Dog Experiments

Chipsy as a pup



I've been reading Malcolm Gladwell's book, What The Dog Saw, and found one of his revelations very intriguing.

In the title chapter, Gladwell shares dog whisperer Cesar Millan's insight that dogs look to human beings for cues on how to behave. Research shows that if a person took two cups, turned them upside down and put food under one of them, then looked at his dog, pointed to the cup with the food underneath and looked at the cup with food, the dog would go to that cup. He'd follow the human's body cues, whereas a chimpanzee in the same experiment wouldn't. A chimpanzee doesn't look to humans for guidance the way a dog does. I thought that was fascinating. And naturally, I had to try it on my own dog.

We have a 1-1/2 year old beagle mix who loves to play and has lots of energy. We could barely restrain him while we were setting up the cups on the kitchen floor. We put a piece of food under one cup and followed Gladwell's instructions. We looked at Chipsy, pointed to the cup, then looked toward the cup and he went right to it. We didn't lift the cup, but pointed it to it again and he went to it again. He ignored the other cup completely until we pointed to it, and then he went to that cup. I don't think he was even all that interested in the food. This was more of a game to him. Which lead to our next experiment.

We let our daughter do the cup experiment without putting food under either cup. Again and again he went to the cup she pointed toward and ignored the other cup until she pointed to it. We gave him a treat after we'd had our fun. (It was fun for him, too. He's a people-pleaser.)

The experiment really brought home Gladwell's learnings in What The Dog Saw. It made me much more aware that we are constantly giving Chipsy signals whether we always realize it or not. I wonder what else we're subconsciously telling him?