A dog’s loyalty to their human surely shows, especially in times of trouble, but does it have any scientific banking? Why do dogs help and rescue you?
Researchers ran a series of carefully constructed experiments to understand whether dogs act on impulse to rescue their humans, rather than a desire to get food or simply to make contact with their owners.
About 60 dogs were involved in the study. Their owners were “trapped” inside a large box with a lightweight door that could easily be shifted by the pooches. The dog owners were told to cry out for help and to look like they were really trapped inside the box.
“About one-third of the dogs rescued their distressed owner, which doesn’t sound too impressive on its own, but really is impressive when you take a closer look,” says Joshua Van Bourg, psychologist from Arizona State University.
“The key here is that without controlling for each dog’s understanding of how to open the box, the proportion of dogs who rescued their owners greatly underestimates the proportion of dogs who wanted to rescue their owners,” he added.
The research suggests dogs really wanted to rescue their hoomans, but did not know how. Take a look at their study here:
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