Community Corner

Do You Speak Dog? Does Your Dog Speak Human?

A Westport-based dog behaviorist is studying the communication between dogs and people. She needs your help to finish her study.

Michele Wan's house on Compo Road South is a familiar one to Petey, a 9-year-old pit bull.

He usually goes there with his owner Noah Waring for help in becoming comfortable around other dogs.

Petey had a confrontation with another dog years back in a Fairfield park and subsequently had trouble when he saw or heard canines of any kind.  Eighteen months ago, when Wan and Waring first started working with Petey, his hair would stand up when he was near other dogs and his teeth would chatter while he growled. When he interacts with people, he has always been one of the friendliest dogs around. Now, after much training, he occasionally growls when close to other dogs, but his response is less intense, and he can go on walks with a few dogs.

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On a recent trip to Wan's house, Petey was not there for his traditional training but for another purpose — to participate in a dog/human behavior study.

Wan, a dog behaviorist who's working towards a doctorate in psychology with a focus on animal behavior, particularly dog behavior, from Columbia University, is studying the communication between dogs and humans for her dissertation.

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As such, she's looking for human and dog volunteers to participate in her two-part study.

The first part is an online test that investigates human interpretations of dog behavior. There are a series of questions in an online survey about dog behavior that must be answered after viewing video clips of dogs acting in a certain way. Participants must be at least 18 years old. Dogs are not required for this study.

"The idea is among behavior specialists, certain behaviors are considered stress behaviors and this (study) will give us scientific consensus to say these things," Wan said. "Not everyone will see the same things but the set of (behaviors) we included is the one mostly agreed upon, so we should have a similar level of agreement. My hypothesis is that the (participants) won't see everything the behaviorists see or they will see some of the same things but come to different conclusions."

The second part of the study is an in-person one that investigates canine responses to human communicative signals.Participants also must be at least 18 years old, and dogs must be at least 1 year old. Wan prefers the owner brings the dog they've had for the longest time. The owner can observe the entire process and participates in part of it.

The in-person study is a series of tests to determine how a dog responds to and differentiates among different facial expressions whether from its owner or from Wan, the experimenter.

Wan has set up an office in her home with blue tape lining the floor to indicate the distance a dog will travel in the room depending on various tests.

In addition to studying how dogs respond to human emotions, Wan is also studying a dog's ability to communicate with a person. She's taken an existing experiment comparing dogs and wolves and their ability to communicate with people and modified it for purposes of her study.

The test is this: Wan puts a dog treat in a plastic container with the lid only slightly resting on the container's lip, so most of the container is open. She then allows the dog to retrieve the treat and eat it. With each subsequent treat she places in the container, she moves more of the lid over the top of the container so it increasingly closes the opening and shortens the space the dog has to reach the treat. Most times, the dog moves the lid with his or her nose to reach the treat. When she places the last treat in the container, she closes the lid entirely so the dog can't open it. She then sees how the dog responds.

When wolves were given this experiment, researchers found they tried to tear open the container. But dogs are different. Often times, dogs will look to their owners or treat givers for help.

In Petey's case, he sniffed the closed container, looked to Wan, sat down while still looking at her — hoping his good behavior might yield a treat — then lied down, waited a few moments and finally sighed.

Wan and Petey's owner began to laugh and then rewarded Petey with another treat for his participation in the test.

So far, Wan has studied canine reactions to human emotions and given the treat test to about a half a dozen dogs. 

"They are all so different, which is what I'm interested in," Wan said.

While some dogs aren't interested at all, Wan said other dogs are more responsive only to their owners and some dogs are responsive to both their owners and the experimenter.

Wan said she needs as many volunteers as possible. A bonus for study participants is they will be entered into a raffle for one $100 Visa gift card and two $50 Visa gift cards.

Wan hopes to collect all her data by the fall to then write up her report and share the results. 

Wan, who's lived in Westport since 2007, said Westport is the perfect place to conduct her study because it is a "dog town."

"The thing that made me love the town was I came in October or November and I saw all these dogs playing on the beach and they looked really happy," she said. "That was the main selling point for me. It's definitely a dog town, or I like to think that it is."

Westport has become a place where Wan can help Petey and other dogs like him, and now Wan hopes her study will not only be the final piece in her doctorate, but a way to help improve the communication between dogs and people.

"I feel it's important to disseminate information to behavior professionals and owners, especially if something will help people interact with their dogs or understand them better," Wan said.

If interested in participating in Wan's study, contact her by phone at 203-227-DOGS or by e-mail at michele@westportdogs.com. You can also visit the study's website through Columbia University here.


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