Ludwig Huber, a professor of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, became interested in the issue how animals living with a human perceive us. He was especially interested in that how animals perceive our faces, and whether they use face expressions as a source of useful information for them. Huber studied pigeons and even panda, but his main attention was drawn, of course, by domestic dogs.
To begin with Professor Huber found that dogs are able to distinguish the face of their owners of other similar people. In his next study, Huber and his colleagues decided to find out whether dogs can distinguish emotions on their faces. It turned out that dogs learn easily to identify good and bad faces. And this, incidentally, the first scientific evidence that animals can understand the emotions of other species.
So, Huber and his colleagues decided to conduct an experiment. Its goal was to see whether the dog differentiate between positive and negative emotions on people's faces.
The Essence of the Experiment
The scientists took pictures of angry and happy people. Photos appeared on the screen. Some dogs only the upper half of the face (eyes) was displayed, the other dogs saw only the bottom half (mouth). Some of the dogs were taught to select good person, the other selected bad faces. The dog received a reward if it muzzles at the correct picture.
After this training, researchers tested whether dogs would able to use new knowledge and to choose happy and angry faces among the new photographs. Dogs were tested using four new kinds of images:
• The same half of the face (upper or bottom) as at training, but of the new faces;
• The other half of the face, but the familiar faces;
• The other half of the new faces;
• The left half of the familiar faces.
Dogs were successful in all 4 groups of tests showing not only the ability to learn emotions, but also to use this knowledge for the new faces. It means that they were able to understand the "concept" of a particular emotion, to single out some common traits and use this understanding for further analysis even strangers. As well the dogs correlated in their minds a smile with kind eyes or lowered corners of the mouth with the angry look.
It is interesting that the dogs that were awarded for recognition of good people learnt to distinguish them better and faster. Most likely, this is due to the dog existing experience in communication with people. Good face is associated with getting praise. And at first the dogs had to overcome themselves and their experience when memorizing pictures of angry people.
So,
we can say with confidence that your Bully feels your mood,
understands when you are sad, is able to respond to it and
that emotional connection between an owner and a pet, about
which many dog breeders say, actually exists.
Your Bully will be very happy with snack toys from Starmark:
