Boop.
It turns out your very good boy or very good girl could be lying to you.
A study last year found that doggos can deceive humans to get what they want.
The study, which was published in Animal Cognition, was conducted by researchers from Switzerland.
In order to conduct the study, the researchers trained 27 dogs of different ages (doggos, puppers and big ole’ woofers) to detect the difference between someone who allowed them to have their favourite treat (the cooperative partner) and someone who wouldn’t (the competitive partner).
LISTEN: Sorry to all the parents of fur babies, but they’re just animals. The Mamamia Out Loud team discuss. Post continues.
During the study the dogs would lead the hoomans to three different boxes: one that would contain sausages – their favourite treat; one that contained biscuits; and one that was empty.
The cooperative partner would give them whatever was in the box and the competitive partner would keep the treats for themselves.
The researchers found the dogs would lead the person who’s more likely to give them their treat straight to the sausages.
But when it came to the person who would not give them their favourite treat, the dogs were more likely to led them to the empty box.
“On both test days, the dogs were more likely to lead the cooperative partner than the competitive one to the box containing the preferred food, and this effect was stronger on the second than on the first test day,” the study found.