Following human cues Dog intelligence

dogs show human-like social cognition in various ways. example, dogs can react appropriately human body language such gesturing , pointing, , understand human voice commands. example, in 1 study, puppies presented box, , shown that, when handler pressed lever, ball roll out of box. handler allowed puppy play ball, making intrinsic reward. pups allowed interact box. 3 quarters of puppies subsequently touched lever, , on half released ball, compared 6% in control group did not watch human manipulate lever.

similarly, dogs may guided cues indicating direction of human s attention. in 1 task reward hidden under 1 of 2 buckets. experimenter indicated location of reward tapping bucket, pointing bucket, nodding @ bucket, or looking @ bucket. dogs followed these signals, performing better chimpanzees, wolves, , human infants @ task; puppies limited exposure humans performed well.

dogs can follow direction of pointing humans. new guinea singing dogs half-wild proto-dog endemic remote alpine regions of new guinea , these can follow human pointing can australian dingoes. these both demonstrate ability read human gestures arose in domestication without human selection. dogs , wolves have been shown follow more complex pointing made body parts other human arm , hand (e.g. elbow, knee, foot). dogs tend follow hand/arm pointed directions more when combined eye signaling well.

for canids perform on traditional human-guided tasks (e.g. following human point) both relevant lifetime experiences humans—including socialization humans during critical phase social development—and opportunities associate human body parts outcomes (such food being provided humans, human throwing or kicking ball, etc.) required.

in 2016, study of water rescue dogs respond words or gestures found dogs respond gesture rather verbal command.