Dogs know if you know
Originally posted Facebook 15 October 2015
A lesson from Dr Esther Schalke on the weekend: dogs know if you know
Meme from Dogs Are Family (https://www.facebook.com/DogsAreFamily)
Dr Schalke referenced a study, [Dogs steal in the dark, Kaminski J, et al. Anim Cogn. 2013]… Dogs were taught “leave it” and once reliable were tested if it held up if the owner wasn’t paying attention. When the owner was seated facing the tidbit on the floor, they did not take it, but when facing away they did sneak up slowly and take it. Similarly, when the room was dark they would take it, but not if there was a spotlight on the tidbit.
This suggests that dogs have the concept of when we’re more likely to notice them being “naughty” than not; that they know when we’re tuned in and when we’re not.
This will form part of the context of their training, so it’s important to train different contexts, and train the system as well as the behaviour to get better outcomes.
