Science News: Dogs Learn More Efficiently Than Human Children

We love Science. When I give lectures about how pets like dogs, are intelligent, I explain the science of behaviors, learning, and even how it has been proven that they have the same emotional responses that humans have. Now  a recent scientific study at Yale University with dogs and then children tested their ability to problem solve faster. Dogs won. 
   It's really not a surprise to us, since we see how smart our dogs are figuring out puzzles and how do to things. Here's the info about the study and a brief video explaining the experiment.************************************** 

Dogs ignore bad advice that humans follow

By Bill Hathaway

    Dogs are less likely to follow bad advice than children, according to a new study conducted at the Canine Cognition Center at Yale. In contrast to children, dogs only copy a human’s actions if they are absolutely necessary for solving the task at hand, according to a recently published study appearing in the journal Developmental Science.
  “Humans often fall prey to the bad advice of others” said Laurie Santos, director of the Canine Cognition Center at Yale and senior author on this study. “Children tend to copy all of a teacher’s actions, regardless of whether they are necessary or not.”
  For instance, in one study previously conducted at Yale by Dr. Frank Keil and colleagues, children watched a demonstrator solve a puzzle by first moving a lever and then lifting a lid to pull out a prize.    
   Although the lever was completely irrelevant for solving the puzzle, children repeatedly performed both actions, even when they were in a race to solve the puzzle as quickly as possible.
The new study shows that dogs will leave out irrelevant actions when there is a more efficient way to solve a problem, even when a human repeatedly demonstrates these actions.
FULL Article: http://news.yale.edu/2016/09/26/dogs-ignore-bad-advice-humans-follow
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/QyhqbVkqQaw