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You
can always count on dogs . . .
DOGS MAY have hitherto unknown mental abilities, according to
scientific research published last week. The latest study suggests
that dogs can count and that their barks are more complex than
previously thought.
Many apes and monkeys are able to count. But Robert Young, an
animal behaviour expert at the Pontifical Catholic University
of Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, suspected that dogs
did, too.
Prof Young and his student Rebecca West of the University of
Lincoln, borrowed a technique that has been used to show that
five-month-old babies can count, according to a report in the
latest issue of New Scientist.
Toy dolls are placed in front of a baby and then a screen is
raised to hide them. The infant then watches as some dolls are
added or taken away before the screen is lowered to reveal the
final result.
If the experimenter has added or taken away a doll, the baby
looks at the dolls for longer, presumably because the number
of dolls contradicts the baby's expectations.
In tests on eleven dogs, they stared at bowls containing treats
for much longer when the sums did not add up, says a report
in Animal Cognition.
In New Scientist, Dr Sophia Yin, of the University of California,
Davis, reports that dogs isolated from their owners tend to
use high-pitched, single barks.
When the doorbell rings, barks are lower and harsher, often
fusing into a long "superbark".
But barks during play are high-pitched and uneven, often coming
in clusters.
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