Yawn Game

In this game, you yawned and recorded whether Maggie 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.

Maggie 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 Maggie 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 Maggie spent gazing soulfully into your eyes, you probably often find her staring at you for no reason. You might wonder if Maggie 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 Maggie may not want or need anything - she may be just hugging you with her 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. Maggie seems to use a mixed strategy. Because Maggie could see food in both places, she didn't really need your help, but occasionally chose to follow your gestures anyway.

Foot Pointing

You probably don't usually point things out with your foot, so this was one way to see if Maggie could read a gesture she has seen infrequently or not at all. If Maggie is good at solving a problem but can't solve a new version of it, then she probably learned to solve the original problem through lots of practice. For example, perhaps in the previous game she was just following the motion of your hand without understanding your communicative intentions. If Maggie can also solve the new problem, then she probably understands enough to spontaneously solve a range of related problems.

Not only could Maggie follow your point, she also responded to a more unusual gesture - when you pointed with your foot. This suggests that Maggie has a flexible understanding of the communicative nature of human gestures - a talent you can be proud of, since this is also what children do.

Memory versus Pointing

Maggie 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 Maggie did occasionally go to where the treat was hidden, rather than where you showed her you hid the treat, it is unlikely Maggie could smell the food. If Maggie 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 Maggie's excellent working memory. After you hid the treat Maggie 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 Maggie with a problem and provided some, but not all of the information needed to solve it. When you showed Maggie 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 Maggie was also attracted to the empty cup, for the simple reason that you touched it. It looks like Maggie 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.

Physical Reasoning Game

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

Maggie 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 Maggie does too.