What is a common reason dogs engage in imitation of human behavior?

Dogs may spontaneously imitate other dogs or animals and even Charles Darwin mentions some examples in 1871 in his classic book The Descent of Man. Perhaps the first instance that I remember where a dog showed unprompted imitation behavior involved an apricot-colored standard poodle named Brandy. He was owned by psychologist Janet Werker and stayed home alone during the day when the family was at work. Each evening when the family members returned home they habitually greeted Brandy by tousling his ears and saying "Hello!" in a cheerful and singsong tone of voice. Without any specific training, Brandy learned to give an imitative two-syllable "arl-row," which for all the world sounds like a doggish attempt to say the word "Hello!" in the same tone which his family usually greets him. Why dogs choose to spontaneously imitate certain behaviors of humans or other animals is not clear. However, Charles Darwin suggested that the fact that dogs do imitate others was a sign of their intelligence and their attempt to adapt to their environment — even though what they are choosing to imitate may not seem to be sensible or useful when viewed from a human perspective.

Dogs’ history of living with and helping people may explain why they copy human actions. Humans sometimes copy others when there’s no clear reason to, which seems linked to group identity, Fugazza says. We tend to mimic others’ movements when we are in a relationship with them or when we want to be. Those relationships might have provided the motivation for imitation. Dogs evolved from wolves, wolves work together, hunting in packs, and once dogs started hanging around humans, they worked with people, dogs became humans’ helpers, for instance, in herding and hunting. The young of all species have to learn the most, there’s a lot to learn from observing others.