Philobiblon

It won’t come as a surprise to many owners, but scientists are coming to the conclusion that dogs do have a theory of the mind.

In a remarkable experiment to probe canine cognition, Prof Ludwig Huber and colleagues at the University of Vienna put dogs through a classic experiment done with children in which an instructor demonstrates to a toddler how to turn off a light using her forehead, once with her hands clearly visible and once when wrapped in a shawl, so that she can’t use them.
When invited to turn the light off for themselves, toddlers who were shown the first version use their heads, but those shown the second use their hands.
The standard interpretation is that the first group conclude that there must be a good but non-obvious reason for using the forehead method, as otherwise the instructor would have used her hands. Dogs do the same thing in Prof Huber’s experiments, where they had to pull a lever to obtain a reward, lending support to the idea that dogs have a rudimentary “theory of mind.

Researchers are also suggesting that they have a moral sense – and a sense of fairness. (Which I’d certainly agree with – my old Beanie and I came to a deal on dropped kebabs, hot chips etc, which with late night walks in Walthamstow were a common occurrence – she was allowed one mouthful, then I would insist that she left the rest. One night I absentmindedly tried to stop her getting the one mouthful – and that was how we ended up with a broken harness…. I wasn’t being fair.)

And elephants – unsurprisingly when you think they are an intelligent species – can add up small numbers.