Experts say that the dogs included in the research remembered what they had seen humans doing, even though there was no particular reason for them to do so.
A new study has revealed that if you ever look at your dog and wonder what it is thinking at that moment, the answer may surprise you. According to the research, dogs remember past events far better than previously believed.
A study published in the scientific journal Current Biology reported that a group of researchers in Hungary found that, like humans, dogs can remember past events and recall them in their minds, even if those events had no special importance at the time they occurred.
One of the authors of the study, Claudia Fugazza, said: “Dogs are among the animals considered intelligent, but it is surprising that despite evolutionary differences, dogs share some mental abilities with their owners.”
She added that assessing a dog’s memory is quite difficult because dogs cannot speak. Therefore, researchers used a special method and asked dogs to do exactly what humans did. For example, if a human jumped, the dog was encouraged to jump as well.
One group of dogs was trained to imitate human actions, while another group was trained not to imitate what humans did.
After the training, researchers were surprised when the second group, which had been discouraged from copying humans during training, still performed the same actions when later asked to do what the human had done.
Experts say this shows that dogs remembered what they had seen humans doing, even though there was no particular reason for them to remember it.
The researchers concluded that memories remain in a dog’s mind for some time, but gradually fade and are eventually forgotten.