Yawn Game

In this game, you yawned and recorded whether Ryder 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.

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

Arm Pointing

You probably don't take much notice when Ryder 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. Ryder did so well in this game that her 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, Ryder relies on your communicative gestures to solve all sorts of problems she probably could not solve alone.

Foot Pointing

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

Ryder probably does not see you point with your foot very often, so this game was a way of seeing how flexibly Ryder 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 Ryder did not follow you every time, she may have sensed your communicative intent, and would probably not need much practice to start using a range of new gestures. Especially since she was such an expert in the hand pointing game.

Memory versus Pointing

Ryder was clearly trying hard to figure this one out. When she saw you hide the treat under one cup but point to the other cup, she wanted to use the information you were giving her, but she also knew what she saw. Rather than choose one strategy, she switched back and forth between the two, which shows impressive flexibility.

Memory versus Smell

Although Ryder did occasionally go to where the treat was hidden, rather than where you showed her you hid the treat, it is unlikely Ryder could smell the food. If Ryder relied on smell alone she 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 Ryder's excellent working memory. After you hid the treat Ryder 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

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

This is not as easy as it sounds because Ryder was also attracted to the empty cup, for the simple reason that you touched it. It looks like Ryder 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.

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

Physical Reasoning Game

Ryder 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, Ryder had to infer that you hid a treat (since Ryder didn't actually see you hide it). Then she 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 Ryder figured out the answer as often as she did.

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