Dogs are willing to rescue people in distress even without training: Study

A new study has revealed that pet dogs will try to save humans in distress even without any prior training in the subject. According to researchers at Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University, the dogs will continue to rescue the humans as long as they know how to proceed in a strenuous situation. However, according to a graduate student at ASU’s Department of Psychology, it remains a “difficult challenge” to derive “why” the dogs do it. The study took place on 60 dogs who had to rescue their owners without having any training in the matter. 

The study involved a person being confined to a large box that only had one light-weight door which could be accessed by the canine. The owners of the dogs were to act in distress and yelled “help”, which as per the instructions of the researchers, had to be authentic. The experiment which was set up by an ASU professor of psychology Van Bourg and director of the Canine Science Collaboratory Clive Wynne revealed that at least 33 percent of the dogs in the study rescued the person. 

"About one-third of the dogs rescued their distressed owner, which doesn't sound too impressive on its own, but really is impressive when you take a closer look," Van Bourg was quoted by ANI.

Bourg further elaborated that in the experiment, there were two aspects being tested including the canine’s desire to assist their owners and how well the dogs understood the need of the hour and decided an effective method to help. The findings were deemed ‘impressive’ because when dogs saw a researcher drop food into a box, only 19 dogs out of total 60 chose to open the box for food. 

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More dogs were willing to save owner

According to the study, this implied that a greater number of dogs were willing to save their owners instead of wanting food. The deciding factor remained if the dogs knew how to open the door in the first place. According to ASU psychology professor, the dogs who rescued their owners were ‘underestimated’ by the proportion of canines who were willing to do so. Therefore, with different tests it was derived that most dogs are willing to help their owners, “but they need to know how”.

“The key here is that without controlling for each dog's understanding of how to open the box, the proportion of dogs who rescued their owners greatly underestimates the proportion of dogs who wanted to rescue their owners," Van Bourg said.

"If you look at only those 19 dogs that showed us they were able to open the door in the food test, 84% of them rescued their owners. So, most dogs want to rescue you, but they need to know how," he added.

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With agency inputs: Image Source - Representative/Unsplash