Do dogs know if they are treated differently?

Can dogs really sense if we're playing favorites, though. Research says, they can to an extent, and it might not be a great thing for your pups' relationship if you're picking one over the other. Dogs are great students of routine, and if their routine gets interrupted or they aren’t getting as much attention as they are used to, they might become sad. A few signs to watch for include whining or howling when you’re interacting with your other dog. You might also notice your dog staring intently at what you’re doing and tilting their head. Your dog might even try to jump up on you to get your attention. For many years, people have known that their pups don't like it when they play favorites. In an article written by NPR in 2008, they detailed several studies done with different animals. The dogs didn't seem to care about the difference in treats, however they did care if they didn't receive a treat.

Dogs have been around humans for a really long time. As a result, they've learned to read our facial expressions, body language, and voices in a way that allows them to at least recognize what we're feeling. This includes anger. Your dog will react differently towards you when you're happy vs. when you're upset, especially when it's with them. Because they've been around humans for almost as long as we've been around, they've learned to associate certain facial expressions and voice patterns with different emotions. Depending on the behaviors we exhibit when we're mad, dogs will recognize them and react differently. A study in Finland showed that dogs can pinpoint threatening facial expressions in humans, and the way they look at those angry faces is quite different from how they look at neutral or pleasant faces. Another study of 11 dogs showed similar results, and the researchers are confident that based on their results, and results of other, less conclusive attempts, some dogs are able to differentiate between human expressions. Dogs have evolved with humans, and as a result, they've been living with us and have learned a lot, part of this is learning how to read our facial expressions. History really has turned our dogs into man's best friend - they really can tell when we're mad, especially when it's at them.

Dogs have an intuitive understanding of fair play and become resentful if they feel that another dog is getting a better deal. The dogs were normally happy to repeatedly give the paw, whether they got a reward or not. But that changed if they saw that another dog was being rewarded with a piece of food, while they received nothing. We found that the dogs hesitated significantly longer when obeying the command to give the paw. The unrewarded dogs eventually stopped cooperating. Dogs, like monkeys, live in cooperative societies, so they would have some sense of fairness. Dogs did not make that kind of subtle distinction, as long as the dogs got some kind of food payment, even if it wasn't the yummiest kind, the animals would play along.