- Puppies are wired to communicate with people from birth, new study suggests
- Genetics may also explain why some dogs can better follow pointing gestures
- Researchers got 375 eight-week-old puppies to perform series of different tasks
- The puppies were able to follow commands and gestures when humans spoke
They may be known as man’s best friend, but it appears dogs have a little advantage when it comes to bonding with humans.
A new study has found puppies are born with ‘human-like’ social skills which allow them to communicate with people from a young age, rather than learning to do so later in life.
Even before puppies have left the litter they can listen to people by following cues such as pointing gestures, researchers found, but it takes a bit longer before they are able to communicate back.
There was evidence that these sorts of social skills were present in adulthood, but here we find evidence that puppies – sort of like humans – are biologically prepared to interact in these social ways,’ said lead study author Dr Emily Bray, of the University of Arizona.
Genetics explained more than 40 per cent of the variation in puppies’ abilities to follow human pointing gestures, as well as variation in how long they engaged in eye contact with humans during a task designed to measure their interest in people.
Dr Bray and her team looked at how 375 eight-week-old puppies, which had little previous one-on-one interaction with humans, performed on a series of tasks designed to measure their social communication skills.
They included 98 Labrador retrievers, 23 golden retrievers and 254 Labrador golden crosses from 117 different litters.
All had an extremely similar rearing history and a known pedigree dating back multiple generations.
In one of the tests the puppies were able to find a treat hidden beneath one of two overturned cups when a researcher pointed to it.
They were also able to do so even when the odour was masked, which was done to ensure the puppies were not just following their noses.
In another task, researchers initiated the interaction by speaking to the puppies in ‘dog-directed speech’ using a high-pitched voice. They then measured how long the puppy held a gaze with the human.
All the dogs were successful in at least one task, showing they are skilful from the start when it comes to social communications relying on gestures and eye contact.
In control tests, when they were not directed, puppies did not look to people for answers when food was locked in a Tupperware container.
That suggests that while puppies may be born knowing how to respond to human-initiated communication, the ability to initiate communication on their own may come later, researchers said.
Previous studies have discovered dogs’ brains process language in a similar way to humans, with the right side dealing with emotion and the left processing meaning.
It was only when both sides of the brain agreed they were hearing praise that the dog was truly happy.
Dr Bray said: ‘We show that puppies will reciprocate human social gaze and successfully use the information given by a human in a social context from a very young age and prior to extensive experience with humans.
‘For example, even before puppies have left their littermates to live one-on-one with their volunteer raisers, most of them are able to find hidden food by following a human point to the indicated location
She added: ‘All these findings suggest that dogs are biologically prepared for communication with humans.
‘From a young age, dogs display human-like social skills, which have a strong genetic component, meaning these abilities have strong potential to undergo selection.
‘Our findings might therefore point to an important piece of the domestication story, in that animals with a propensity for communication with our own species might have been selected in the wolf populations that gave rise to dogs.’
The study was published in the journal Current Biology.
She added: ‘All these findings suggest that dogs are biologically prepared for communication with humans.
‘From a young age, dogs display human-like social skills, which have a strong genetic component, meaning these abilities have strong potential to undergo selection.
‘Our findings might therefore point to an important piece of the domestication story, in that animals with a propensity for communication with our own species might have been selected in the wolf populations that gave rise to dogs.’
The study was published in the journal Current Biology.
HOW DO WE KNOW PUPPIES ARE BORN WITH SOCIAL SKILLS?
