Man’s best friend has a lot of adorable habits, but the pose we arguably all know and love is – the dog head-tilt.
But why do our furry friends tilt their heads in the first place? In a study published last week in Animal Cognition, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, researchers from Eotvos Lorand University proposed that head-tilting in dogs may be related to “processing relevant, meaningful stimuli.”
In other words, your dog might be tilting its head in reaction to words or objects that spark memories in the brain – like the name of a favorite toy.
The researchers from last week’s study observed the reactions of 40 dogs during object-label knowledge tests and analyzed the presence of head tilts when owners verbally requested that their pups fetch a familiar toy.
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“Only a few dogs can learn the name of objects (toys) even after a few exposures, while most (typical) dogs do not,” read the report, adding that dogs that rapidly learn labels are identified as “gifted word learner” (GWL) dogs. “We expected that if head-tilting is related to processing meaningful or relevant auditory stimuli, dogs that learn object labels would tilt their heads more frequently upon hearing the toy’s name than typical dogs.”
Their hypothesis proved correct. In a three-month-long program aimed at teaching both GWL and “typical” dogs the names of two toys, GWL dogs tilted their heads much more frequently than typical dogs – at 43% vs 2% of trials. Again, because GWL dogs can learn labels rapidly, the researchers suggested that the differences in behavior may be signs of increased attention and/or matches in memory upon hearing the name of a visual image.
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The scientists also noted there has historically been little to no research on exclusively the head-tilting in dogs before. Earlier explanations have varied from dogs tilting their heads to aid hearing to simply seeing past their snouts.
Though the new results are exciting, researchers stress the need for further research – including work that can look into head tilts for a variety of dog breeds. The majority of the dogs studied for the report were Border Collies.
