While a healthy dose of skepticism is always in good order, I am also skeptical of those who have been highly critical of work that has been replicated in labs around the world. Anecdote: I’ve found that rats are also very good with eye gaze. … Fingers have many fascinating aspects: there is a lot to tell. that the handler usually signals to the dog where to start to look by whistling to the dog to “flank” the first group of sheep either in a clockwise or in a counterclockwise direction to get it started moving in the right way, before whistling to it to “look back”. She doesn’t understand pointing yet; I’ve been teaching her for the last 2 months, and she is just starting to sort of get it. OK, yall already know what this is. One result leads to different interpretations by different people, which leads to more studies that at first make the issue even more complicated if not confusing, but which eventually lead to us truly progressing in our understanding. Such behaviors must be directed at a receiver and taught by repetition. I seem to remember that chimps do not point to convey information. I have a son who is also in the 1st grade and 6 years old. In a study published in ScienceDirect in 2015 , Berns and his colleagues presented dogs with the scents of their owner, a human they didn’t know, a familiar dog (usually one that lived in the same home), an unfamiliar dog and the subject dogs’ own scent. We were compared to our older sibling in everything we did. The “one-finger salute,” or at any rate sexual gestures involving the middle finger, are thousands of years old. I Took It, And WOW! For example, dog owners can learn that certain pet behaviors, like pressing noses against an object, combined with other ones, like tail wagging, could mean different things. So if you do show your dog the middle finger, just make sure you're balancing one of his favorite treats on it. ‘. One thing my instructor emphasizes is getting the dog to look at you, always be looking at you….but it definitely is a learned response….unless I do have steak on my nose :). But I think that probably a nose extender is not really necessary. Some have speculated that at least 10,000 years of co-evolution (probably more) have resulted in a genetically-mediated ability of dogs to inherently understand human communicative gestures. We know you want to look good when wearing rings on whichever finger(s) you choose. Sitting outdoors at my in-laws, where a football is on the middle of the table by the pool, and the dog stares, first at me, then at my husband, then at the ball, then at my husband… and finally gives up and switches alternating his gaze between me and then the ball. I’ve been trying to teach my 1.5-year-old Border collie what I mean by pointing – “there, that’s where your stick (or ball) went, go get it”. Even though they’ve also been domesticated for a long time, they are much more independant than dogs and are naturally solitary animals. This means that you have many friends. That perhaps the primates have a much more controlled way of interacting with people, while dogs live us all the time, and are constantly watching and learning from us? I’d be particularly interested to see more about the testing on wolves and other wild canids for that reason. When they are young, it seems to me that they pay no attention to the direction you are indicating, and simply go to your hand and sniff it. I don’t know if pointing games help with agility or not, but ever since I got that advice, I started to make a conscious effort to work with Duke on pointing. I am teaching my collie to obey the command “come” with the use of voice and a hand signal. How do we know? It enables an individual to differentiate between right and wrong. When I owned rats in the past, they always knew when I was looking at the cage. Dogs may have somehow learned the behavior prior to the experiment, even though their owners didn’t realize they were being taught. He looks at the ball or biscuit he can’t reach and points at it with his paw. Between the two dogs we have, one knows exactly what a ‘point’ means, and he ‘follows’ the finger; the other one is clueless, and tends to just go to the hand. If you want to have anal sex, you might want to try anal fingering first because it will help your body lead into anal sex and make it more enjoyable. Can any of them follow a pointing gesture toward a desired resource? They then stalk (often crouching all the way to the ground as their ‘prey’ approaches), and finally one dog will charge directly for the victim, driving his hapless prey directly into a whomping T-Bone slam from the point guard. It seems to me that disobeying a command while a persons eyes are closed is a learned behavior. I agree with you – in my limited experience dogs do have to be taught to follow a point but they will learn easily enough. I was taught to begin training this exercise by filling a glove with treats, tossing it just in front of the dog, and feeding them treats out of the bag when they bring it back to me. Shipping | A psychologist who studies canine behaviour found a disturbing trend in 250 photos of people hugging dogs - the dogs were not happy. The process has lead me to re-evaluate my understanding of ‘innate’ ability and behavior in dogs, particularly as it concerns communication. If your middle finger and the index finger stick close together, it shows that you will gain authority and rank through your own goals and dreams. finger - any of the terminal members of the hand (sometimes excepting the thumb); "her fingers were long and thin". Added 10/13]. I could go on, but I’ll just raise this issue now, and take it back up after hearing the talks of Clive Wynne and Monique Udell, both of whom have been doing their own research on this topic of pointing gestures and how they are interpreted. Cat person here! The pointing experiments and studies are attemping to prove what we already know…dogs are experts at reading body language. If your middle finger is flexible it may mean that too many friends will have a negative impact on your overall life quality. Here are 11 reasons why the middle child is actually the strongest: 1. It makes sense that a dog would innately understand that when someone deliberately looks at something there is some reason for it, and would naturally want to investigate what that person was looking at – however I would have thought wolves would act in the same way (perhaps they do, but only towards other wolves?). I don't know how did it started to be offensive. I’ll only look at my dog through the corners of my eyes (my head facing forward) and correct him if he goes for the treat, but I wouldn’t correct him if my eyes are closed since I can’t see him. ”. . I think the difference between dogs and cats is mostly that cats lack that predisposition to watch their owners for cues and try to follow them. Another thought. I think dogs initially learn to follow a pointing finger because our faces and eyes key them to. They also hunt cooperatively. 1 decade ago. Later on, a pointing finger is enough by itself. I am so used to Tara finding what we’re looking for because I point to it, I wasn’t even sure whether it was something she always did or an ability she developed. So what motivates the traits we find odd in our cats? It seems that all those dog parents insisting that their dogs do indeed understand them are right–at least partially. Granted, it is pretty easy to teach them to follow a point, but you DO have to teach them to do it. Meaning of Rings on the Middle Finger. Or is it possible that dogs have a better sense of smell than chimps and wolves? I think the eye contact with the cup makes all the difference. An art related life is shown when the ring finger sticks close to the middle finger. Guess which one is the Border collie? Middle Finger Yes, the middle finger turned sideways means the same exact thing as the traditional finger in the air. He’s one of the few researchers who has been doing work on domestic dogs for years, and it’s great that he’ll be at the conference. By the way, she is also speaking at APDT on what ‘dominance’ is and isn’t. Yes, it’s real, dogs do get mad when you reveal them the middle finger. The origins of body part names can be hard to pin down because of the way language evolves, but here's what we know about why thumbs are thumbs and why little fingers are pinkies. Some, of course, catch on much more quickly, and some trainers are better than others at working a dog through the necessary steps. Reviewing the footage, the team identified 49 possible gestural signals the pets may have used to get what they wanted. They also have to be “mechanically ineffective,” meaning they’re nothing more than gestures. I didn't go into the exact meaning of it but I told him that it was a mean and rude thing to do and that we shouldn't point ANY of our fingers EVER. I’d love to hear more! During his learning phase, we could see human speech transforming for him from meaning nothing, to indicating that ‘something’s up..look at the human for more info’, to imparting emotional information, to the final stage of specific words imparting particular meaning. Since this subject came up I’ve been paying attention to just how often I point for Ranger. But it's not always true. The dog brings them through the first fetch panel, and then is instructed by the handler to leave the group and to go gather a second group which, unbeknownst to the dog, has been released in a corner of the field. You’ve captured exactly what I think is happening. Perhaps a good explanation at this point on the issue is that there appears to be an innate tendency in dogs to be predisposed to learn to follow a pointing gesture. I’m going to amend the post to mention that, thanks for your good comment. The gesture refers to the act of inserting the index and middle fingers into a vagina and the little finger into the unwitting anus, hence the "shock". did i just get lucky or something? Anyways it strikes me that lots of animals are good at noticing and following a human gaze. Fascinating topic. A lot can be said about the way your hands are shaped more than you can imagine. I have a Lab who is presently in a leg cast due to tendon surgery so I’m playing all sorts of brain games with her. This symbol was approved as part of Unicode 9.0 in 2016 and added to Emoji 3.0 in 2016. Dogs don’t so much see the world as they do smell it. and it was the coolest thing ever. 7. She is not obeying 100% of the time, but the percentage of the times she does is rising. They could also follow my eyes looking at an object and then looking at them and back. One can express crossed fingers in textual communication using U+1F91E HAND WITH INDEX AND MIDDLE FINGERS CROSSED (HTML 🤞). Cats are almost exclusively motivated by self-interest! Trisha, I guess overall the video or experiment still shows that dogs have a unique (or rare) ability to discern subtle difference in gestures/facial expressions. 9 years ago. I find that I can “help” her by turning my head and looking at the object that I want her to choose. And very few people sit with adult chimpanzees and share popcorn on the couch. I suspect that might be one of the factors that makes dogs so quick to look toward a container with food in it but not follow the line of our pointing arm when we use it in ‘real life.’ In the research the containers are very close together, and the person is seated on the ground.