72 Journal of Veterinary Behavior, Vol 6, No 1, January/February 2011Funding for this study was provided by FAPESP S~aoPaulo Research Foundation and Capes Foundation.

Key words: Canis lupus; cortisol metabolites; feces; stress;hierarchy

DO DOGS HAVE A THEORY OF MIND?M. Trojan*, A. Reinholz-Trojan, K. Zieba, K. WieczorekUniversity of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland*Corresponding author: maciej@psych.ww.edu.pl

The studies on cognitive ability, called the theory of mind,originate in developmental psychology. This ability developsin human during ontogenesis and enables someone to takeother peoples perspectives and to predict their states of mindand/or behavior. Several tests can be used to examine this abil-ity, including the false-belief test, a form of which has beenadapted to animal studies (the object-choice paradigm),whichis based on an animals ability to understand human gestures.In our experiment, we wanted to check whether dogs couldmake the correct decision when the pointing gestureindicated false information.The study was divided into three parts. In the first phase(pointing), the experimenter pointed at one of two buckets inwhich the reward had been previously hidden out of the dogssight. The correct reaction was to choose the bucket suggestedby the pointer. In the second phase (hard version false-belieftest), like in the first phase, the pointer pointed at one of thebuckets, and after that, the two buckets switched positions inthe presence of the dog but out of the pointers sight. Then,the pointer pointed at the same bucket as before, now the onewithout the reward. The third phase (easy version false-belieftest) was similar to the second except that this time the rewardwas removed fromone bucket and placed in the other one in thepresence of the dog. In the second and third phase the rightreactionwas choosing the opposite bucket to the one pointed at.Our results show a significant decrease in the dogs efficiencyin the second phase of the experiment and largevariation in in-dividual results, aswell as a reversion of dogs efficiency levelin the third phase.These results are not consistent with data provided byother researchers and indicate that dogs do not understandobject permanence. The third phase, in which the dogsperformed very well, may not necessarily indicate thatdogs use the theory of mind, because the dogs did notpass the original Alain Tshudin version of the test, but onlyits easier form.

Key words: pointing; theory of mind

CAN DOGS (CANIS FAMILIARIS) USE A MIRROR TO SOLVEA PROBLEM?Tiffani Howell*, Pauleen BennettAnimal Welfare Science Centre, School of Psychology andPsychiatry, Monash University, Building 17, Clayton, VIC3800, Australia*Corresponding author: tiffani.howell@monash.edu;Phone: 161 (0)3 9905 1713

Cognitive research involving mirror use has been used inseveral species in order to determine whether animalsunderstand the concept of reflection. Mirror self-recognition could be indicative of self-awareness in ani-mals, but this would require understanding the function ofthe mirror as a reflected image. Most animals are not bornwith this ability and must learn it; however, pet dogs oftenlive indoors and are exposed to mirrors from puppyhoodeven if they are not specifically trained with mirrors. Wetested whether pet dogs understood reflection withoutspecific training. Dog subjects (n540) were placed individ-ually in a room containing a 1.5m ! 1m freestanding mir-ror, positioned parallel to and facing a wall containing alarge window, through which the adjoining room wasclearly visible. The attention of the dog was drawn to themirror, and the second owner silently entered the adjoiningroom and displayed a favorite toy. The aim was to deter-mine whether dogs could understand the nature of the re-flection, and thus locate the owner holding the toy. Threeconditions were tested, lasting one minute each. Condition1: window and mirror covered. Condition 2: mirror uncov-ered, window covered. Condition 3: window and mirror un-covered. For each condition we calculated frequency of:attending to the mirror; exploratory behaviors toward mir-ror (e.g., sniffing within 60 cm of mirror, walking around/behind mirror, jumping onto mirror with front paws); at-tending to the window; head turns from the mirror to thewindow and vice versa. With a few, albeit extremely impor-tant, exceptions, our results suggest that most dogs do notspontaneously use the information in the mirror to solvethis problem.

Key words: mirror; dog; self-recognition; problem-solvingOPERANT CONDITIONING PARAMETERS IN CANCERDETECTION DOGSMarta Walczak*, Tadeusz Jezierski,Aleksandrea Gorecka-Bruzda, Ewa AdamkiewiczInstitute of Genetics and Animal Breeding of the PolishAcademy of Sciences, Jastrzebiec, Poland*Corresponding author: martawalczak@yahoo.com

The aim of this study was to assess the progress in operantconditioning during three consecutive training phases, untilexpertise level in detection of odor markers of cancerdiseases was reached. Breath samples taken from 45, 57,and 80 patients with diagnosed melanoma, breast and lungcancer, respectively, were used. Control breath sampleswere taken from 396 healthy volunteers. Five naive Germanshepherds and one Labrador retriever from two age groups,20 vs. 6 months old, were used for the training, which useda lineup of 5 samples. In the training phase 1, the dogs weretrained to indicate the target sample by sitting or lying

mailto:maciej@psych.ww.edu.plmailto:tiffani.howell@monash.edumailto:martawalczak@yahoo.com