http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1921614-1,00.html


Dogs, unlike much-smarter chimps, are very good at reading human signals and gestures, as we are all aware! This article contains some interesting insights as to why that is. It mentions the fox study that John posted awhile ago.

"The Russians began by breeding a group of foxes according to one simple rule: they would walk up to a cage and put a hand on the bars. Foxes that slunk back in fear and snapped their teeth didn't get to breed. Ones that came up to the scientists did. Meanwhile, the scientists also raised a separate group of foxes under identical conditions, except for one difference: they didn't have to pass a test to mate.

More than 40 generations of foxes have now been bred in Novosibirsk, and the results speak for themselves. The foxes that the scientists bred selectively have become remarkably doglike. They will affectionately run up to people and even wag their tails. In 2003, Hare traveled to Novosibirsk and ran his pointing test on baby foxes. The ordinary ones failed miserably. As for the doglike ones, "they did just as well as puppies right out of the box," Hare says. As the animals were bred for their affability, a new side of their social intelligence was apparently awakened."

It's a great article, and with the new studies being planned, it seems we will soon be finding out a lot more! With the high value of dogs as bomb-sniffers and service dogs, it seems that dog training has suddenly become valuable to the mainstream scientific community.

Just my observation, but these studies now being done seem to back up the claim of those behaviorists who say that the wolf-pack dominance model is perhaps not the best one to follow in terms of how to gain your dog's respect. Domestic dogs are utterly different in their behavior towards humans than wolves are, with their interactions with us being based more on mutual benefit than on strict hierarchy.