Chiara is testing the dog pups

Diary entry, 20.02.2010, guest

Pictures of the day (2 images)   

Hi! I am Chiara I come from the University of Milan where I am doing a PhD on the socio-cognitive abilities of dogs and now I am here again because I want to test the dog pups.
I said again because I was already here in July and in October to test the wolves when they were two months old and four months old pups.
It was so impressive to see how much they have grown up in the meantime! Now they are nine beautiful wolves in their favorite natural environment: the snow!!
When I was there last time it was summer time and the pups were six funny and sweety hairy things and now I met real wolves who perfectly match with the snowy wooden park where the wolf Science Center is located.
I had this beautiful opportunity to test the puppies of both species, wolves and dogs, and the aim of my study is to compare wolves and dogs reared in the same way testing them when they are of the same age.
The tests I am doing are very simple and the pups were enthusiastic to do that even because there is always some tasty rewards or some delicious food to find.
In one of the tests, for example, pups have to choose between two different quantities of food (one piece of meat instead of 8 pieces of meat) that the experimenter shows them on two different plates and subsequently, in the second step the person who is doing the test tries to convince the dog (or wolf) that one is better than 8, so she comes near the plate with one piece of meat and says “mhhmhm this is very good” and in the third trial the choice became more easy because dog has to chose between the platewith one piece on each side and a person suggesting one instead of the other …
This test is created to investigate the predisposition of dogs to follow the owner or the person in a choice even if it’s not very advantageous for the dog and to measure the person’s influence on the dog or the wolf.
Puppy Wolves were wonderful in this test, they followed the human’s indication’s surprisingly more than the puppy dogs did, but now we have to collect more data to be sure!