Inside of a Dog_ What Dogs See, Smell, and Know - Alexandra Horowitz [62]
Chimpanzees have been given variations of this task in captive research settings. Surprisingly, though they seem to follow points, they don't always do well at following gaze alone.
Dogs perform admirably. They follow points, points that reach across the pointer's body, points from behind the body, and are even better if the point includes a finger further signifying the baited bucket.* They haven't simply learned the importance of an outstretched arm. Pointing with elbows, knees, and legs also serves as information. Given even a momentary point—a glance of a point—the information is theirs. They can follow the pointed cue given by a life-sized video projection of their owner. Though they have no arms with which to point themselves, they outperform the chimps who have been tested. Best, dogs can use simply the person's head direction—her gaze—to get information. You may be able to hide that sock from your sock-coveting chimpanzee, but your dog will spot it.
Where dogs' use of attention really gets interesting is in less overt cases. Not just when we point and they look, but when they have to decide how to inform us that they need to go outside—or want a ball tossed to them. Or they need to tell us some very important news about where a tasty treat fell out of their reach while we were out of the room. Play with humans is a rich context for the possible appearance of some of these abilities; experimental paradigms also manipulate the information that can be gleaned from others' attention. All signs indicate that dogs seem to understand how to get attention, how to make requests of us using attention, and what kind of inattention allows them to get away with bad behavior.
Attention-getting
The first of these abilities, when seen in children, is called "attention-getting." Informally, you may know it as anything that your dog does to interfere with what you are currently trying to do. More formally, these are behaviors that are sufficient to change the focus of someone else's attention, by stepping into his visual field, making a discernible noise, or making contact. Suddenly jumping on you is a familiar dog attention-getting behavior, if not one that is well loved by the jumped-upon. Barking is another. Their attention-getting means aren't restricted to the quotidian, though. Less recognized means include bumping, pawing, or simply orienting oneself right up in front of someone else: what I have called an in-your-face in my data of dog play behaviors. Guide dogs use "sonorous mouth licking"—audible slurps—to get the attention of their visually impaired charges when needed. The excitement of play sometimes leads them to come up with novel techniques, too. My favorite sessions to observe are those in which an eager but frustrated dog mirrors the behavior of the object of his unrequited play interest: approaching and drinking from the bowl from which the first dog is drinking—and using it as a means toward licking his face; or grabbing a stick of his own when another dog finds a good stick to be sufficient company.
Dogs use attention-getters regularly with us, and are often rewarded with our attention. But unless they show some subtlety in application of these behaviors, their use does not prove their full understanding of our attention. It may be that they are simply throwing all the tools they have at the problem of needing you to look at them. A child hollers, you come racing to his side: an attention-getter is born. Observations of dogs playing with humans show just how crude or subtle their use of these behaviors is. There are dogs who will stand barking continuously over a retrieved tennis ball, while their owners socialize with members of their