IT'S ALL IN A LOOK

At Harvard University, researchers have been investigating canines' ability to understand human non-verbal communication by getting humans to either gaze at, point to, tap or mark one of two boxes containing a treat.

They tried this experiment with primates who didn't initially understand the activity but, over time, learned what the signals meant. The researchers also tried it with wolves brought up by humans, who generally performed poorly on the test. However, fascinatingly, puppies at just a few weeks old immediately understood what the human was telling them and went straight to the reward time after time.

Many of us will know that our dogs use gaze direction to communicate their needs to us. For example, dogs that gaze at the water bowl because it's empty or look at the toy basket to signal they are ready to play are using their eyes to communicate their wishes to their owner.

Yet, what makes this research so fascinating is that domestic dogs are not only able to interpret this behaviour in their own species, but also have a very specific ability to understand human 'language'. They watch us far more than we realise in an attempt to understand our body language, voice inflexions, the meaning of our words and intent behind our actions. Through this, they understand our way of communicating and have realised that we use gaze direction – just like them – along with pointing and tapping to communicate. This research confirms what many of us already know – interspecies communication is not only very possible but can also be highly sophisticated.