Dogs judge their owners when they make mistakes.

If you sometimes feel like your dog is looking at you with a sidelong look, then it certainly may seem like he is judging you, and a new study proves that this is true. A study from the University of Kyoto, Japan, found that dogs do secretly judge us when we make mistakes, but only if they are female dogs.

An experiment was conducted in which the dogs were shown a “competent” person who was able to open the container, and a person who could not. Then the dogs were shown two people at once, who performed the same manipulations. It turned out that the female dogs looked at two people for much longer and approached only the “competent” person. Males, on the contrary, did not give preference to any of the people.

Lead study author Hitomi Chijiiwa said, “Our results show that dogs, especially female dogs, are able to detect human competence, which can affect their behavior, especially when it comes to food. Future research should explore potential sex differences between dogs in how they judge people.”

Such a study, which involves some kind of “social assessment” on the part of animals, is not the only one. For example, capuchin monkeys are also known to be able to analyze people and draw their own conclusions about their competence.

Dogs have adapted to life in human society through the evolutionary process of domestication and have learned to read our behavior and communicate with us. They have a preference for people who are friendlier or more generous with food, however this was not related to competence.

For the study, published in the journal Behavioral Processes, the researchers wanted to find out if dogs have the ability to socially judge people based on their skill.

“Social animals may benefit from evaluating others based not only on social traits, such as willingness to cooperate, but also on non-social traits, such as skill or competence,” the authors write.

For the experiment, 30 dogs were placed in front of two actors, each with a container with a lid.

One of the actors should have successfully opened their container in about two seconds. Then the second actor would try to open it, but after about 5 seconds. They then repeated these steps with two different containers before being handed two new ones that either contained a piece of dog food or were empty. Both actors then tried to open one of the new containers for 30 seconds while the dog watched. Dog interactions were filmed and subsequently analyzed. When the “more successful” person tried to open the bait container, the female dogs stared at them for significantly longer than the males and were more likely to approach them afterwards. This suggests that female dogs can recognize different levels of competence in humans.

Sex differences in dogs have been noted before, for example, female dogs interact more with people than males. The researchers say these findings suggest that more research is needed on gender differences in dogs’ social judgment abilities.

Christina DENISYUK.

Source dailymail.co.uk

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