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Online Survey About Dog Cognition


tjhowell
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Hello,

I have posted here a couple times before. I am doing a PhD at Monash University, studying dog cognition.

We have a new online survey available for anyone who would be willing to take 15-20 minutes to answer a few questions, telling us what you think dogs are mentally capable of.

All responses are confidential. We need people who own dogs AND people who do not own dogs for this one. The only requirements for participation are that respondents be 18 or over and fluent in English.

The survey link is here: http://latrobepsy.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_eP3ye46QwrUCkM4

It has received ethics approval from La Trobe University and Monash University.

Thanks very much :)

Tiffani

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I did the questionnaire too.

Do you mind if I make a comment on one of the questions here, or would you prefer if I send you a private message?

Hi there, I'm happy to receive any comments and feedback about the questions, but I would prefer if you contacted me privately as I wouldn't want to bias other potential respondents :)

I can be reached at [email protected]

And thanks very much to you and Kiara&Heidi too :)

Thanks!

Tiffani

Edited by tjhowell
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I did the questionnaire too.

Do you mind if I make a comment on one of the questions here, or would you prefer if I send you a private message?

Hi there, I'm happy to receive any comments and feedback about the questions, but I would prefer if you contacted me privately as I wouldn't want to bias other potential respondents :)

I can be reached at [email protected]

And thanks very much to you and Kiara&Heidi too :)

Thanks!

Tiffani

yeah I thought that might be the case :) thanks for the address I'll go and send you an email :)

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I've seen some of this on TV before eg where they test the different breeds and whether they can work out whether to go around a barrier to get a reward - yes for working dogs. Breeds like pekes etc look to their human to solve the puzzle for them.

So some of the answers are different for different breeds. There was that program on SBS recently where they demonstrated a lot of this. Wasn't it called "The Secret Life of the Dog" or somesuch. Awesome show. They showed the Russian experiment with the silver foxes, dogs that could recognise 100s of objects by name etc compared ability to follow a hand pointing to that of a chimp - dog will follow the hand and get the reward, chimp not because dogs dependent on human cues because of years of evolution/integration. I think New Scientist had some similar articles.

I couldn't complete it because of a computer glitch :(

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Thanks so much for all your help everyone :) This is great!

Done :)

Can I put a link on my Facebook page to the survey??

By all means :) Any way to get the word out to as many people as possible would be very much appreciated :)

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I've seen some of this on TV before eg where they test the different breeds and whether they can work out whether to go around a barrier to get a reward - yes for working dogs. Breeds like pekes etc look to their human to solve the puzzle for them.

So some of the answers are different for different breeds. There was that program on SBS recently where they demonstrated a lot of this. Wasn't it called "The Secret Life of the Dog" or somesuch. Awesome show. They showed the Russian experiment with the silver foxes, dogs that could recognise 100s of objects by name etc compared ability to follow a hand pointing to that of a chimp - dog will follow the hand and get the reward, chimp not because dogs dependent on human cues because of years of evolution/integration. I think New Scientist had some similar articles.

I couldn't complete it because of a computer glitch :(

Yes that's right. Some of the questions are based on studies that have been done with dogs, and others are based on research that is still yet to be tried with dogs, but some have already been done with chimps.

The silver foxes in Russia are so cool, aren't they? I'd love to visit them one day :D And there's a dog in South Carolina, USA, that can recognize over 1000 different objects by name. The one in the show you're talking about was either Rico or Betsy, and they are in Austria or Germany. Dogs are amazing aren't they? :)

We didn't want to get too much into breed differences in this survey because it's the first of its kind to ask people about dog cognitive abilities, at least that we know of. Perhaps future surveys could look at breed differences, but this one is more general. :)

Thanks for your comments!

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I want to see the dog that was taught a "copy me" cue. I'm pretty sure it was Miklosi that taught him. Apparently you need to be an exceptionally clever Malinois or something to learn how to do it. I often wonder if Erik could learn that. He's very clever. I'd call it "Simon says". ;)

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