{"id":239,"date":"2012-04-30T21:41:18","date_gmt":"2012-04-30T21:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.animalhealthfoundation.net\/blog\/?p=239"},"modified":"2012-04-30T21:43:26","modified_gmt":"2012-04-30T21:43:26","slug":"dogs-change-their-minds-based-on-human-actions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.animalhealthfoundation.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/dogs-change-their-minds-based-on-human-actions\/","title":{"rendered":"Dogs change their minds based on human actions"},"content":{"rendered":"

From LiveScience and the AVMA:\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Want to trick a dog? It’s all in the body language, a new study finds.<\/p>\n

When given a choice between a big serving of food and a small one, dogs almost always go for the bigger option. But when a person makes a fuss over the small amount, particularly by handling it, dogs can be tricked into picking the less-hearty portion.<\/p>\n

The study, published Wednesday (April 25) in the journal PLoS ONE<\/a>, highlights dogs’ ability to follow human social cues, a tendency which has likely served them well over thousands of years of domestication<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Researchers recruited 149 dog owners to bring their ordinary household pets into the psychology laboratory at the University of Milan, Italy. There, study leader Sarah Marshall-Pescini and her colleagues set up a series of experiments in which dogs had a choice between two plates, one with a single piece of food on it and one with six pieces. Other experiments had dogs choosing between equal-size portions.<\/p>\n