We love to read stories of heroic dogs who save lives, but you have to wonder- would your dog be so brave and helpful? Dogs are known for loyalty, but there is a wide variation in dogs (as in people) when it comes to loyalty, empathy, bravery, and maybe most of all, intelligence. Scientists put a bunch of dogs to the tests to see if they would "rescue" their humans.
For the main challenge, called the “distress test,” dog owners were placed inside a large box, where they pretended to be trapped and in distress. The owners, who were trained beforehand to sound realistic, cried out to their pets, shouting “help!” or “help me!” Dogs were able to rescue their owners by opening a light-weight door on the box, but they had to figure that out for themselves.
A total of 60 dogs participated in the experiment, none of whom received any kind of special rescue training prior to the experiment. Of these, 20, or one-third, rescued their owners, “which doesn’t sound too impressive on its own, but really is impressive when you take a closer look,” said Van Bourg, in reference to the two control tests used for the experiment. The dogs participated in the two control tests and one rescue test in random order.
It turns out that figuring out how to do it is crucial. Dogs who learned how to open the box under other circumstances were very much more likely to rescue their humans. So your dog would most likely want to save you ...if he could figure out how. Read how the experiment showed that at Gizmodo.
(Image credit: Flickr user torbakhopper)