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Be careful about whether you lie to your dog. It’s not the most appropriate behavior and he can detect it.
Cat or dog? Some people know for sure, others can’t choose and decide. These two animals, even though they live with us in the household, have their secrets. People try in every way to understand them and gradually come up with new findings.
The latest has uncovered another canine secret. Dogs are real detectives and can detect whether they can trust you or not. The answer was achieved during a study at Kyoto University in Japan. Researcher Akiko Takaoka and his colleagues wanted to know whether a dog would trust someone who had deceived him. The researchers therefore divided the experiment into three parts.
Don’t lie and don’t mislead
During the experiment, dog owners pointed to a container with food. The dog automatically ran to it. However, after opening it the owner showed him that there was no food hidden there. The dog was deceived. It was already known before this test that dogs will, based on the owner’s gesture, run after the object. This is proof that they trust him and that they can understand human gestures. However, when gestures are unclear, the dog can be nervous and stressed. You try this “trick” once, twice, but by the third time the dog doesn’t trust you and ignores your gesture. You’re simply a liar, and a liar is not trusted.
Thirty-four dogs took part in the experiment and, according to the Animal Cognition Journal, they all behaved the same way. The dogs used their prior experience and simply encoded in their heads that that particular person is unreliable. Takaoka plans to continue the experiment, but now wants to choose a different animal. Specifically wolves, because they are the closest relatives of dogs. And besides the fact that the dog stops trusting, this experiment also found that dogs are very curious about new things and have a need to explore everything.
You can’t buy trust
Several studies also demonstrate that dogs observe how people communicate with their owners . In the experiment their owners asked strangers for help. Later these people tried to feed the dogs and then came the surprise. The dogs ignored those who behaved rudely to their owners and preferred those people who had helped their owner. Rude and aggressive people simply couldn’t gain the dogs’ trust even with treats in hand.
Dogs know who your friend is and who isn’t
In another study published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, it is stated that dogs can clearly read the communication between their owners and strangers . In the experiment the dog owners asked two groups of people for help. The dogs immediately registered the behavior of these people and avoided those who communicated inappropriately with their owners.
These studies serve as proof that dogs can read our gestures and facial expressions. Our four-legged friends are much more intelligent than many can imagine. However, know one thing: dogs live for the present. They apparently do not return to the past and certainly do not think about the future. It should therefore be remembered that you shouldn’t lie to your dog, because it will turn against you.
