Yale's Canine Cognition Center Studying The Minds Of Man's Best Friend

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Have you ever wondered what your dog is thinking?

Researchers at Yale University are determined to find out. They've enrolled hundreds of dogs into an unusual testing program.

It's being done at the Canine Cognition Center, and Laurie Santos is the director. She says dogs are fascinating, and owners want to know what's going on in their minds.

In one of their tests, they put on a puppet show for the dogs. A rat puppet helps a hedgehog puppet up a hill, but then the rat knocks the hedgehog down. How will the dog watching react?

"Similar studies have been done with human infants, and what we find is infants don't like the guy who was mean," said Santos. "So we're doing the same thing with dogs to try and see if dogs morally evaluate the way humans do."

When the puppet show is over, sure enough, the dog in the report seems a little leery of the mean rat, letting out a loud bark at it.

In another test, a dog watches his or her companion sit and read. Then the companion puts the book on the floor behind her. Soon after, someone comes into the room and steals the book.

"What we really want to see is whether or not dogs know when we've missed some information," said Santos. "And when they do realize it, are they motivated to help?"

Turns out, over and over, the dogs realize something is wrong and even try to alert their companion.

So what, if anything, have researchers learned so far?

"The most surprising thing so far is how many of our intuitions about dogs are right," said Rebecca Spaulding, a junior at Yale. "Dogs have feelings, and dogs want to communicate with us."

Another researcher said, "One thing we have found consistently is how in touch the dogs are to our emotions."

They've tested 300 dogs so far. One thousand more dogs are on a waiting list.

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