Your dog knows if you’re a bad guy
A new study published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioural Reviews explains that dogs are entirely capable of knowing when a human is being a bit of a dick to another human.
The study also found that dogs use this information to influence how they interact with you.
So your dog can see when you’re not being very nice to other people, and that impacts how they view you. Sorry.
Researchers asked dog owners to act out a scenario while their dogs watched.
Each dog owner pretended to try and open a container, fail, and then ask two researchers to help out.
Each time, one researcher stood passively, while the other either helped the dog owner to open the container, or flat out refused to do so. Like a total dick.
After acting out the scenario, both researchers offered the dog a treat.
In the first scenario, in which one of the researchers helped while the other stood passively, dogs were just as likely to take a treat from either of the researchers. So they didn’t prefer the more helpful one.
But in the second situation, in which one of the researchers actively refused to help to open the container, the dogs were significantly more likely to ignore their offer of a treat and go straight to the researcher who had been passive.
Which means that they didn’t like or trust the researcher who’d been a bit of a dick.
Which means that dogs are capable of judging humans’ not very nice behaviour – and they’ll reject them if it’s clear that they’re terrible people.
So in short: if you’re being horrible, your dog knows about it. They’re judging you on it. And if you want your dog to like you, you’d better shape up.
Source: http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/11/your-dog-knows-youre-a-terrible-person-6441414/
The study also found that dogs use this information to influence how they interact with you.
So your dog can see when you’re not being very nice to other people, and that impacts how they view you. Sorry.
Researchers asked dog owners to act out a scenario while their dogs watched.
Each dog owner pretended to try and open a container, fail, and then ask two researchers to help out.
Each time, one researcher stood passively, while the other either helped the dog owner to open the container, or flat out refused to do so. Like a total dick.
After acting out the scenario, both researchers offered the dog a treat.
In the first scenario, in which one of the researchers helped while the other stood passively, dogs were just as likely to take a treat from either of the researchers. So they didn’t prefer the more helpful one.
But in the second situation, in which one of the researchers actively refused to help to open the container, the dogs were significantly more likely to ignore their offer of a treat and go straight to the researcher who had been passive.
Which means that they didn’t like or trust the researcher who’d been a bit of a dick.
Which means that dogs are capable of judging humans’ not very nice behaviour – and they’ll reject them if it’s clear that they’re terrible people.
So in short: if you’re being horrible, your dog knows about it. They’re judging you on it. And if you want your dog to like you, you’d better shape up.
Source: http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/11/your-dog-knows-youre-a-terrible-person-6441414/
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