Study: Do Dogs Understand A Reflection?

[MolassesLass]

My dogs seem to understand my reflection is just a reflection (will turn around when i start waving) but their own is often a strange dog who needs to be barked at (hackles and all)

[Bindii]

Yep... I believe that dogs recognise that a mirror has a reflection of themselves in it.

Our bedroom's cupboard doors are full mirrors, when we first moved into this house Hugo would bark at himself as at our old house there were no mirrors that he could see. He would also forget and wake up at 2am barking at the 'dog in the mirror'

It took him about 2 days to work it out. Both of my dogs have NO interest whatsoever in the 'dog in the mirror' but both will see me in the mirror and when i make eye contact with them (their reflection), motion them over to me, or up onto the bed, they will turn around to come to me (not into the mirror)

I think dogs would not respond well to the coloured bit of fur on their forehead experiment because i'm sure if i coloured my dogs fur in a spot that they *could* see, like a paw etc, they'd probably have no interest in that either... but a chimp would.

I'm not sure how this particular experiment is being run but i am interested to see the results as from my own experience, my dogs recognise that the dog is just their reflection

[WoofnHoof]

Really interesting research I hope you let us know your results even if they don't get published

Are you going to do seperate analyses based on the differences between breeds/types? Given that there are differences in vision and eye structure according to the morphological head characteristics I would think that this might also affect their perception of what they see in the mirror? Eg such as short nosed dogs able to better recognise faces than longer nosed dogs?

[kiesha09]

I have always thought that my dogs seeing themselves in the mirror is much the same as them seeing another dog on the TV. They recognise the shape and form of the animal but know its not a real dog due to the absence of scent etc. I don't think my dogs know it is them in the mirror.

Does that make sense?

[Staranais]

I have always thought that my dogs seeing themselves in the mirror is much the same as them seeing another dog on the TV. They recognise the shape and form of the animal but know its not a real dog due to the absence of scent etc.

My girl is really interested when she hears dogs barking on TV, but couldn't care less if she sees them on there.

Interestingly, it's my cat who is fascinated by my dog training DVDs. We were watching a tracking one a few weeks ago, and she couldn't tear her eyes off the screen. I'm sure she knew it wasn't actually a dog (or she'd have been gone from the room), but all the same there was something in the shapes on screen that was weirding her out.

[Mim]

If only you were doing this in Perth, my dogs and I would be willing participants.

I am sure Sarge understands mirrors. As a pup he was in the shed with me (which we use for storage) while I was cleaning and he saw a big full length mirror for the first time. I saw him watching it and waved at the mirror, he watched my reflection, stepped toward the mirror and then turned around and looked at me. It was incredibly cute but also interesting that he picked it up so quickly. He looked in the mirror a few times after that and each time I waved or wiggled or did something and he would turn around, away from the mirror and look at me.

The other dogs use the mirror on our bathroom door to watch what's going on in the room around the corner when I'm brushing my teeth. They lie on the bathroom floor and watch the mirror and if something exciting happens (like another dog picks up a toy or somebody sits on the floor or one of the cats goes in) in the reflection then they will get up and go see it.

[4Kelpies]

All my dogs make eye contact with me in the mirror but only my old dog has responded to my hand signals when looking at my reflection. He has gone from a stand or sit to drop position and has spoken on command. It's been years since I've tried any of this. I'll have to try again and see if he still responds. He is 14 now and his hearing is going. He doesn't do many of the tricks that he used to do when he was young. I don't know if his brain or other senses are deteriorating or he just can't be bothered any more. The first time he saw his reflection as a puppy (in a full length wardrobe door ) he reacted with a wagging tail and then tried to get into the wardrobe and look behind the door.

[Hetzer]

I have always thought that my dogs seeing themselves in the mirror is much the same as them seeing another dog on the TV. They recognise the shape and form of the animal but know its not a real dog due to the absence of scent etc.

My girl is really interested when she hears dogs barking on TV, but couldn't care less if she sees them on there.

Interestingly, it's my cat who is fascinated by my dog training DVDs. We were watching a tracking one a few weeks ago, and she couldn't tear her eyes off the screen. I'm sure she knew it wasn't actually a dog (or she'd have been gone from the room), but all the same there was something in the shapes on screen that was weirding her out.

Dogs on TV are another issue altogether. I think what a dog might perceive depends a lot on the nature of the image and sound reproduction. The refresh rate (flicker) and speaker quality might make the TV reproduction a lot less realistic to a dog than a mirror's reflection. I know many of us have had moments where its pretty obvious the dog knows what's on a screen.

Edited April 15, 2010 by Hetzer

[tjhowell]

Hi again everyone,

These sorts of anecdotes that many of you have mentioned are what we'd like to try to measure. Please take part in my study

One of my dogs will bark at our cats if she sees them through the bevelled-edged glass in our doors. At all other times, the cats are her babies. I suspect many dogs (but possibly there are some individual and breed related differences) just haven't evolved to use visual information very effectively.

If mirrors also gave "smell information" dogs would recognise themselves pretty easily (but I realise there is much more to the argument than just this).

Yes, other senses of course play a huge role in all of this, and a 'smell-o-mirror' might give a very different result than the regular old mirrors we use now. If anyone has any idea of how to make a 'smell-o-mirror' (or what that would even be), by the way, I'd love to chat! hehe

My dog is the same with cats, too. If there's a cat in the house, she's fine with it -- she grew up with cats in my parents' home but I don't have cats -- but any cats outside seem to activate that prey drive!

I heard that an Australian university tried to do an experiment like this and it turned out that dogs had no self awareness when looking into the mirror, (maybe Melbourne or Monash uni in Vic). They would put a dog in front of a mirror and beam a Lazar light onto the dogs chest area and see if the dog would make the connection that the light was actually on him and look on himself to find the light, but not one dog made the connection. Chimps would make the connection when the Lazar was on them they would see it on themselves in the mirror make the connection and look down on the selves to find it on them. Is this a similar experiment to what you're doing? I'm not sure if explained myself properly :D

I actually haven't read about this study, although it rings a bell. I don't know who did it or when, though. There doesn't appear to be any publications in the scientific literature about testing dogs for this. Our study doesn't go quite as far as to ask if dogs truly have self-recognition in a mirror, but it does ask if dogs can understand the nature of a reflection and use it to solve a problem (which, in this case, it to understand that the owner with the toy is behind them instead of in front of them).

Really interesting research I hope you let us know your results even if they don't get published ;)

Are you going to do seperate analyses based on the differences between breeds/types? Given that there are differences in vision and eye structure according to the morphological head characteristics I would think that this might also affect their perception of what they see in the mirror? Eg such as short nosed dogs able to better recognise faces than longer nosed dogs?

Possibly, but a lot depends on the data, of course. If we do run these kinds of analyses, it may not be able to be truly between breeds because I will be surprised if we can get enough of any one breed to make a statistically significant analysis. We may be able to clump them into breed groups or even, as you said, long-faced vs. short-faced breeds. This latter option seems most likely as of now.

[Aidan]

Hi again everyone,

These sorts of anecdotes that many of you have mentioned are what we'd like to try to measure. Please take part in my study

One of my dogs will bark at our cats if she sees them through the bevelled-edged glass in our doors. At all other times, the cats are her babies. I suspect many dogs (but possibly there are some individual and breed related differences) just haven't evolved to use visual information very effectively.

If mirrors also gave "smell information" dogs would recognise themselves pretty easily (but I realise there is much more to the argument than just this).

Yes, other senses of course play a huge role in all of this, and a 'smell-o-mirror' might give a very different result than the regular old mirrors we use now. If anyone has any idea of how to make a 'smell-o-mirror' (or what that would even be), by the way, I'd love to chat! hehe

My dog is the same with cats, too. If there's a cat in the house, she's fine with it -- she grew up with cats in my parents' home but I don't have cats -- but any cats outside seem to activate that prey drive!

The cats are actually still inside, I think the problem is that she doesn't even recognise them! It's a territorial bark. Her perceptions appear to be skewed beyond the point of recognition. I remember once coming home very late and three sheets to the wind, it was the only time the dogs barked at me as I came down the side of the house to the kitchen door. They are pretty good at recognising people by their footsteps (I assume?)

If I ever invent a smell-o-mirror I will let you know. There probably aren't many commercial applications, but they said that about computers once too!

[corvus]

To put a slightly off-topic spin on visual cues and olfactory cues, there's an Indian joint down the road from us that uses a toy dog to prop their door open. The first time Kivi saw it he was utterly convinced it was a real dog and play bowed to it and barked playfully at it, and danced around it poking it with his nose for a good ten seconds before he gave up. It took him about 4 encounters to learn that it wasn't a real dog, despite the fact it doesn't look that realistic and I doubt it smells like a dog. I've seen small children treat it like a real dog as well. So when we got Erik I couldn't wait to take him past it to see what he did. His hackles came up and he growled deep and menacing at it. He was only about 13 weeks at the time, so it surprised me. He has never acted that way to real dogs, so I guess he understood that it was not a real dog, but perhaps it was similar enough to upset him. It was kind of like he distrusted it on the basis it looked like a dog but obviously wasn't.

For a while when working on birds we were using a dead male fairy-wren that had been sitting on a windowsill for a few months to try to lure live males into the nets. The birds knew instantly that the dead bird was not alive and didn't fly in at high speed to attack like we hoped they would, but without fail they would come in real close and just peer at him curiously. They were fascinated. Strange how animals react to unusual but slightly familiar visual cues.

[rubiton]

Once they work it out dogs understand reflections such as in mirrors. They know two of you dont exist especially when the second one appears on a flat wall - but they do have to learn since mirrors are something they arent going to come across too often.

[tjhowell]

To put a slightly off-topic spin on visual cues and olfactory cues, there's an Indian joint down the road from us that uses a toy dog to prop their door open. The first time Kivi saw it he was utterly convinced it was a real dog and play bowed to it and barked playfully at it, and danced around it poking it with his nose for a good ten seconds before he gave up. It took him about 4 encounters to learn that it wasn't a real dog, despite the fact it doesn't look that realistic and I doubt it smells like a dog. I've seen small children treat it like a real dog as well. So when we got Erik I couldn't wait to take him past it to see what he did. His hackles came up and he growled deep and menacing at it. He was only about 13 weeks at the time, so it surprised me. He has never acted that way to real dogs, so I guess he understood that it was not a real dog, but perhaps it was similar enough to upset him. It was kind of like he distrusted it on the basis it looked like a dog but obviously wasn't.

It may be that dogs use visual information more than we think they do. I would be surprised if smell wasn't the main sense they relied on, but perhaps they can be fooled by their eyes occasionally, just like us

Once they work it out dogs understand reflections such as in mirrors. They know two of you dont exist especially when the second one appears on a flat wall - but they do have to learn since mirrors are something they arent going to come across too often.

I think they understand that there's nothing particularly salient about their reflection, but only after they try to engage it and don't get the expected response from the 'other dog'. The responses that we've gotten from running the test so far have really run the gamut (which unfortunately will make the stats that much harder to analyse!) Some act super interested in the mirror but never turn around; others turn around immediately, and still others act completely differently to seeing their owner in the mirror vs through the window. And I would've thought that learning would play a large role in this, but I don't know if it will....

[Hetzer]

After reading this thread I saw an advertisement on SBS about a documentary series now available on DVD called HUMANIMAL. Its about the intelligence and emotions of animals and I can't wait to purchase it. Has anyone seen the series?

On another note, with regards to animals, there's often an "us and them" approach which I think stems from the pre-scientific era when the notion of animals not having "souls" precluded them from having the respect they truly merit. I remember reading how some people thought animals were just like clockwork mechanisms, that could not even feel pain. Personally I find my dog a brilliant example of emotional honesty and living in the moment, something we humans appear to require numerous religions and countless self help books and "gurus" to construct in their lives.