Hey, any research that lets you be in proximity of adorable furballs is a good enough motivation for me! Four hundred adorable puppies helped researchers answer the question of understanding body language. The proponents of the study enlisted the help of these puppies to show the canine ability to understand human pointing, which appears to be hardwired in their DNA:
“Using puppies to answer this question is a great approach,” says Heidi Parker, a geneticist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s Dog Genome Project who was not involved with the work. “Behavior is the holy grail of dog genetics,” she says. Before scientists go searching for genes that may have turned dogs into our faithful companions, they need to make sure they’re there in the first place, she says. “I feel like this study shows that.”
Scientists have known for more than 2 decades that dogs understand the logic behind a surprisingly complex gesture: When we point at something, we want them to look at it. That insight eludes even our closest relatives, chimpanzees, and helps our canine companions bond with us. But it’s been unclear whether pooches acquire this ability simply by hanging out with us, or it’s encoded in their genes. “It’s the one piece of the puzzle we don’t have evidence for,” says Evan MacLean, director of the Arizona Canine Cognition Center at the University of Arizona.
Enter puppies. If social intelligence is genetic, dogs should display it at a very young age. And there shouldn’t be any learning required.
That’s what MacLean and his colleagues found. The scientists partnered with Canine Companions for Independence, which breeds dogs to assist people in the United States with post-traumatic stress disorder and physical disabilities. The group loaned the researchers 375 8-week-old Labrador and golden retriever pups: They were just old enough to participate in the experiments, but young enough to have had very little interaction—and thus experience or learning—with people.
Image via Science Magazine
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