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Dogs especially good at interpreting cues from people

In light of recent critiques of Fort Bend Deputy Keith Pikett's "scent lineups" using bloodhounds, I was interested to see this USA Today story about dogs' ability to pick up subtle cues from their handlers:"Dogs evolved with humans, and a number of studies have suggested they are particularly sensitive to human cues," says psychologist William Roberts of Canada's Dalhousie University. Sentimental pet owners might even say their dogs know what they are thinking.The story brings to mind an example raised by a reader in response to an earlier post: Clever Hans, a German horse from a century ago who was famously believed to be able to perform arithmetic. After extensive testing, it was determined that his trainer needn't participate for the horse to perform its trick, ruling out fraud, but that "the horse got the right answer only when the questioner knew what the answer was, and the horse could see the questioner," according to the Wikipedia entry...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on August 17, 2009 (boomark / email).