Researchers from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary found that dogs store human actions in their memory and replay them later.
Researchers Claudia Fugazza and Adám Miklósi from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary conducted a study on dogs' cognitive abilities and looked into whether the canines had the ability to both encode and recall actions after a short delay.
The study was conducted on 8 adult dogs that were trained by their owners with a "Do as I do" method. After a delay of 5-30 seconds, the dogs were made to repeat their owner's actions. Researchers noticed that dogs were able to recall and replay the owner's actions even after a 5 to 10 minutes delay, during which they were distracted by other activities.
"The owner, Valentina, made her dog, Adila, stay and pay attention to her, always in the same starting position," Fugazza said explaining the test process in a press release. "Three randomly chosen objects were set down, each at the same distance from Adila. When Adila was in position, Valentina demonstrated an object-related action, like ringing a bell with her hand."
"Then Valentina and Adila took a break and went behind a screen that was used to hide the objects, so that Adila could not keep her mind on the demonstration by looking at the object. During the break, Valentina and Adila either played with a ball or practiced a different training activity, for example, Valentina asked Adila to lie down. Or they both relaxed on the lawn and Adila was free to do whatever she wanted - sniff around, bark at people passing by, and so on."
After the break, Valentina walked the dog to the original position and commanded it to "Do it." After the 'Do it!' command, Adila typically performed the action that was previously demonstrated, even when the command was given by someone other than the owner.
Researchers concluded that their findings suggest the presence of a specific type of long-term memory in dogs.
The findings are published in Springer's journal Animal Cognition.
