Posted on 07/14/2021 5:00:29 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Domestic dogs show many adaptations to living closely with humans, but they do not seem to reciprocate food-giving according to a study, publishing July 4 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, led by Jim McGetrick and colleagues at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria.
The researchers trained 37 domestic dogs to operate a food dispenser by pressing a button, before separating the button and dispenser in separate enclosures. In the first stage, dogs were paired with two unfamiliar humans one at a time. One human partner was helpful—pressing their button to dispense food in the dog's enclosure—and one was unhelpful. The researchers also reversed the set-up, with a button in the dog's enclosure that operated a food dispenser in the human's enclosure. They found no significant differences in the dogs' tendency to press the button for helpful or unhelpful human partners, and the human's behavior in the first stage did not affect the dog's behavior towards them in free interaction sessions after the trials.
Previous studies have demonstrated that dogs are capable of directing helpful behaviors towards other dogs that have helped them previously—a behavior known as reciprocal altruism—and research suggests dogs are also able to distinguish between cooperative and uncooperative humans. However, the present study failed to find evidence that dogs can combine these capabilities to reciprocate help from humans. This finding may reflect a lack of ability or inclination among dogs to reciprocate, or the experimental design may not have detected it. For example, the authors suggest that the dogs may not have understood the experiment because humans are typically the food-giver in the relationship, not the receiver, or because the dogs failed to recognize the connection between the human's helpful behavior and the reward.
The authors add: "In our study, pet dogs received food from humans but did not return the favor."
Lol! Barf it up!
aka, “regurgitation”
“Human is dog’s best friend”
Said no dog ever...
I’ve seen dogs comfort their owners when they’re suffering, and of course showing their empathy in other ways.
Odds are dogs are so used to seeing humans as the food giver that they can’t fathom humans needing their charity.
This is an asinine study. With respect to feeding, the man-dog relationship is one-way. They may as well do a study on whether a dog will drive his master to the vet.
I had the same thought, but I think they’re after something different. They probably know that you can train a dog to do that, what these people were trying to find out was if a dog could, on it’s own, decide to behave in a altruistic way.
Anyone who’s ever trained a dog probably knows that they won’t do that, and that we rely on that in order to train them.
We show them what we want them to do, and they get a food treat as a reward.
Absolutely, I can testify to that. When I ruptured a disk in my back, my German Shepherd was there for me, gently resting his chin on my hip while I was lying in bed dying, or so it seemed to me, lol. He was definitely trying to comfort me. I never saw him act like that before or after.
LOL...my thoughts as well. And we wonder why college costs so much and delivers so little.
When they come back to you with a bird and say ”Here. Cook this for me.”
There are quite a few YouTube videos of dogs reacting to the Lion King scene where Scar kills Mufasa. Dogs have a sense of morality!
My Dads dog wasn't allowed on Dads easy chair. When Dad walked into the living room one morning the dog was laying on the floor pretending to be asleep and the easy chair was still rocking and warm. Dogs try to deceive!
My brother had a dog who left the room if someone dropped an F bomb, either on tv or in person, and either angry or not.
My buddy had a golden retriever that did construction with him. The dog climbed up and down ladders, hung out up on roofs and could climb down and retrieve a number of different tools in the truck by name and bring them up to him on the roof.
All cats will do is eat your face off if you die at home.
“...and bring them up to him on the roof.”
I’m guessing he would only bring them up to the ROOF though!
A buddy had a dog and a huge property. You could go tell the dog to get a stick, ball, etc. and he would head around back and bring back the right one.
I did hear of one story where this gal was out running in the desert and fell off a cliff and shattered her pelvis. She was stuck out there for 4 days or something. She would tell the dog to go get help but it stayed around. She had finally reached the end and I think yelled at the dog to go.
It ran back to where the car was parked and a bunch of searchers had just arrived. The one guy said he figured that was bad news, as his dog wouldn’t leave him unless he was already dead.
The dog was very urgent though and headed off down the right trail. A guy on a 4x4 followed the dog. The dog would stop and come back to make sure it was following and then continued on.
The woman just barely made it. At first she had been able to crawl a few hundred feet and made it to a small trickle of water, but after that the adrenaline wore off and the pain was too much.
She had shattered her pelvis - no bones were still whole that connected to her legs!
Yes, I believe they hunt dogs in China.
Spot on post!
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