New research has shed some light on dogs’ ability to understand what humans are saying, showing that even completely untrained dogs can follow simple hand signal commands.
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The study, which was published in January in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, demonstrated that 80% of the untrained stray dogs in the study successfully followed pointing directions given by people to a precise location. That dogs can comprehend complex hand gestures and respond to them, despite not using similar communication with their own species, suggests an even deeper connection between dogs and humans than previously thought.
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