Dogsey

And yet they can't be guilty. Gosh, scientists really should make up their minds.

You can not equate the two things they are totally different.
One is about a dogs emotions the other how a dogs perceived the behaviour of humans.

Actually, the whole guilty thing, in your eyes, is also merely their reaction to our behavior, is it not? Your theory is that dogs cannot feel the emotion of guilt, is it not? I wonder if that applies to happiness, sadness, excitement, and other emotions. Or perhaps those are always in reaction to us, as well?

The title is a tad misleading IMO. Dogs don't know a liar when they see one, but perhaps they can tell when you're jerking their chain sometimes. Anyway, one of my dogs never goes in my pointed direction, and the other one always does. So there that goes.

I'm sure some of it more based on intelligence in addition to instinct. Sophie is dumb as a rock with reading humans, her first instinct even if food is involved is to run. Interesting though, one of hubby's friend's is definitely on the shady side. And more so than any other human who has come in the house this gentleman gets the strongest reaction from Callie. Not full attack but much throaty growling until he leaves. Some dogs can definitely read people.

They certainly can lovemybull. Dogs are very perceptive of humans.

Agree, lovemybull. My dad doesn't like Nigredo. He never recovered after my previous dog died and he can't let another dog in. Dad sometimes feigns liking him because he knows that I love him, but he doesn't like him. Nigredo has sensed this from the day he first arrived and is hand shy with my dad (nobody else, not even strangers). He will let him pet him, but his ears go back and his tail doesn't wag. My dad isn't a bad person, and would never hurt Nigredo, he just has no affinity for him, and pretending doesn't trick Nigredo.

An interesting thing I learned the other day is that dogs understand the meaning of the pointing gesture, and will follow the direction of your finger to see what you are pointing at.

A tame, domesticated wolf will not.

One of the thousands of traits that man has been able to train the wolf to do during the tens of thousands years of the evolution of wolf to dog.

That's right Gnasher. Another difference is that dogs look more often at a human's face than a tame, domesticated wolf does.

If you're interested you might like to look at "The Family Dog Project" website under "Wolf-Dog Comparisons" where you'll find a number of papers related to studies of the differences (and similarities) between dogs and domesticated wolves.

Oooo thank you ... there are many more similarities than differences, even amongst the high %'s, but it is fascinating to compare and see how wolf evolved into dog.

Wolves do not like to look you in the eye, it is considered a threat or bad manners in a wolf pack. If you are horsing one on one with a wolf that's OK, but if you are in an enclosure say and just chilling, best to sit quietly, don't make eye contact, let the wolf come to you. You soon know if they don't like you because they start to pace and circle round the enclosure ... because they are scared, not because they are going to attack you.

With Bruce's mum, she preferred men to women but she was fine with me, although better with OH ... until he went into her enclosure with a camera round her neck, he did not like that all, so I went into the enclosure to distract her and calm her whilst OH slipped out and put the camera down. He then came back in and all was well.

Very different from even a wolf cross like Ben, but you can still see hundreds of wolf behaviours and mannerisms in every dog.

It would not be a kind thing to do, but I have always thought that a very interesting experiment would be to breed a litter of pups from a dog, any dog, it could even be a mutt, but mate a dog and a bitch who live together and know each other. Keep them living together in an enclosure such that they could live as close to a wolf as possible. The enclosure would have a kennel in it, under which it would be possible for a den to be dug for the bitch to give birth in and raise the pups. Ideally, the dogs would have lived outside all of their life so that they were used to outdoor living. Left alone, not handled by humans except for food, water and cleaning out the run and kennel, it is my guess that the bitch would dig a den under the kennel, with the help of her mate. Once the pups were born, I think she would probably keep them in the den, not bringing them upstairs as it were until they were ready to do this under their own steam. It would be vital that the pups had no human contact, no handling.

I think those pups would grow up to be fearful of humans, just like Bruce was. With wolves, up to the age of 3 weeks you can manage to get them to accept human beings and not be terrified of them, but after 3 weeks the fear of anything standing upright on 2 legs is to be feared, and you can never truly overcome this, even with a dog.

It would be a horrendous experiment to do, but nonetheless very interesting. Because Bruce had been allowed to live as a virtual wild wolf, his fear of humans kicked in at 3 weeks and we were on a hiding to nothing trying to accept humans outside of our pack.

I will go and have a look right now.