Self-Awareness in Dogs: What the Experiments Can Show
Why the mirror test is the wrong instrument, what the olfactory versions found, and why body awareness is the best-evidenced part of canine self-representation.
unterHUNDs Research
Cognition
Dogs read human gestures and attention with unusual skill – and much of what is claimed beyond that rests on thin evidence. These reviews separate the two: what the experiments actually test, and which simpler explanation would fit the same result.
Looking for practical help with your own dog? Our guides for dog owners put this research into plain, everyday steps.
These articles are written in English and aimed at trainers, behavior consultants and veterinary professionals. Deutschsprachige Beiträge findest du im Hunderatgeber.
Word Learning in Dogs: Object Names and the Gifted Few
What Rico and Chaser actually demonstrated, how rare object-name learning is, and what recent neural work says about the ordinary dog.
Episodic-Like Memory in Dogs: What Dogs Retain and for How Long
"Does my dog remember that?" is a stronger question than it sounds. A dog can be changed by an experience without later recollecting the event, and recognizing a person, anticipati…
Overimitation in Dogs: Copying Actions That Do Nothing
Overimitation is the copying of an action that is visibly unnecessary for achieving a physical goal. In children the phenomenon is robust and often interpreted in social and normat…
Hearing in Dogs: Range, Deafness and What the Measurements Establish
Almost every account of canine hearing opens with the same numbers: dogs hear from around 67 Hz to 45,000 Hz, four times better than humans, and large dogs hear low frequencies bet…
The Guilty Look in Dogs: What the Behavior Actually Signals
The lowered head, the averted gaze, the flattened ears — most owners read this as a dog knowing it did wrong. Three experiments have tested that reading directly, and all three poi…
Laterality in Dogs: Tail, Gaze, Nose and What Side Bias Shows
Dogs do not always wag symmetrically. In one laboratory study, dogs facing their owner showed a larger wag amplitude to the right, whereas an unfamiliar dog shifted the group mean…
Behavioral Flexibility in Dogs: Adapting When Rules Change
A dog checks the same spot on the counter every evening, months after the food stopped being left there. Another abandons a puzzle after two attempts and looks at its owner. A thir…
Time Perception in Dogs: Rhythm, Duration and Absence
"Does my dog have a sense of time?" hides several different questions. Dogs show daily rest-activity rhythms, can discriminate durations in controlled experiments, and can retain t…
Vision in Dogs: Acuity, Color and What a Dog Can Resolve
Dog vision is usually summarized in three claims: dogs are colorblind, dogs see badly, and dogs make up for it with their nose. The first is wrong as stated, the second depends on…
The Subtleties of Communication: How Dogs Decode Human Gestures and Facial Expressions
The communicative relationship between humans and dogs is a genuinely unusual case of interspecies social cognition. Dogs show unusually strong sensitivity to several human signals…
The World Through the Nose: How Olfactory Processing Drives Canine Behavior
Among the senses that shape the behavior of the domestic dog, olfaction is the primary sensory channel for many aspects of canine information processing. Where humans lean on visio…
Jealousy or Injustice? Exploring the Evolution of 'Fairness' in Canines
Few questions in canine behavioral science provoke as much debate — or as many knowing nods from owners — as whether dogs feel jealousy. The scene is familiar: one dog gets a treat…
Vocal Communication in Dogs: Barks, Growls and What They Carry
Barking is discussed as a nuisance, growling as a warning to be respected or suppressed, whining as attention-seeking. What the sounds themselves contain is rarely asked — although…
Canine Logic: Do Dogs Understand Cause and Effect?
When we train a dog to sit for a treat, the behavior reliably produces a reward. But does the dog understand why it works — or is it simply repeating a reinforced association? When…
Metacognition in Dogs: Do They Know What They Don't Know?
We know dogs react to the world. The harder question is whether they can, in any sense, reflect on the contents of their own minds — whether a dog can register that it lacks a piec…
Cognitive Abilities in Dogs – Why Our Canine Companions Are Smarter Than We Think
Dogs are cleverer than the "just an instinct-driven animal" caricature allows, and decades of research support that in specific, well-tested domains. Their skill at reading human c…
Soundboards and Talking Buttons in Dogs: What the Evidence Shows
Videos of dogs pressing recordable buttons that say "outside", "play" or "mad" have reached millions of viewers, and many of them suggest that dogs are holding conversations. The r…
The Clever Hans Effect in Dogs: How Human Cues Shape Behavior, Training and Research
More than a century ago, a horse appeared to solve arithmetic problems by tapping its hoof, until a psychologist showed that it was reading tiny, unintended movements of the people…
For dog owners: the unterHUNDs guides cover behavior, training, health and everyday life in practical terms, with the same sources behind them.