Seeing the person, rather than smelling him or hearing him, also led to more tail wagging by the dogs. However, these differences were not significant. In the smell-only condition, the dogs were slower than they were with all the cues or with the sight cue, and they were faster than in the sound-only situation. In other words, seeing the person was far more effective than only hearing her. In the situation with all the cues and in the sight-only situation, the dogs were about three times faster than in the sound-only situation. The interesting detail is in how quickly the dogs located the person. When it came to only one cue at a time, the sight, sound, and smell situations were each about equally effective in helping the dog, although none was as effective as all three cues at once. They timed the dog in each situation to see how long it took him to find the person in the testing room and get a treat.Īs you would expect, the dogs found the person almost every time when they had all three cues – sight, sound, and smell. They tested 11 dogs in an experiment that allowed the dogs to detect the presence of a person by smell only, sight only, sound only, or using all three senses at once. Megumi Fukuzawa and Marina Watanabe looked at how sight, sound, and smell can cue dogs to a person’s presence. Have you ever wondered which would be easier for him to understand, spoken words or visual cues? What is the most effective way of communicating with your dog? Recent research from Nihon University, in Japan, helps answer this question. But no doubt, you do a lot of talking to your dog, too. You may have seen deaf dogs responding to the hand signals of their owners, and perhaps, you use hand signals with your own dog.

Dog come hand signal