Dogs Act on What They See

[FamTimes reporter Jennylyn Gianan] Most dog owners do not pay much attention when their dogs watch what they are doing. However, a recent study found that dogs remember their owners’ actions.

According to research published in the journal Current Biology, dogs possess a human-like memory system that scientists call episodic memory. Dogs are aware of what their owners are doing and reportedly remember their actions even when the owners do not realize it.

Proving the hypothesis was not easy because the researchers could not ask the dogs directly. Claudia Fugazza conducted a series of experiments and tests. Fugazza and researchers from the MTA-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group devised a way to obtain answers without actually communicating with the dogs.

For this method, the researchers trained dogs to observe a person’s actions and later imitate them when given the command “Do it.”

These were ordinary human actions that dogs might observe at home. For example, if a person sat in a chair and touched something, the dog later copied the person’s action exactly after hearing the “Do it” command.

Even when their owners performed a different action to confuse them, the dogs repeated the action associated with the “Do it” command upon hearing it.

The experiment demonstrated that dogs can remember things for a long time. However, as in humans, memories related to actions sometimes faded over time as they were displaced by new memories.

In theory, this evolutionary advancement in dogs may have arisen from their close relationship with humans. The intimate bond between humans and dogs, their best friends, has influenced both species.

The “Do as I do” training method can also be applied to other animals, but it remains unknown whether other animals possess the same episodic memory ability as dogs.

Despite the remarkable discovery, many more tests are needed to investigate dogs’ mental abilities in greater depth. Perhaps one day, dogs may evolve beyond barking and learn to speak like humans.

Jennylyn Gianan fam1@pcss.co.kr