While quickly flipping past the reality shows on TV the other evening, I came across a documentary examining Empathy and Fairness in animal behaviour. One portion of the documentary demonstrated a test to see if dogs had “a sense of fairness”.

A researcher at the University of Vienna in Austria, Friederike Range, and her team performed a series of experiments with dogs who knew how to respond to the command “give a paw”. In the experiment, a Border Collie was asked repeatedly to ”Give a paw.” and place its paw in the handler’s hand. The experimenter cued the Border Collie 30 times in a row and did not reward/reinforce in any way each time the dog complied. The dog responded consistently each time and without hesitation.

A second Border Collie was then brought into the room and placed next to the first Border Collie. The first dog was asked to “give a paw” which it did without hesitation. The second dog was given the same cue. When it responded and placed its paw in the hand, it was immediately praised and given a food reward. After five times of the second dog being rewarded but the first Border Collie not getting a reward, the first Border collie started to hesitate and then stopped responding altogether.

When the researchers repeated the cue to “give a paw” to the first Border Collie, it hesitated, shifted position a little and started to whine but did not offer its paw. From this lack of response by the first Border Collie, the researchers interpreted that “Dogs have an intuitive understanding of fair play and become resentful if they feel that another dog is getting a better deal.”

“Amazing!”  I thought and then was distracted by an experiment on researching “empathy” in rats.

A few days later I related the story about the two Border Collies to a client whose dogs were not getting along. I’d just been talking with the client about interpreting their dog’s behaviour and being cognizant about the dog’s perspective when interpreting their actions. An image of those two Border Collies sitting together came to mind and especially the behaviour of the first Collie when it wasn’t getting praise and food for presenting its paw.

I remembered that after the second delivery of praise and food to the second Border Collie, the first started watching the handler more intently and its gaze tracked back and forth between the handler and the second Collie that was getting a reward. The first Collie squirmed, shifted its paws, seemed slightly anxious and whined a bit before it stopped offering its paw when asked. My instincts were telling me that what I saw, was a dog that was anxious and confused, as though it didn’t know what it was supposed to be doing.

Whereas, the researches had interpreted the behaviour as a “resentful” refusal to comply; leading them to an assumption that dogs do have a “sense of fairness”.

In retrospect, my eyes saw a dog that was confused and stopped offering its paw because it didn’t understand what it was supposed to be doing. If I were to anthropomorphize (I love that word), I would say that in watching the second dog getting a reward, the first couldn’t figure out what it was doing wrong that didn’t qualify for a reward. It wanted to benefit from the praise and food but just try as it might, couldn’t learn what to do and became anxious, confused, started to whine and just shut down and stopped trying.

The question is; which interpretation of the first Border Collies behaviour is correct?

Resentment and a Sense of Fairness

                        Or

Inaction, due to Confusion & Anxiety.

In my always hesitant opinion… it could be either. And some of you might have different interpretations than these.

The University of Vienna researchers were perhaps themselves being anthropomorphic (still love that word) in that they drew a specific conclusion, when there is a possibility of other explanations for the first Border Collies refusal.

For me this was a reminder that when determining why an animal behaves as it does…

Keep my mind open to all possibilities and don’t let behavioural prejudice cloud my observations.