All dog owners are familiar with the situation when a pet looks at its owner with its head tilted to the side.
This behavioral model has been interpreted in many ways, but experts have not come to a consensus on why dogs do this. Hungarian scientists from Eötvös Loránd University have put an end to this issue.
The researchers published their findings in the journal Animal Cognition.
As part of the scientific work, it was necessary to analyze video recordings of the behavior of dogs from different countries of the world.
The pets were asked to bring a toy by saying the name of the toy out loud.
It turned out that during training, the most intelligent were border collies. The dog was able to remember 54 names of toys.
Analyzing the animals' behavior at this moment, scientists noticed that when the dogs listened to the command, they tilted their heads to the side.
Thus, it was suggested that the habit is associated with the perception of the command by ear, and the tilt indicates concentration of attention.
Scientists believe that this behavior pattern indicates intense mental activity in animals, most likely an attempt to remember the name of an object.
