Shelby goes to Harvard

Today I took Shelby to the Canine Cognition Lab at Harvard University. They're doing some studies to see how dogs think, if they understand symbols, etc.

It was definitely interesting. First they just put a treat on the floor to see if the dog is interested, then they put it in a container. They had a container with a moveable flap so that the dog can't see the treat, but has to push the flap up to get the treat.

Then they moved on to two containers, and they put a divider in the center so the dog had to choose one side or another. They did things like pointing to one contaner to indicate the treat to see if the dog could get it. They also put a picture on the containers-one was one bone and the other was three bones. The container with the picture of more bones had more treats. They wanted to see if the dog understood quantity. They also had a picture of a hammer vs a picture of a steak. The treats were in the container that showed the picture of the steak. Then they also wanted to see if the dog understands emotions, so they picked up one container and smiled, then the other and frowned. This would indicate the treat was in the happy face container.

Shelby did really well. I was surprise she was able to understand that a picture of steak represented treats. Although then they showed a hot dog and a pair of pliers and she picked the pliers! There were a couple times she didn't choose correctly, and I noticed she yawned a little and was panting, which are stress behaviors. But then she started being successful and did fine.

I thought it was really interesting. Hopefully I can bring Spot and perhaps bring Shelby back again. One thing that did surprise me was that they did ask what commands Shelby knew either by voice command or hand signal but they didn't ask about training history or method. I would think a dog like Shelby would have a leg up on the pointing game, since she's very familiar with gestures like that from agility.