Have You Seen My Master?

Overview

Objectives/Goals I want to know if a dog's attention towards its owner is affected if the dog can't see its owner's face. Methods/Materials Materials 50 dogs with owners 1 person each dog is unfamiliar with 2 large paper bags 2 stopwatches Procedure 1.Obtain materials. 2.Take one dog, its owner, and the person the dog has never seen into an area with minimum distractions. 3.For one minute, have the dog#s owner and the other participant walk back and forth, in opposite directions, without speaking or making any noise, in front of the dog. 4.Using a stopwatch, time how long the dog follows or shows interest in its owner. 5.Have the dog#s owner and the other participant put the paper bags over their heads, so their faces aren#t visible. 6.For one minute, have the dog#s owner and the other participant walk back and forth, in opposite directions, without speaking or making any noise, in front of the dog. 7.Using a stopwatch, time how long the dog follows or shows interest in its owner. Results According to my data, dogs who could see the faces of their owners were attentive towards the owners for an average of 24.86 seconds out of one minute. When the dogs' owners' faces were invisible to them, the dogs only paid attention for an average of 22.56 seconds out of one minute. Conclusions/Discussion My hypothesis was incorrect. I found that dogs paid less attention to their owners when their owners' faces were covered. Puppies, really old dogs, and smaller-sized dogs didn't show much interest in their owners. The bigger dogs between ages 2 and 7 seemed to pay the most attention to their owners. They were also the most active dogs. I also noticed that when the people's faces were covered with bags, the dogs looked from one person to the other more frequently. This project is a small advance in the study of dog cognition. It also shows the importance of dog owners always staying in sight of their dogs. Dog owners and scientists who study dog cognition are benefitted by the results I gathered in this project.

Competition history

• CSEF 2011 Mammalian Biology · Entry J1216

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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