The Secrets Inside Your Dog's Mind

There is some fairly fascinating experiments discussed in this article:<p><i>The Russians began by breeding a group of foxes according to one simple rule: they would walk up to a cage and put a hand on the bars. Foxes that slunk back in fear and snapped their teeth didn't get to breed. Ones that came up to the scientists did. Meanwhile, the scientists also raised a separate group of foxes under identical conditions, except for one difference: they didn't have to pass a test to mate.<p>More than 40 generations of foxes have now been bred in Novosibirsk, and the results speak for themselves. The foxes that the scientists bred selectively have become remarkably doglike. They will affectionately run up to people and even wag their tails.</i><p>The article attempts to explore the intelligence of canine creatures and how they were originally tamed by humans.

I'm always kind of surprised with the sort of things my dog picks up on from time to time.<p>She will follow a pointed finger to go get a toy that she can't see, and apparently recognizes the names of her different toys ("go get your rope" will get you a rope from her bucket, and "go get your ball" will get you her ball). These weren't things she was ever trained to do, but she seemed to just pick them up over time.<p>She's almost 12 years old now, and I would estimate that her level of "knowledge" of the world around her (though obviously not with the same ability to learn) is about on a par with a human toddler.

Does this mean my dog is stupid (or reverting back to the wild) because he can't follow a pointed finger? He just does the stare-at-your-finger thing.

"Understanding a pointed finger may seem easy, but consider this: while humans and canines can do it naturally, no other known species in the animal kingdom can."<p>So chimps can't follow finger if it's beneficial for them? Or dolphins or crows?<p>My friend was afraid that someone might want to hurt her dog by feeding him something nasty, and since there is much more right handed people she taught her dog to avoid treats given with right hand. Dog gladly accepted treats given with left hand.<p>At first I was amazed that dog can discern between left and right side of human or the world. That's not something that comes easily even for humans.<p>After the dog refused to take treat lying on the inside of my left hand I turned the hand by 180 deg along wrist-elbow axis and placed treat on top of my hand. Dog accepted the treat without much hesitation. Dog did not understand the concepts of left and right, just relied on placement of the thumb on the human hand he saw.<p>That's how I circumvented her little security measure and hacked into her dog. ;-)

Fun article, but it's a pity they don't specify exactly what "lots of training" means: <i>"Tomasello and his team wondered if such a rare ability extended to hand gestures and tested chimps to see if they could understand pointing. To their surprise, the chimps did badly, able to learn the meaning of a pointed finger only after lots of training."</i><p>Because my own child also understood what a pointing finger meant only after what I feel was "lots of training".

Are they sure only dogs can follow a pointed finger? What about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans</a> ? The horse was following even more subtle clues than a pointed finger.<p>Of course a horse is also a domestic animal.

The article seems to suggest that understanding pointing is genetically tied to being friendly. This, if true, is <i>incredibly</i> bizarre, isn't it?

Now if only someone could tell me why my Spaniel steals socks from all over the house and hides them under tables.