Nora Johnson: Watch out – They can read your mind!

Dogs may be able to understand our intentions, according to university researchers studying how they (the dogs, that is!) reacted when denied food on purpose or accidentally. Dogs seemed smart enough to know when people were being ‘clumsy’ with their treats and when they were being ‘mean’ and wagged their tails accordingly.

Hardly news to anyone who’s lived with dogs as companions. Supposedly dogs can’t do maths. Try putting three treats in your pocket then only giving them two!

A pal’s dogs always look at her ‘soulfully’ when she attempts to break a treat in half and implies they’re only getting two. They just ‘know’ and wait, ensuring they get what they want. She once caught one of them ‘drawing’ sketches on the kitchen floor with muddy paws. But then he is a Labradoodle…

It baffles me why a university needed to research a subject that anyone who’s owned a dog knows already. University departments are constantly doing studies, the answers to which are patently obvious. It’s almost an industry.

The research team are now involved in the following costly, but very important new research project: ‘Do dogs like chasing cats and squirrels?’

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Nora Johnson’s 11 critically acclaimed psychological crime thrillers (www.nora-johnson.net) all available online including eBooks (€0.99;£0.99), Apple Books, audiobooks, paperbacks at Amazon etc. Profits to Cudeca cancer charity.

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