NZ's canine counters put to test

Photo: Grahame Cox

Paws up: researcher Dr Nicola Starkey with Jemma, left, and Lara, in counting class.

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One, two, three, paw ... Lara the labrador is learning to count. Perhaps.

She and her human friend Gemma are spending their summer taking part in a Waikato University research project aimed at finding out a little more about what dogs know about maths.

Psychology lecturer Dr Nicola Starkey and honours student Rebekah Crosswell say there is evidence chimps can count to five, and if chimps can, maybe dogs can too. Their project is tentatively titled "Can Dogs Count?"

Answering that question is trickier than you might think. Certainly a dog with a large litter of puppies will notice if one is removed, but Starkey says this may be because she recognises individual puppies by scent alone.

"The concept of numbers and being able to add is difficult to demonstrate in an animal. So the first thing is to determine whether dogs can distinguish between more and less," says Starkey.

For this, the researchers have created a device that lets the canine subject select just one of two bowls containing different numbers of tiny biscuits.

One bowl contains five dog biscuits placed in a row and a second bowl contains more or less than five. Dogs, being naturally greedy, will opt for a larger meal, but Starkey and Crosswell want to know how carefully the dogs observe (or "count") the contents.

So far they have found that when the difference between servings is large (two biscuits versus five; or five biscuits versus nine), the dog will unerringly select the bigger serving. But when the difference is small – five biscuits versus six, say – the dogs' choices tend not to be as predictable.

Crosswell has discovered some dogs are more accurate at judging than others, but it's too soon to draw definite conclusions about their counting abilities.

Starkey says while there is a lot of anecdotal evidence about canine abilities, there is little scientific research. She believes this is partly because of the preference of animal behaviourists to study animals in their natural habitat.

But what if they do discover dogs can count? What would it mean?

"For us it is more about finding out about a dog's basic abilities.

"But if we are able to show these abilities exist, it may go some way to improving animal welfare.

"People may have a greater respect for animals because of their intellect."

The experiment will carry on for the rest of the university's summer break but stage two is likely to involve visual discrimination tasks using a touch screen.

- © Fairfax NZ News