WEBVTT - Wolves Are Smarter Than Dogs?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works. Hey, brain

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<v Speaker 1>stuff is Christian Sager. My dogs Winchester and see blue.

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<v Speaker 1>They are real smart. So I was intrigued when I

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<v Speaker 1>read a new study that said wolves are more intelligent

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<v Speaker 1>in some ways than my dogs and all their canine friends,

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<v Speaker 1>whether you have a chocolate lab or a coonhound. Scientists

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<v Speaker 1>believe that some modern dogs and wolves descended from a

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<v Speaker 1>common ancestor between eleven thousand and thirty thousand years ago.

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<v Speaker 1>The new study, which was published in the September Journal

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<v Speaker 1>of Scientific Reports, is by an international team of researchers

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<v Speaker 1>at the Wolf Science Center in Vienna, Austria. They found

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<v Speaker 1>domesticated dogs cannot make the connection between cause and effect wolves, however, can.

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<v Speaker 1>They came to that conclusion by testing and comparing how

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<v Speaker 1>the two she's searched for food after giving them hints

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<v Speaker 1>about where it was located. Researchers used fourteen dogs and

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<v Speaker 1>twelve socialized wolves in their experiments. During the tests, the

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<v Speaker 1>animals had to choose between two containers, one with food

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<v Speaker 1>and one without. The first thing researchers did was determined

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<v Speaker 1>whether the animals could make sense of communicative clues by

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<v Speaker 1>pointing and looking at the container with the food. Researchers

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<v Speaker 1>next wanted to see how the dogs and wolves responded

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<v Speaker 1>to behavioral cues. The experiment or pointed to the container

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<v Speaker 1>with food, but did not make eye contact with the animals. Finally,

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<v Speaker 1>in the last experiment, the animals had to infer themselves

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<v Speaker 1>which container had the hidden food, using only causal clues

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<v Speaker 1>like noises made when the experiment or shook the container

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<v Speaker 1>with the food. Both the wolves and the dogs did

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<v Speaker 1>well on the communicative clue tests all found the hidden food.

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<v Speaker 1>Both species, however, failed the behavioral cue portion. Without direct

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<v Speaker 1>eye contact, neither a dog nor wolf could find the food.

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<v Speaker 1>During the last part of the test, however, only the

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<v Speaker 1>wolves could make casual inferences as to where the food

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<v Speaker 1>was located. In other words, the scientists said the wolves,

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<v Speaker 1>not the pooches, understood cause and effect. Study author Michelle

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<v Speaker 1>lamp from the Netherlands reminded us, however, that the differences

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<v Speaker 1>can be explained by the fact that wolves are more

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<v Speaker 1>persistent to explore objects than dogs. That's because dogs are

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<v Speaker 1>conditioned to receive food from us, whereas wolves have to

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<v Speaker 1>find food themselves in nature. What shocked researchers was that

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<v Speaker 1>the wolves were able to interpret direct eye to eye contact.

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<v Speaker 1>That understanding of communicative cues, researchers said may have for

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<v Speaker 1>facilitated domestication. The study is unique also in that it

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<v Speaker 1>used dogs that lived in both packs and with families,

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<v Speaker 1>but the results of the dogs were independent of living conditions.

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<v Speaker 1>Today's episode was written by John Paritano, produced by Tristan McNeil,

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<v Speaker 1>and For more on this and other topics, please visit

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<v Speaker 1>us at how stuff works dot com.