same age who had spent far more time around people.
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Source:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210712122206.htm
