Dogs Save Us From Bad Friends
It is said, with good reason, that dogs are the best friendship we can forge. When we begin this “relationship” with them, we will have someone by our side willing to sacrifice for us. Therefore, it is not strange to think that they have the ability to save us from “bad friends.” It is not an act of jealousy, but of pure love as only they know how to offer. Find out more in this article.
Dogs detect what are the intentions of friends and others
Our beloved four-legged friends guard us from all danger and evil. If you weren’t so sure about it, then pay attention to research recently done and published in the journal Current Biology. According to scientists, dogs have the ability to anticipate people’s actions.
In the study, it was found that furry animals who had visual contact with a person (the owner or not) were more likely to follow their movements in a room. These same “skills” are held by six-month-old babies until they begin to speak.
Dogs are sensitive to the signals or clues that humans offer them and this has at least one reason: when they were domesticated with the aim of working with people, an effective means of communication was sought between two species that did not speak the same language.
In what way were they able to express themselves? Through the looks. Although at first the furry ones were used in herding or hunting tasks and later they became pets, this tool remained in force.
Older research, published in the journal Learning & Behavior, indicated that domesticated dogs ask for food from those who look at them and not those who do not pay attention to them. Furries can learn the meaning of about 165 words (similar to two-year-olds).
A later test compared the attitude of two groups of dogs. In the first one, a person said “hello” looking at them in the face. In the second, the greeting did not include eye contact. The latter being the ones that showed the least interest in humans.
Dogs can recognize the untrustworthy
Although sometimes we do not realize it , dogs are very intelligent and above all intuitive. They are aware of things that humans may not pay attention to. They can differentiate when we are happy, angry, or even jealous.
But they also have the ability to recognize when someone is not entirely trustworthy. When this happens, they do not follow your instructions, but pay more attention to them (to anticipate possible wrongdoing).
An experiment conducted at the University of Kyoto, Japan, and published in Animal Cognition Magazine, showed that dogs know when someone is to be trusted. For this, 34 furry animals were tested.
They participated in three different rounds where objects were pointed out to them: food hidden in a container, an empty container, and a food container. The dogs used their experience in this activity to assess whether a person was trustworthy or not.
After the three rounds, the animals followed the instructions of that person considered to be trustworthy. According to Akiko Takaoka, in charge of the research, the dogs evaluated trust in humans, since they have a sophisticated and more developed social intelligence than ours.
How do dogs save us from bad friends?
Based on these studies, we can understand why our pets can help us avoid certain “toxic” people. If, for example, we take a new “friend” home and the animal gets exasperated, barks, growls or stares at him … be careful.
Our dog’s reaction is something we shouldn’t take lightly. Pay close attention to their behavior when we are in the presence of people. If, on the contrary, he remains calm, relaxed or even sleeping, no problem … it means that he has accepted him and there is nothing to fear.
