Yawn Game

In this game, you yawned and recorded whether Bizkit yawned in response. Yawning in dogs can be an indicator of stress, but we were measuring something different - social yawning. The rationale behind this game is that even as young children, we laugh when we see someone laughing, and we cry when we see someone in distress. Our ability to "catch" the emotions of others is called emotional contagion. A common form of emotional contagion is yawning. If you see, hear or even think about someone yawning, you will probably feel an irresistible urge to yawn.

Bizkit did not yawn in response to your yawn, but this is not surprising. Although dogs are one of the few species besides humans that contagiously yawn, there is variation among dogs. Data from several research groups shows differing results, but our preliminary data shows that only 20% of dogs yawn contagiously.

Eye Contact Game

In this game, you timed how long Bizkit held your eye contact. Before babies can hug or speak, they use eye gaze to bond with their mothers. Research with dogs has shown that a similar phenomenon may happen with owners and dogs. Owners whose dogs stared at them for longer had significant increases in the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin, also known as the "hug hormone," is related to feelings of bonding, pleasure and affection.

Judging by the extraordinary length of time Bizkit spent gazing soulfully into your eyes, you probably often find him staring at you for no reason. You might wonder if Bizkit is trying to tell you something, like he is hungry, needs to go to the bathroom or has an opinion on what to do over the weekend. But Bizkit may not want or need anything - he may be just hugging you with his eyes.

Arm Pointing

You probably don't take much notice when Bizkit effortlessly uses your pointing gesture in all sorts of situations, from finding a toy to figuring out which direction to go next. But this is a remarkable skill. Bizkit did so well in this game that his skills are similar to those of a human infant. At around nine months old, infants begin paying attention to what people are trying to communicate when they point. Infants also begin pointing things out to people. Whether infants point to their favorite toy or watch you point to a bird, they are beginning to build core communication skills. Just like an infant, Bizkit relies on your communicative gestures to solve all sorts of problems he probably could not solve alone.

Foot Pointing

Although Bizkit followed you almost every time when you pointed with your hand, when you pointed with your foot Bizkit did not seem as sure.

Bizkit probably does not see you point with your foot very often, so this game was a way of seeing how flexibly Bizkit can read new gestures. Giving animals a new version of a problem they have seen before is a common tactic used to reveal what strategy they are using to solve a problem.

Although Bizkit did not follow you every time, he may have sensed your communicative intent, and would probably not need much practice to start using a range of new gestures. Especially since he was such an expert in the hand pointing game.

Memory versus Smell

Since dogs have such a keen sense of smell, you may have been surprised that after you switched the cups, Bizkit used his memory over his sense of smell. He went to where he remembered seeing the treat hidden, rather than sniffing out where the treat was.

Because a dog's nose can sniff everything from narcotics to cancer, whenever we run a study where we hide a treat under one of two cups, the first question people always ask is, "Can't my dog just smell the food under the cup?" It was certainly our first question, but extensive research by half a dozen independent research groups has concluded that dogs do not rely on their sense of smell to find the food in these games.

If dogs were using smell, they would go directly to the cup with the hidden food. In fact, these studies found that dogs only choose the correct cup around half the time - which means they are guessing. Dogs do have an excellent sense of smell and can probably detect food if allowed to sniff both cups before choosing. But when you study their first choice, they cannot localize the food to a specific cup from a distance of six feet away.

Delayed Cup Game

Working memory is critical for animals that are endurance hunters such as wolves or feral dogs. Endurance hunters chase after prey for long periods of time, slowly wearing them out. During long chases the prey may not always be in direct sight, so the hunter has to remember where its prey was last seen.

Just like his ancestors, Bizkit had to remember the location of the target for different amounts of time. Although the modern world has many distractions, it looks like Bizkit still did pretty well, using his working memory to find the treat most of the time. This is no easy feat, as even you may have forgotten where the treat was during the longer delays.

By no means did Bizkit do badly on this game; in fact, he developed quite a clever strategy. He developed a right or left side bias, meaning when he didn't know which side was correct, he went to one side every time. This is pretty clever, because 50% of the time he was correct.

Memory versus Pointing

Bizkit clearly sees you as someone to believe in. When Bizkit saw you put the treat under one cup then point to the other cup, he chose to rely on your communicative gestures rather than what he can see and remember.

It's no wonder Bizkit was so collaborative in the Communication dimension. He is an expert when it comes to reading your gestures, and relies on your input in all kinds of situations.

Inferential Reasoning Game

In this game, you presented Bizkit with a problem and provided some, but not all of the information needed to solve it. When you showed Bizkit the empty cup he had to infer that the treat must be in the other cup.

This is not as easy as it sounds because Bizkit was also attracted to the empty cup, for the simple reason that you touched it. It looks like Bizkit switched back and forth between strategies in this game, sometimes making an inference and choosing the correct cup, and sometimes relying on your social cues. Either way, this shows impressive flexibility.

Bizkit is quite the clever dog! Once again, when faced with a difficult decision during this game he consistently chose one side. Kudos to him for developing this unique strategy.

Physical Reasoning Game

In this game, Bizkit demonstrated an excellent understanding of a fundamental property of the physical world - that one solid object cannot pass through another solid object.

Bizkit had to infer that a piece of paper on an angle meant that a treat was hidden behind it. This talent would come in handy in the wild, since animals often have to keep track of objects that become hidden. To find these objects, animals have to maintain a representation of the object and predict where it might appear.

Humans intuitively understand basic physical phenomena like the solidity principle - it looks like Bizkit does too.