Are Dogs Able to Know Whose Good and Bad?

Are Dogs Able to Know Whose Good and Bad?

We usually tend to think that dogs have the ability to know whether people are good or bad. The thought of dogs and their preference towards a person is quite frequent that as soon as a dog likes a person, it must be someone you could trust. Recent studies are however disputing this notion  perhaps, dogs do not interrogate human character in the manner that we believe they do.

Dogs did not form a preference to a nicer person after observing how people treat other dogs kindly or not. The fact that I had a chance to meet the person face-to-face did not really change a lot. It happens to be that forming opinions regarding people may not be as obvious or maybe even as difficult as one would suspect the way dogs do.

Key Takeaways

l Dogs did not indicate their preference on kind or unkind people.

l Watching the kindness did not influence their treatment by watching only.

l That did not affect their reaction differently, even being in direct contact.

l Dogs do not make judgments characteristically as human beings.

l There might be a necessity to improve the research methods.

l There should be more research involving different categories of dogs.

Do Dogs Critique Behavior of Human?

A lot of individuals would feel like relying on the instinct of their dog whenever encountering a new person. When the dog is kind, then we are sure that the person has to be good. When the dog is wary or fearful we may consider that as a red flag. Are Dogs capable of making judgments of human behavior?

Certain animals such as chimpanzees have been found to be intelligent in the fact that they can express their view concerning individuals they observe after being subjected to abuse. Because dogs have coexisted with humans since thousands of years, researchers wanted to determine whether they can be able to coexist with the human beings. However, there are conflicting findings on previous studies.

 

 

The Dog Character Judgment Myth Finally Debunked – YouTube

A previous study revealed that both domesticated dogs and wolves did not develop reputations towards humans  even when these animals had to come into contact with humans or when being able to observe human behavior. One of the reasons would be that these animals were not exposed a lot to human beings. Thus researchers also chose to experiment on dogs that interacted with human beings more often.

Observation of Dogs in the Test

In an experiment that was done recently, the researchers classified 40 pet dogs to monitor their response to people on the basis of the observed behavior. The dogs were placed in a situation whereby they observed two people relating with another dog, one of them giving the dog food and the other doing nothing.

The dog was then given space to see the two people after the observation. Such behaviors of the dog as who was approached first, whether or not it jumped or how close it remained were noted by researchers.

No Bias towards the Good person

To my surprise, the dogs did not exhibit preference in the generous character as opposed to the stingy one who did not give food. Those behaviors of theirs toward either of the people were almost identical, that is, whether they had simply witnessed the scenario or communicated with each other as a direct person.

This is an indication that dogs do not develop reputations as we thought. Although dogs relate well to human beings, the way they judge us may not be too simple.

 

 

Limitation in the Study Design

The research also indicated that the project relating to the way the experiments were conducted may have some of the results. To illustrate the point, providing dogs with mere two options would not translate into their actual thinking and behavior. May be the findings are not due to the fact that dogs are unable to judge people, but due to the fact that the method could not demonstrate this in the right manner.

The Future of Dog Behavior Study.

In order to learn more about this theme, researchers propose to investigate dogs, belonging to this or that type, living at this or that age and living with this or that life experience, i.e., stray, service and police dogs. This may provide deeper understanding on the role of experience on the social awareness of a dog.

 Conclusion

Often we are inclined to believe that dogs possess an instinct of determining good and bad in people. Recent studies however have a different account. Prone does not always express a well-understood criterion of human character at least after a direct experience or close examination. This implies that their actions are either complicated or just unlike what we expect. At this stage, we can not say with certainty, whether dogs have the ability to smell the good or the bad person.

FAQs

Q1: Don dogs actually know whether an individual is bad or good?

A: The latest studies claim that not every dog displays a definite inclination toward kindness or non-kindness of people. They may respond to tone or body language, though that need not imply that they have an appreciation of morality like the human being.

Q2: Why do certain dogs behave differently with some people?

A: Dogs have a high sense of smell, tone of voice and body language. Their response is sometimes founded on former experiences or the energy in a person and not necessarily a good or bad person.

Q 3: Can dogs be flea and judge a person by how you treat other dogs?

A: Based on recent studies, even having seen someone being giving to another dog, dogs were not always favorable to such a person subsequently. Well, there is no solid indication that they incorrect such judgments.

 Q4: Do some breeds understand human behavior better?

A: Some breeds are more watchful or affectionately sensitive (such as Border Collies or Labradors), but no breed has proven to be reliably good at reading human character.

Q5: Do we still trust dogs to have the sense of danger or threat?

A: Yes, dogs are capable of sensing the change in the behavior of a person, nervousness or fear. They are able to perceive instant danger through instinct  but this does not mean that they are able to ethically pass a judgment about the nature of some individual.