Devoted dog owners will often swear that their pet somehow understands them. My Grandma June would say, look, just by the way she tilts her head, I know she understands me. We would all roll our eyes. Man's best friend turns to the dark side when they know we are looking away or we are gone.

And the next time someone tries to tell them they’re imagining it, they have the perfect response – scientists think so too. Too bad my Grandma isn't around to throw that back at us.

According to Daily Mail 42 female and 42 Male dogs were tested. In each test, someone told the dog it couldn’t take the food. But when the room was dark, the dogs were more than twice as likely to steal the food and acted much more quickly, even when the person remained in the room. The researchers ruled out the possibility that dogs were simply basing their decisions on associative rules, such as dark means food. The findings, published in the journal Animal Cognition, could be useful to groups who work with dogs - the police, the blind and gun dog handlers.

I think it's funny, and I wonder how many of us already knew these findings. I have movies of my son feeding our dog, and she wouldn't take it until he looked away and I was out of the room.

I once had a dog who waited till we were gone and raided the butter or cookies on the counter, whatever she coiuld get when we left. She knew she would get in trouble, in fact, she would hang her head as soon as we got home.

 

 

 

 

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