There are two types of people in the world, dog people and cat people and you either belong to the first or the second group. Of course, there are those who don’t like either, but we won’t even bother with because they’re not worth even mentioning. Some people prefer cats because they’re not so needy and are low-maintenance, but in my opinion, people have much bigger benefits from dogs.
There are several reasons why dogs are better suited for human companionship, but the most important one is definitely their higher sensitivity. They can improve out mental health, make our life happier and simply improve the overall quality of life. Moreover, it now seems that dogs can tell when a person is angry, happy, sad and even jealous. According to the latest study conducted by the Kyoto University they can also tell if a person is reliable and trustworthy or not.
The study
The study in question looked at dog’s behavior when a person pointed them to a place and asked them to fetch something. As dog owners we know that when we tell our dog to fetch their toy, a stick or food, they would immediately go there and do what we asked them to do. The study took this knowledge into consideration and examined 34 dogs who were given three rounds of pointing and fetching. The goal of the experiment was to see if a dog can recognize when it’s being lied to and therefore determine if the person is reliable or not.
Dogs use their previous knowledge to tell if someone is trustworthy
In the first round, the participants would point the dogs to a box of food which was full so the dogs would immediately run to the box. In the second round, the participants pointed to a box which was empty so the dogs got all confused and worried by the mixed gestures from the humans. In the third round when the same person pointed to the box with food the dogs didn’t follow their instructions because they no longer trusted the people who lied to them. All the 34 dogs that took part in the experiment reacted in the same way.
After the initial three rounds, the dogs were introduced to a new person who again pointed them in the direction of a full box of food. All the dogs listened to the new participant and followed his orders. Dogs are attracted to new things and that’s why they followed the new participant’s instructions and why he was able to gain their trust once again. It was shocking to see how fast the dogs were able to decipher human behavior and determine if someone should be trusted or not.
Dogs are much smarter than we think
Dogs are much more intelligent than we used to think but the problem is that their intelligence is much different than ours so it took us a while to understand how their brain works. They are also highly intuitive and can sense human emotions and act accordingly. However, they aren’t able to think about the past or make plans about the future because they live for the moment. Maybe we should look up to them more?