Your furry loyal companion may be pulling your leg. According to a study published in Animal Cognition in March 2017, dogs are capable of deception, and may use it to get what they want. Deception was described in this study as "the use of false signals to modify the behaviour of the receiver." Who's the loyal companion now?
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In the study conducted by University of Zurich researchers, two people interacted with the dogs. One person was cooperative and always gave the dogs food, and the other person was competitive and always kept the food to themselves. The dog then had to lead the humans to one of three boxes—one contained a juicy sausage, one a dry doggie treat, and one that has completely empty. The researchers observed that the dogs led the cooperative person to the sausage box and led the competitive person to the empty box more often than would be expected by chance. When pup wants a sausage, pup is going to get that sausage.
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