Do Dogs React to Human Behavior?

Dogs observe and analyze human behavior. This has been impressively demonstrated by experiments carried out at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig have examined how dogs react to human behavior and have come to two conclusions that dog owners can usually only confirm:

• Our dog’s “absolute obedience” is directly dependent on our own ability to concentrate.
• Our dogs don’t just keep an eye on us. You also know what we have in mind.
  And if you don’t want to be shown off every day by the Klaubacke next to you, you have to keep an eye on your sandwich.

At the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, six dogs were brought into the institute for the test and the same experiment was carried out eight times with each one: A forbidden treat was placed on the floor with the strict command “No” and what they then did was filmed:

• If the human looked directly at the dog, each dog fetched itself a forbidden morsel on average once and via complicated secret paths.
• If the person was distracted, the “success rate” was twice as high.
• If the human closed his eyes or turned around, the dogs got three times as much without a detour.
• If the person left the room, then ultimately 47 of the 48 forbidden bites were gone.

Dogs have people in their sights

Dogs are pack hunters. And successful pack hunters in particular need to know what their comrades are seeing right now, what they are looking at right now. In the absence of word language, dogs cannot communicate beforehand. A pack determined to hunt (or defend) together, therefore, communicates very quickly and silently – much to the chagrin of the human belonging to it: One has discovered the “what”, remains, fixes, the others react immediately, looking up and down the hunt goes with divided roles, but a common goal.

The dog next to us always knows “where we have our eyes”. And “stealing” in dog circles is nothing “slanderous”. On the contrary: What one does not eat now, the other will eat.

Dogs react to our eyes and our posture. They can tell if we see something or not.