A new study out of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna has found that dogs are quite kind to their friends.
Dogs are known to be very social and exhibit social behaviour, not just with their owners but with other dogs as well. And while they examine prosocial behaviour toward humans — voluntary behaviour that ends up benefitting another — scientists were curious as to what motivated them. Was it simply a response to the verbal communication? Or was it truly prosocial?
The researchers studied 16 dogs using a bar-pulling task: one dog would pull a tray and decide whether a second dog would get a treat. The dogs were able to choose either an empty tray or a tray that had a treat on the other side for their partners. A donor dog would not receive a treat if it gave one to its partner: it was all about benefitting the other dog.
Knowing their partner made a difference to the donor dogs. They pulled the tray more often for dogs they were familiar with than for those they didn’t know.
The researchers used control tests to ensure that the dogs weren’t just pulling the tray for fun or fear of the unfamiliar dogs.
The study was published in Nature’s Scientific Reports.
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