Research Shows That Dogs Can Sense When They’re Treated Unfairly

December 10, 2008 by Dog Service Network
Filed under Dog Training, Doggie News

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported an experiment conducted by Friederike Range of the University of Vienna to see how animals react to inequity.

For the experiment, Range used dogs that understood the command “paw”, so they would be able to place their paw in the researchers hand (a.k.a “share hands”). Dogs that refused from the beginning of the experiment and a border collie that tried to lead other dogs were removed from the test, leaving 29 remaining dogs.

The dogs sat side by side with an experimenter in front of them that had a divided food bowl with sausage one one side and bread on the other.

The dogs were then asked to shake hands and each was able to see other dogs being rewarded and if they were rewarded with bread or sausage. If one dog didn’t get a reward after seeing another dog getting a reward for shaking hands, they would stop shaking hands.

Interestingly, the dogs weren’t concerned with being rewarded with sausage or bread, as long as they were just given a reward. Reasons behind this may be “daily training with their owners overrides a preference or the social condition of working next to a partner increased their motivation regardless of which reward they got.”

Has there ever been a time where your dog was able to sense they were being treated unfairly? Or if you live in a multi-animal home, has your dog noticed that you treated him/her differently than the other pets in your house?

Source: “Studies Show Dogs Have Sense of Fairness”, Associated Press; Retrieved on December 10, 2008 from http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5goqDNpGnvVACLUqZHdJUW1z-XZ3AD94UPE2G0