How dogs sniff out treats by using memory – not their sense of smell

IF you thought dogs used their acute sense of smell to find a buried bone, you’d be barking up the wrong tree.

In fact, Fido relies on his memory more than his nose to find hidden treats.

The discovery was made by American scientists who used a game to test 00 dogs in their own homes around the world.

Each pet watched its owner place two cups upside down in front of them, then put a treat under one of the cups.

The dog’s eyes were then covered and the food was moved to the second cup. But when the dog was allowed to see the cups again, instead of using its sense of smell to find the food, most simply ran towards the cup in which they had seen the food deposited.

Researcher Evan MacLean, from Duke University in North Carolina, said: ‘Most people think dogs use their sense of smell for everything.

‘But actually dogs use a whole range of senses when solving problems.

‘Memory is important for any sort of planning and understanding patterns and for making predictions about the world. Memory is crucial for all of that for any animal.’ Researchers who used the internet to recruit owners and test dogs in their homes, also investigated the phenomenon of contagious yawning, when a dog yawns just after its owner.

Dr MacLean said: ‘The idea is that it is a very primitive form of empathy.’

The study, in the journal PLOS ONE, didn’t find any evidence of the phenomenon, but it did find that dogs have widely differing strengths.

Some had a better memory, others were more talented at taking their master’s perspective while another group were good at communicating.