Two people encounter a dog. One person crouches down, smiles at it, and invites the animal to come over to them. Another person stands motionless and silent. Which of the two people will the dog turn to? There is no easy answer. Dogs take into account far more than the friendliness of a stranger’s appearance.
Canine cognition studies indicate that dogs observe whether or not the person provides relevant information, body language, predictability of actions, and past history of interaction with humans. Dogs are incredibly responsive to human sounds, facial expressions, and behavioral patterns. In other words, the establishment of trust can be achieved through numerous subtle cues.
Care must be taken when using the word “trust” because scientists can hardly ask a dog about its impressions. Researchers focus on certain decisions made by a canine: whom it approaches, whose gestures it follows, and whether it returns to the person who provided incorrect information to it.
Dogs Recall when People Mislead Them
One of the most intriguing studies of trust in dogs took place in Japan.
The dogs saw containers and then were given cues by a person directing their attention towards the right place. At first, the person would point to the right container, and then he pointed at the wrong, empty container.
In case such a person provided the next pointing signal, the dogs tended to ignore it more often than not! It means that dogs can alter their expectations regarding a specific human. The one who was reliable before is still worth paying attention to; however, the one who lied before is not anymore.
Such a type of research could be a great theme for writing papers on psychology, biology or animal behavior. Those students who want to spend more time reading scientific papers than doing all the work at once may use EssayPro in order to help them complete some of their tasks.
Annie Lambert, an academic expert connected to the essay writing service EssayPro, is just one of the names students might come across as they look for sources of academic assistance. She says that, for a topic such as canine cognition, it is essential to devote more time to reading original scientific work because the media tend to present dogs as more human than science actually proves (at least for now!)
Reliability Is Better Than Being Nice
What is interesting about the Japanese experiment is that an unreliable person behaved kindly towards the dogs. This individual did not yell at them, threaten them, or beat them.
This person only provided information that later turned out to be false. This point is significant.
After all, dogs have spent thousands of years in close contact with people and have developed the skill of paying attention to people’s signals. People can use their gestures to show where food is located. People can use their actions to show where the group is moving. People can use their voice to inform dogs if everything is okay or not.
If the signal does not prove to be reliable, it can be ignored.
Dogs Read Your Body Language
Words play a great part in human communication. Dogs do not have this option, so they rely on other types of information.
Just imagine you encounter a dog you don’t know. You will probably say, “It’s all right! I come in peace!” However, the dog notices much more – it can see your shoulders, hands, direction, movement, distance, and speed.
An aggressive person walking towards a frightened dog and blocking its path would seem far more intimidating than a person standing aside from it.
Here are some good tactics for dealing with strange dogs:
- allowing the dog to come to you
- moving slowly and without jerky movements
- not touching the dog and hugging it
- providing space for the dog
- making your interaction with the dog predictable
There is no single pose that will make all the dogs trust some stranger. Every dog has its own history, personality, and level of comfort.
That is the reason why students researching the issue in their college essay writing service or even academic library should be careful with general statements like “dogs always prefer people who do X.” The world of animal behavior is far from being as simple as we imagine.
Previous Experience Makes a Difference for the Next Choice
Trust is not built in one second.
Let us consider an example. One person is constantly feeding the dog, playing nicely with him, respecting his boundaries and taking him for a pleasant walk. Another person keeps calling the dog, only to do something unpleasant to him. It can matter sometimes.
Of course, nobody can say that dogs are sitting and analyzing the people around them, making lists of trustworthy and untrustworthy people. It is much easier to explain this phenomenon through learning.
It can also explain why rescue dogs take a lot longer to become comfortable around strangers than other dogs. Their past experiences could color their expectations of future events.
Your Emotional State Could Be Important as Well
Dogs are very observant animals.
They notice changes in the way a human moves and speaks. A normally calm person, whose sudden behavior includes pacing, loud speaking, and rapid movements, sends off an entirely new set of signals.
The dog’s response might be to become more alert, stay close, move away from the person, or watch him closely.
This does not imply that a dog can precisely “read our mind.” It only means that dogs have access to numerous cues that often go unnoticed by people.
Anyone in search of the best essay writing service when studying animal cognition should keep this difference in mind. It is much more appropriate to say that dogs respond to human emotional cues than to claim that they understand all human emotions exactly as another person does.
Dogs Always Gather Information about Us
What makes canine cognition studies fascinating is not the existence of some hidden test that dogs use to determine whether a human can be trusted. They just observe.
Dogs understand whether our cues have been helpful to them previously. They see how we act and communicate. They can also learn from experience and adjust their reactions based on context and the individual.
Dogs may not judge trust exactly as humans do. Still, research suggests they are far from blindly accepting everything we tell them. If you keep giving a dog bad information, it may eventually decide that listening to you is simply not worth it!
