Pigs pay us attention – but go it alone when food’s at stake

PIGS are just as willing as dogs to pay attention to humans, but lose out to man’s best friend because of poorer communication skills, scientists have found.

While dogs are able to visually communicate with humans and ask them for help, pigs prefer to solve problems on their own.

Scientists at Hungary’s Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest found that both pigs and dogs paid equal amounts of attention to their owner when they were in the room.

The researchers then put a food reward in the same room, in a place that could be reached by the human, but not by the animal.

But while the dogs tried to direct their owner’s attention to the food in order to help them gain access to it, the pigs focused on trying to get to the food on their own.

Pigs may lack crucial characteristics for this kind of communication, the study, published in Scientific Reports, concluded.

The pigs used in the study belong to the Family Pig Project, which allocates miniatures pigs to human families, where they are raised as if they were a family dog.

This creates the ideal circumstances to compare the two species, as they have both been domesticated in a similar way.

“We found that when pigs and dogs were alone with their owners, they paid similar attention to her/him.

“However, after the experimenter hid the reward, only dogs tried to show their owners where it was. Pigs, in contrast, just tried to find the way to take it themselves,” said Attila Andics, the principal investigator.

‘Other animals rely heavily upon visual communication when interacting with their mates. Pigs don’t’

The study showed that not all animals may be capable of directing humans’ attention where they want it to be.

“Although we know that dogs are especially skilful in communicating with humans, other animals like horses, cats, and even kangaroos can referentially communicate with us, and all of them rely heavily upon visual communication when interacting with their mates. Pigs, on the contrary, don’t,” said Paula Pérez Fraga, PHD student and first author of the study.