Yawn Game

In this game, you yawned and recorded whether Blue 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.

Blue 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 Blue 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 Blue spent gazing soulfully into your eyes, you probably often find him staring at you for no reason. You might wonder if Blue 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 Blue may not want or need anything - he may be just hugging you with his eyes.

Arm Pointing

Although the pointing game may have seemed simple, the skills it requires are quite specialized. Dogs are one of the only animals that rely on human gestures - but even among dogs there is variation. Some dogs are more like infants and rely heavily on our communicative gestures, while other dogs are more like chimpanzees and try to solve problems on their own without our help. Blue seems to use a mixed strategy. Because Blue could see food in both places, he didn't really need your help, but occasionally chose to follow your gestures anyway.

Foot Pointing

Just like in the hand pointing game, Blue thought he had better cover all his bases by sometimes choosing the treat you pointed at and sometimes striking out on his own.

Blue probably does not see you point with your foot very often, so this game was a way of seeing how flexibly Blue 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 Blue 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.

Memory versus Pointing

In this game, Blue saw you put the treat under one cup, but point to the other cup. Blue preferred to rely on the information in his working memory rather than what you pointed to. Even though you gave Blue misleading information, he remembered where the treat was and chose to ignore you. This shows an independent thinker; you should be aware that in other situations Blue might not listen to you if he thinks you are wrong.

Memory versus Smell

Although Blue did occasionally go to where the treat was hidden, rather than where you showed him you hid the treat, it is unlikely Blue could smell the food. If Blue relied on smell alone he would have found the food each time.

This is completely normal. 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. However, in similar studies, 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 look at their first choice, they cannot localize the food to a specific cup from a distance of 6 feet away.

Delayed Cup Game

This game was a perfect demonstration of Blue's excellent working memory. After you hid the treat Blue had to retain the information for up to two and a half minutes before making a choice.

This skill comes in handy in the wild. Feral dogs tend to be endurance hunters, slowly wearing down their prey. During the chase, the prey may not always be in direct sight, and feral dogs have to remember where their prey was last seen and predict where they might reappear.

Inferential Reasoning Game

Congratulations - when playing the most difficult game in the most difficult dimension, Blue's performance was masterful. When you showed Blue the empty cup, you were providing indirect information on where the treat was - he had to make an inference that because that cup was empty, the treat must be in the other cup.

This ability to infer by exclusion is problematic for most dogs because they are often confused by conflicting social cues. By lifting up the empty cup, you were actually drawing attention to it, and some dogs prefer to choose this cup even though it was empty. The fact that Blue was able to control this impulse shows an impressive ability to make inferences.

What is even more impressive is that Blue was so collaborative in the Communication dimension. It seems that Blue knows exactly when to use your gestures to make decisions and when to make decisions on his own.

Physical Reasoning Game

Blue did seem to understand the principle of solidity - that one solid object cannot pass through another - at least some of the time.

Although this might have seemed like a simple game, it was actually quite complicated. First, Blue had to infer that you hid a treat (since Blue didn't actually see you hide it). Then he had to understand enough of the physical world to infer that a piece of paper at an angle indicated that the treat was hidden behind it. It is impressive that Blue figured out the answer as often as he did.