

The Secrets Inside Your Dog's Mind - inglorian
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1921614,00.html

======
NathanKP
There is some fairly fascinating experiments discussed in this article:

 _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.

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._

The article attempts to explore the intelligence of canine creatures and how
they were originally tamed by humans.

~~~
duskwuff
For more information on this, see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox> (and its references and
external links, especially the Cornell University one). I want one. :)

------
javanix
I'm always kind of surprised with the sort of things my dog picks up on from
time to time.

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.

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.

~~~
emmett
Among other abilities, dogs can use "fast-mapping" to learn new words. They
are very well adapted to learning commands from humans.

<https://ideotrope.org/index.pl?node_id=36839>

------
RK
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.

------
scotty79
"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."

So chimps can't follow finger if it's beneficial for them? Or dolphins or
crows?

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.

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.

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.

That's how I circumvented her little security measure and hacked into her dog.
;-)

------
aerique
Fun article, but it's a pity they don't specify exactly what "lots of
training" means: _"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."_

Because my own child also understood what a pointing finger meant only after
what I feel was "lots of training".

~~~
ars
Was it training, or did you just have to wait till your child got older?

------
ars
Are they sure only dogs can follow a pointed finger? What about
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans> ? The horse was following even more
subtle clues than a pointed finger.

Of course a horse is also a domestic animal.

~~~
tetha
This is certainly interesting. You should put the 'more subtle' in context:
The clues given to the horse were subtle enough to be missed by a lot of
humans, including the human giving those clues. This is what I call subtle.

------
randallsquared
The article seems to suggest that understanding pointing is genetically tied
to being friendly. This, if true, is _incredibly_ bizarre, isn't it?

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

