In one experiment, a researcher would hide food under one of two cups―and then call to the puppy and point toward the cup that held the treat.And we found puppies were able to use this social cue effectively, choosing the correct location significantly above what you would expect by mere chance.In another experiment, a researcher would talk to a puppy.“Hi pup. Are you a good puppy? Yes, you are! What a good puppy!”This goes on for about 30 seconds.“Are you the best puppy? Yes, you are! Of course you are. That’s a good puppy!”During this interaction, the researcher would record how much time the pup spent gazing at her with joyous anticipation and then compare it with how the other puppies behaved.And what they found?First, we learned something important about the developmental basis of these skills.In the largest sample to date, we show that puppies will reciprocate human social gaze and can successfully use information given by a human in a social context from a very young age.And they do so from the very first run.And so it seems likely that puppies really are starting the task with the communicative ability necessary to be successful rather than just quickly learning an association over the course of the task.In addition, the researchers found that these social skills have a strong genetic component.So while many puppies breeze through, others just cannot figure it out.And what’s really fascinating is that we found a lot of this variation can be explained by the genetics of the dogs.
