How did they find out that dogs are judicious?
The team conducted tests with 74 pet dogs of different breeds. The human volunteers were put into two groups to perform a task in front of the loins.
The first group was told to quickly open an empty container and show it to the dog. The second group was told to fight to open the same box and then give up.
After this, the dogs were shown the same two groups of people, who had treats. The dogs then chose which human to receive the treats from.
Do dogs judge their owners?
In general, the dogs chose the treats from the human who had demonstrated the ability to open a box quickly.
According to the experimenters, this shows that dogs can tell when humans are doing a task well, so if you’re struggling to open dog food, your dog could be judging you!
The researchers hope they can use the new information to gain more insight into how dogs interact with humans.