Dogs and puppies are gifted at interpreting human communicative hints, and previous studies showed that they use human visual cues like pointing or gazing in order to find hidden food. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have now studied for the first time whether dogs can locate hidden food by relying on auditory information alone. In an experimental setting, an experimenter went behind a barrier and presented adult dogs and puppies with two identical boxes, but only one of them contained food. From behind the barrier, hidden from the dog’s sight, the experimenter vocalized excitedly while looking towards the box containing food. Most adult dogs and socialized puppies successfully followed the direction of the experimenter’s voice to the food source; the puppies even beat the adult dogs in this task. The researchers conclude that dogs do not rely on visual cues only, but on a combination of human communicative hints. These social skills may have become part of the dog’s genetic make-up during domestication.
