Adorable Study Shows How Dogs Recognize Other Dogs

As humans, we are accustomed to seeing people of different sizes. Some are tall, others short, some are round, and others, not so much. Although that may be true, we are essentially the same from one person to another, but that isn’t true when it comes to dogs. Imagine being an 8 foot human and regularly seeing other humans that are only 6 inches tall! Dogs have to deal with that reality on a daily basis.

Since dogs look different from each other in this way, researchers from France wanted to see how they were able to determine if they were looking at a member of their own species. There wasn’t any sniffing involved in the study but researchers were able to determine that dogs could identify other dogs using their sense of sight.

This study was originally published in 2013 but thanks to Benjamin Katz, a PhD candidate in clinical psychology, it was revisited in a viral Tweet.

Every intro to cognitive psychology course has at least one chapter where we ask how people know that dogs are dogs – after all, they look so different from each other.

This research one-ups our question and asks: HOW DO DOGS KNOW THAT OTHER DOGS ARE DOGS?? pic.twitter.com/EhW99zbv5r

— Benjamin Katz (@DrBenKatz) December 10, 2020

The tweets posted by Katz described the objective of the study and the methods that were used. It also went into great detail about the subjects, including the lineup of dogs, Bag, Bounty, Sweet, and Vodka.

First, let’s meet our subjects in Figure 1 of this article. LOOK AT HOW CUTE THEY ALL ARE! THEY ARE ALL SUCH GOOD BOYS AND GIRLS AND CUSCO IS ABSOLUTELY SERVING!! pic.twitter.com/gmfpb9fBn9

— Benjamin Katz (@DrBenKatz) December 10, 2020

They use those dogs and showed them two images at a time. One was a headshot of another dog and the other picture was a living being of another type, such as a cat or a gerbil. When they were shown the picture of a dog, they got a treat.

They had a second phase to the study that reversed the objective. In other words, the second phase rewarded the dogs with a treat when they picked the non-dog image. In order for one of the subjects to pass, they had to get 10 trials correct out of 12 and do so over two consecutive sessions.

Next, let’s see how they were trained to identify other dogs. They would sit and see pictures of one dog and one not-dog. If they poked the dog picture, they got a treat. LOOK AT BAHIA CHOOSING CORRECTLY BECAUSE BAHIA IS VERY GOOD AND VERY SMART!!! pic.twitter.com/lwD9MQdo9U

— Benjamin Katz (@DrBenKatz) December 10, 2020

The study stated: “Each of the nine subjects was able to group all the images of dogs within the same category. Thus, the dogs have the capacity of species discrimination despite their great phenotypic variability, based only on visual images of heads.”

AND BY THE WAY, IT SEEMS THAT THE PICTURES OF THE DOGS AND NON-DOGS WERE SPECIALLY SELECTED FOR HIGH LEVELS OF CUTENESS AND HUGGABILITY!!!

(except for the cat.) pic.twitter.com/x7PrSncrtg

— Benjamin Katz (@DrBenKatz) December 10, 2020

It turns out dogs are pretty good at telling pictures of dogs from pictures of not-dogs.
ALSO I FULLY REGRET EVERY TIME I LABELED MY HUMAN PARTICIPANTS DUMB NAMES LIKE “105” AND “106” WHEN I COULD HAVE CALLED THEM “BAG” AND “VODKA”!!! pic.twitter.com/NiAMZx0r5c

— Benjamin Katz (@DrBenKatz) December 10, 2020

I should note that Bounty is a very good girl in general, but she is not very good at identifying other dogs by picture. Sorry, Bounty. pic.twitter.com/fmxKGx2xCX

— Benjamin Katz (@DrBenKatz) December 10, 2020

Most dogs were able to follow the objective after they had a few training sessions. The only exception was a two-year-old border collie, Bounty.

To summarize:
1. All dogs are good dogs.
2. Some dogs are also useful for identifying if another dog is a dog.
3. Every single one of us has chosen the wrong career path except for the authors of this study.

Happy weekend.

— Benjamin Katz (@DrBenKatz) December 10, 2020

Bounty is still a good boy.