Being our companions for thousands of years since their domestication, humans have had a long-held fascination with our canine friends. Dogs have been around for so long that we’ve since affected how they evolved, and their stories have been passed along with our own.
However, despite millenia having passed since we’ve crossed paths, we have yet to fully understand how dogs communicate with us. Past studies have clearly shown that dogs are highly perceptive of their human buddies, and are capable of assessing the overall state of their friend; it seems likely, though, that there’s a lot left to learn regarding the ways we let our fur friends know how we feel.
One of these canine mysteries is their classic head tilt. You’ve likely seen your dog do it from time to time—perhaps when you’re trying to call its attention, or while you’re talking to your pet. We don’t actually know why they do this behavior—and experts think it’s more than just a gesture to boost their adorable appeal.
Turns out, it really may be more than just a cute act; researchers from Eötvös Loránd University may have found an answer to our canine companions’ actions. As it turns out, our dogs may be showcasing a signal for their increased attention or concentration. This particular study was led by Dr. Andrea Sommese, Ph.D. in Animal Science at Eötvös Loránd University. Their study was published in the journal Animal Cognition.
In the study, Dr. Somesse and team examined some 40 dogs, all from various breeds. They had the dogs remember the names of certain toys, and were then asked to get specific toys by mentioning the toy’s name, which the dogs associated with a toy that they remembered seeing. Of all the dogs screened with this procedure, seven (7) border collies were isolated for their remarkable ability to remember the names of the toys. These border collies, in turn, would be labeled as “gifted word learners.”
These “gifted learners” would then be tested for their memory retention across two more tests after that first one. In the second one, the research team instructed the “gifted” dogs’ owners to remember the names of 13 toys for up to three (3) months. And in the third experiment, the dogs were asked to remember up to 12 toys’ names within one week.
Results from these tests showed that these dogs were capable of remembering pretty well. A particular dog from the second experiment, named Whisky, was able to recall the names of the toys 54 out of 59 times—a 91.5% success rate. Only two more dogs resulted in at least a 90% success rate; the other dogs’ results played around 57% and 75%. The third experiment also showed that the dogs could remember the 12 new names for around two (2) months.
And, as it turns out, these border collies had more in common than just excellent memory; these dogs also tilted their heads more frequently than the rest of the dogs—especially when they heard specific commands. These “gifted word learners” also tilted their heads 43% of the time when they heard instructions, compared to the rest of the dogs that only did the same some 2% of the time.
To the research team, this meant that the dogs may be tilting their heads as a sign of their brains processing what they had just heard, perhaps while they match a name they heard to a mental image of the corresponding toy they kept in their memory.
Said Dr. Somesse in a press release to news source Phys.org: “Tilting the head is yet another asymmetrical movement in dogs, but it had never been studied. We investigated the frequency and direction of this behavior in response to a specific human verbal vocalization: when the owner asks the dog to bring a toy by saying its name. We did so after realizing that it often happened when the dogs were listening to their owners.”
“It seems that there is a relationship between success in retrieving a named toy and frequent head tilts upon hearing its name,” according to co-author and animal cognition researcher Shany Dror from the same Phys.org press release. “That is why we suggest an association between head-tilting and processing relevant and meaningful stimuli.”
The team also found that these dogs preferred to tilt their heads to either one side or the other, much like how humans prefer using either their left or right hands. These dogs stayed on their “favorite” tilting side across all three experiments that Dr. Somesse and team designed for them; apparently, the presence of the dogs’ owners didn’t affect the side in which they tilted their heads to, either.
Dr. Somesse and team ended up focusing on border collies, but their team believes that this impressive memorization skill isn’t unique to this specific breed of dog alone. And nevertheless, with the results from this study, we might be a step closer to fully understanding how our dogs communicate with us. Maybe we should tilt our own heads, too.
References
- Eötvös Loránd University. (2021, October 27). Talk-to-tilt: Head tilting in dogs. Phys.Org. https://phys.org/news/2021-10-talk-to-tilt-tilting-dogs.html
- Sommese, A., Miklósi, Á., Pogány, Á., Temesi, A., Dror, S., & Fugazza, C. (2021). An exploratory analysis of head-tilting in dogs. Animal Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-021-01571-8
- Woodward, A. (2021, November 3). The adorable head tilt some dogs do is a sign they’re concentrating and recalling information, a study found. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/why-do-dogs-tilt-heads-concentration-memory-2021-11
- Woodward, A. & Business Insider. (2021, November 3). New study explains why dogs do the head tilt, and it’s honestly too cute to handle. ScienceAlert. https://www.sciencealert.com/new-study-explains-why-dogs-do-the-head-tilt-and-it-s-honestly-too-cute-to-handle
