Social Petting Affects Point-Following in Free-Ranging Dogs

Trust begins with touch: Free-ranging dogs, often unfamiliar with consistent human contact, showed a higher likelihood of following human pointing cues after receiving brief social petting. This indicates that trust, even when briefly established, can change canine response patterns in communicative settings.

Honesty matters too: The study further assessed how the informative versus deceptive nature of the human cues influenced the dogs’ behaviour. Dogs were more responsive when cues were reliable and not misleading, underscoring their sensitivity to human intent.

A deeper cognitive link: These findings reveal a complex interplay between emotional bonding and cognitive interpretation in dogs. Social gestures like petting act as trust signals, and the reliability of the pointing gesture determines whether the dog chooses to engage. This deepens our understanding of interspecies communication in everyday environments.