Mind-reading pooches

RESEARCHERS have discovered dogs possess basic mind-reading abilities based on an understanding of whether a human’s actions are deliberate or not.

The study suggests dogs can master a component of the Theory of Mind – the ability to read others’ intentions – which was previously regarded as uniquely human.

“The dogs in our study clearly behaved differently depending on whether the actions of a human experimenter were intentional or unintentional,” University of Göttingen study author Britta Schünemann said. Fellow author Hannes Rakoczy said “this suggests that dogs may indeed be able to identify humans’ intention-in-action”.