Aren't they overlooking the fairly straightforward explanation that domesticated dogs were evolutionarily selected for looking at humans because they were rewarded with food? I note that most of the tests they are using involve food. But verifying that feral dogs behave in the same way is also a good idea (noted in the article). My guess is that they will - feral kittens seem to know to cozy up to humans when begging for food.
They should try tests involving something other than food that inspires dogs - like attempting to get access to a female in heat, and see if the dogs bother looking at humans in that scenario.
I can tell from experience that dogs also look at humans to get something they want that is not food.
When my 5 month old labrador rolls her ball under the couch (again), she tries for 5 seconds to get it herself, after that, she starts staring at me.
When she needs to "go", she will sit by the door and start staring at me.
Both of which are events that are not rewarded by food, but something she will enjoy by herself. (playing with a ball, and "relief"), even though in the latter case, I am very pleases she is going outside :).
The intuitive conclusion I have is that "dogs are uncanny," and I somewhat doubt if the answer will ever get better than that: we simply can't communicate with them to the degree that is required to answer these questions.
> He asked what color he was, and learned "grey" after being told the answer six times. This made him the first and only non-human animal to have ever asked an existential question.
There's a little evidence[1] to suggest that the influence of a sentient (or intelligent) species can, to some degree, rub off. You could definitely cherry-pick specific traits of any species that would imply that it is not intellectual, including humans (e.g. war, intolerance). Maybe dogs don't have an intellectual reason for looking at us but that's not conclusive as to the intellectual capacity of the species.
At the end of the day I think it's inconceivable for a person to form an emotional bond with an animal such as a baboon - yet we do that with dogs and that's got to mean something, even if it's not scientifically quantifiable.
For an example, some dogs prefer to chase an object, but dogs bred for hunting might prefer carrying over chasing.
This makes a difference if you want to reward them, for the chasing dog you should throw the ball, but for the carrying of the object you should just give them the ball and let them walk around with it.
When you have determined what type of reward that work with your dog, your training become very effective.
What's challenging there, of course, is whether this is trained behavior or innate. I.E. Would a feral dog think to look at a human if it couldn't get a toy, or needed to go outside?
I know people tend to underestimate how difficult other people's work is, but do you really need a doctorate and a university to do research like this? Why not just do it at home as a hobby and if you want Indian feral dogs, hire some Indian freelancers to perform the experiment and video it.
Are they just trying to do anything to keep their job? What kind of university lets its well qualified staff do things so far beneath their ability?
While the description of the experiments sounds simple, the actual protocols end up pretty complicated if you want reproducible results.
A couple of years back, i visited the wolf science center in Ernstbrunn/Austria, where they have wolves and feral dogs, and they also perform these kinds of behavioral experiments. It was quite eye-opening to see how much effort is needed for such seemingly simple experiments.
Obviously, just ensuring safety is quite complex when working with wolves, but there's also a lot of effort that goes into making sure the experiments work. You can only work with animals for a limited time, you don't have infinite number of animals, etc.
There was a PhD student at the center who was trying to design an experiment to simulate cooperation during hunting on a giant treadmill; not exactly trivial stuff...
Complicated yes, but surely nothing that most people couldn't figure out if they had the curiosity and no formal education in the field is it? The equipment here seems to be common kitchen containers and meat from the supermarket.
I don't think experiment design is something scientists are necessarily very good at or needed for. Just look at the recent articles pointing out the large proportion of bad results - probably coming from bad experiment design. A hobbyist on the other hand, could try again when it fails and fix problems.
Could it be the hard part is writing it up and submitting to a journal? That's not something you could just hack together without a lot of probably uninteresting self-teaching.
I'm pretty sure they learn that if they look at us we'll try to fix their problems for them. I think the whole "training" thing goes both ways with dogs and humans. My dog has trained me to let her back into the house when she makes a noise outside the back door, it's the only place she makes this particular noise and she started doing that by herself.
Dogs are mostly wolves with neotenic traits, it would be interesting to see how wolf and dog pups behave in the same test when presented with an impossible task, and, if they behave identically, at what age they diverge.
Likewise for dogs and wolves raised by their biological parent (assuming dogs treat their owner as a surrogate parent).
WHY is that dog looking at me? - the standard version
Why IS that dog looking at me? - a reply to the above; I'm wondering the same thing!
Why is THAT dog looking at me? - why not the other dog?
Why is that DOG looking at me? - why not the cat?
Why is that dog LOOKING at me? - why is it just looking, not sniffing etc?
Why is that dog looking AT me? - why not look past me at the food on the table? (okay, this one's a stretch)
Why is that dog looking at ME? - why not you?
They should try tests involving something other than food that inspires dogs - like attempting to get access to a female in heat, and see if the dogs bother looking at humans in that scenario.