ASU Canine Science Collaboratory says your dog wants to rescue you

PHOENIX — Ever wonder if your canine companion could save you in an emergency?

According to a study by the ASU Canine Science Collaboratory, pet dogs will attempt to save their distressed owner as long as they know how to.

Collaboratory director and ASU professor Clive Wynne conducted the experiment alongside Joshua Van Bourg, a graduate student in ASU’s psychology department.

In order to test man’s best friend’s propensity to save their owners, Wynee and Van Bourg compiled 60 pet dogs with no prior training in rescuing humans.

In the main test, humans were put inside a large box with a light-weight door that the dog could move in order to free their owner.

Prior to being confined, each owner was instructed on how to make authentic-sounding distress calls such as “help” or “help me.”

However, owners were not allowed to use their pet’s name because that would point to the canine acting out of obedience rather than in concern of their owner’s safety.

“About one-third of the dogs rescued their distressed owner, which doesn’t sound too impressive on its own, but really is impressive when you take a closer look,” Van Bourg said.

Wynne and Van Bourg also ran two additional control experiments in order to test the dogs’ desire to help their owners, as well as the canines’ ability to understand what type of help was required.

In one of the controlled tests, only 19 of the 60 dogs opened the box after watching a researched drop food into it — meaning more canines rescued their owners than munched on a Scooby-snack.

“The fact that two-thirds of the dogs didn’t even open the box for food is a pretty strong indication that rescuing requires more than just motivation, there’s something else involved, and that’s the ability component,” Van Bourg said.

“Most dogs want to rescue you, but they need to know how.”

In the other controlled test, only 16 of the 60 dogs opened the box after owners calmly read aloud from a magazine instead of using the distress calls in the main experiment.

Researches also observed each dog during all three scenarios, noting stress indicators such as whining, barking, walking and yawning.

One key observation showed that regardless of how much exposure to the scenario the dogs were given, they were more stressed when their owners were in distress than in comparison to when their human was calmly reading.

Van Bourg explained that this is more evidence of emotional contagion or a dog’s ability to empathize stress with humans.

“The results from the control tests indicate that dogs who fail to rescue their people are unable to understand what to do — it’s not that they don’t care about their people,” Wynne said.

Follow @jwa1994