Dogs Know a Liar When They See One

You may think it's funny to trick a "dumb dog," by pretending to throw a ball or pointing him in the wrong direction, but Fido is on to you. A new study has determined that man's best friend can quickly learn if a person is untrustworthy, and may even start ignoring them entirely.

This isn't the first time that researchers have found that dogs are more intuitive than they let on. Another new study recently found that dogs can tell the difference between happy and angry human facial expressions, letting them react accordingly - even if their understanding of those expressions and the emotions behind them may be limited.

Now a study recently published in the journal Animal Cognition  details how these clever canines know when a person tends to lie as well.

To determine this, a team of researchers led by Akiko Takaoka of Kyoto University in Japan presented 34 dogs with three rounds of pointing.

In the first round they excitedly pointed to where food was hidden in a container, earning the dogs' trust. However, in the second round, the same experimenters pointed to an empty container, essentially lying to the dog.

In the third round, the experimenters again pointed to containers with food in them. Unfortunately, by this third round, the dogs didn't respond to the pointing, indicating either a certain level of mistrust, or perhaps just simple confusion as to what the pointing actually means.

To help clarify things, the researchers then brought in a new experimenter the dogs were unfamiliar with. This new person excitedly pointed to a container with food in it, and again the dogs readily complied.

"Dogs have more sophisticated social intelligence than we thought," Takaoka explained to BBC News.

He added that this social intelligence "evolved selectively in their long life history with humans."

This could also explain why they are so willing to trust at first. Unlike wild canines, domestic dogs are partially reliant on humans to help gather information about their surroundings. They also seems to want consistency in that information, and may otherwise become aggressive and fearful in a world they don't understand.

This could even explain why dogs whose owners are inconsistent, or "mess with them," often exhibit  behavioral disorders, as observed on many occasions. So be honest with your dogs. They will no doubt return the favor with loyalty and love.

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