One study found that the tilt of dogs’ heads was associated with the sounds they remembered and found meaningful.
His master voice is painted by artist Francis Barraud. image: Wikipedia
The iconic painting “The Master’s Voice” depicts a beagle tilting its head as it hears its master’s voice on a gramophone. It’s probably a gesture that many dog owners will be familiar with, but what exactly does it mean?
in a magazine post animal cognition, researchers in Hungary conducted the first scientific investigation into dog head-tilting behavior, finding that pets do it when they are trying to listen and remember details they deem important. important, life science Reported on March 18.
“Head tilting in dogs is a fairly common behavior, but it’s surprising that no one has studied it in depth before us,” said study lead author Andrea Behavior, an expert in natural animal behavior at the University of California, California. Said Andrea Sommese. Eötvös Loránd University, told life science.
Sommese and his colleagues analyzed videos from around the world in which dog owners ask their pets to buy them toys by saying the name of the item. After 3 months of training, 33 dogs were unable to remember the names of any new toys, while 7 “more gifted” dogs memorized the names of more than 10 toys, especially whiskey – a part of the Border Collie breed. bitches – 54 toys were correctly identified.
Owner Isabella and her pet dog sit next to a pile of toys as part of a study of natural animal behavior at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. image: isabel
The team found that all 40 dogs tilted their heads during the test. However, when asked to pick a toy by name, the gifted people tilted their heads 43 percent of the time, compared with just 2 percent of the time for the others.
“We’re not saying that only gifted dogs tilt their heads,” Sommese points out. “Typical dogs do, too, but in this particular case, when the owner asked for the name of a toy, only gifted dogs would.” will exhibit a pronounced head tilt.” “They seem to only do this when they hear something meaningful to them. This is closely related to sound perception. Dogs may tilt their heads when trying to listen more carefully, or Feeling a bit confused. Just like humans”.
Additionally, Sommese’s team found that the direction of head tilt was consistent in each of the gifted dogs throughout the 24-month experiment, but the direction of tilt varied from dog to dog. This suggests that the dogs’ head tilt may be controlled by one side of each dog’s brain. Just as we often prefer to use one hand over the other, many dog behaviors are unidirectional, such as the paw they use to reach, the direction they prefer to wag their tail, or even two nostrils for sniffing used more often.
In the future, the scientists want to further explore whether there are other sounds or environments that can cause dogs to tilt their heads. This kind of research will help us better understand pet body language.
Duan Yang (Theo life science)
