Your Dog Knows To Steal Food When Nobody's Watching
Guilty-Looking Dog Wikimedia CommonsGood news: your dog understands you! Bad news: watch the Kibbles 'n Bits. You've probably always felt like your dog understands you, and it does--well enough to work out the best way to swipe some food from you. Researchers from the University of Portsmouth recently worked out a clever (and adorable-sounding) way to see if dogs could understand a human's point of view. In a series of experiments, they had a person forbid a dog from eating some food, then had the person leave. The researchers varied the brightness of the lights and, when it was dark, the dog was four times as likely to go for the food. What's more, they were quicker to grab the food and grabbed more of it. The study is published in the journal Animal Cognition. Past studies have shown how chimpanzees change their behavior if a person can see them,...