Yawn Game

In this game, you yawned and recorded whether Caesar 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.

Caesar 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 Caesar 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 Caesar spent gazing soulfully into your eyes, you probably often find him staring at you for no reason. You might wonder if Caesar 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 Caesar 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 Caesar 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. Caesar 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, Caesar relies on your communicative gestures to solve all sorts of problems he probably could not solve alone.

Foot Pointing

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

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

By no means did Caesar 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

In this game, Caesar saw you put the treat under one cup, but point to the other cup. Caesar preferred to rely on the information in his working memory rather than what you pointed to. Even though you gave Caesar 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 Caesar might not listen to you if he thinks you are wrong.

Memory versus Smell

Since dogs have such a keen sense of smell, you may have been surprised that after you switched the cups, Caesar 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

This game was a perfect demonstration of Caesar's excellent working memory. After you hid the treat Caesar 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

This was probably the most difficult game, and Caesar's performance was excellent. In this game, we presented Caesar with a problem and you provided some, but not all, of the information needed to solve it. When you showed Caesar 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.

Just because Caesar did not choose the cup with the reward, it doesn't mean that he failed. In fact, this shows a strongly cooperative nature. By lifting up the empty cup, you were actually drawing attention to it, and Caesar preferred to choose this cup over the other. Caesar views you as a cooperative partner and assumed that you were trying to help him by showing him the correct cup.

In the Communication dimension, Caesar was highly responsive to your social cues. To Caesar, you are the perfect partner in crime and he will turn to you any time he needs help.

Physical Reasoning Game

Caesar 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, Caesar had to infer that you hid a treat (since Caesar 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 Caesar figured out the answer as often as he did.

Caesar 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.