We’re constantly reminded of what an amazing sense of smell dogs have, but they also have great hearing and vision. Which of these senses gives the best cues for our dogs to notice us?
A study by Megumi Fukuzawa and Marina Watanabe from Nihon University’s College of Bioresource Sciences at Fujisawa, Japan set out to answer that question.
The researchers set up a room with a booth at one end and a door for the dogs to enter on the other. In each case, a person that the dog was familiar with was placed in the booth before the dogs were brought into the room. The booth could allow the person to be seen by the dog or a screen could be put up to block the dog’s view. A person’s scent could be enhanced by a fan or blocked with odor diffusers and scent blockers. And the person could be silent or read from a newspaper to allow the dog to hear the person or not. With each set of conditions, the dogs were given 2 minutes to find the person and were rewarded if they did.
Unsurprisingly, the dogs were more likely to find the people when they could see, hear, and smell them and less likely when all 3 of these senses were blocked.
There was very little difference in whether or not a dog could find a person when given only visual, hearing, or scent cues, but there was a striking difference in how quickly the dogs could locate the people based on which set of conditions were available.
The dogs were quickest to find people when they were allowed to see them. They were the slowest when the person was silent behind a screen with only a fan blowing their scent toward the dog. Apparently, dogs rely heaviest on their vision to notice their people.
This could make a difference in training your dog. If they rely more on visual cues than hearing, they may be more likely to respond a hand signal than a verbal cue. For the best training results, you should pair a hand signal with a voice command so your dog can understand you in a variety of situations.
(H/T: Psychology Today)
