Dogs’ understanding of human pointing gestures

Rapporttyp 1 Report category Examensarbete C-uppsats To investigate the ability for animals to understand human communication signals and the communication between animals and humans, scientists often investigate the understanding of human gestural cues. Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) which have a long history of co-evolution with humans have been shown to make good use of human gestural cues. In the present study I investigated whether dogs in general understand a human pointing gesture and if there are differences between sex, age or breeds. In total 46 dogs of different breeds participated in the study. The study was carried out in a dog center in Linköping, Hundens och djurens beteendecenter. To test if dogs understand human pointing gestures, a two-way object choice test were used, where an experimenter pointed at a baited bowl at a distance of three meter from the dog. The results showed that dogs in general can understand human pointing gestures. However, no significant differences were found for sex, age or breeds. As a conclusion, I found that dogs in general can understand human pointing gestures, but sex, age or breed did not affect the ability.