Pets

/

Home & Leisure

Hungarian researchers discovering how dogs communicate to humans

By Steve Dale, Tribune Content Agency on

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- Senior lecturer Peter Pongracz of the Family Dog Research Project at Eotvos Lorand University in the Department of Ethology in Budapest, Hungary has studied how much we understand what dogs are trying to tell us, based on their vocalizations alone.

And it turns out even people who have never had a dog are pretty adept at knowing whether the dog is unhappy about being home alone or is acting aggressive to another dog, for example.

To learn if visual cues counted in any way, Pongracz included blind respondents who have never seen a dog and they had no problem determining what dogs were "saying." However, young children didn't fare nearly as well at recognizing what the dog barks meant.

Some researchers have suggested that since people have evolved with dogs, we innately understand the meaning of dog barks. According to Pongracz's research, we're not born understanding "dog language."

Adults know when dogs bare their teeth, it's a sign of aggression. However, young children do not.

"Perhaps they are comparing this to a smile in people," says Pongracz. "After all, when people show their teeth, they're often happy."

 

Ultimately, people do learn how to decipher barks.

"Thousands of years ago, barking evolved as a means to communicate with people to widely and express many emotions," Pongracz says.

Barking can also lead to people complaining about dogs, even euthanization for chronic barkers. Pongracz conducted a study with researchers in Brazil to determine what types of barks annoy people most. In his study he found fast pulsating barks and high pitched-sounding barks were most annoying, and equally annoying to Hungarians as to Brazilians.

Humans apparently understand what dogs are trying to tell us, at least adults do -- but does it work both ways?

...continued

swipe to next page

(c) 2015 DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

Comics

Pat Byrnes Heathcliff Al Goodwyn Baby Blues Carpe Diem Bizarro