Their instinct is unerring! Dogs can sense fear and smell that a person does not have good intentions. Trust their judgment!
Led by Japanese experts prof. Akiko Takaoka from Kyoto University they did an experiment. They wanted to see if the dog trusted the man who lied to him.
The research they conducted involved "cheating" dogs. People discovered a long time ago that if you point to an object, the dog will run to it.
The handlers pointed the dogs to a container of food and when the dog ran towards it, the handler pointed to another container of food. The dog realized that there was no food in it.
The next time the handler showed him the food box, but the dogs did not go to it again. They knew that the person showing them the boxes, with or without food, was no longer to be trusted based on previous experience.
This experiment proves that dogs recognize the one who lies!
All 34 dogs that participated in this experiment showed the same reaction. When a dog has an experience with a human he cannot rely on, he will not forget it.
"In other words, if you lie to a dog, he will form an opinion about your behavior and stop believing you. Dogs have more sophisticated intelligence than we think. This social intelligence was selectively developed in them through a long history of coexistence with humans,” says Takaoka.
