Dog sniffs each other to find food

By sniffing the breaths of other children, dogs can find out where to have food according to a trial in Switzerland.

Providing information about where food is available is quite common behavior in the animal world. Mice, chickens and monkeys are just a few examples of how animals know how to guide other members of the herd to where there is food with smell or sound. Gibbon pats on the shoulder or looks into the eyes of the fellow while leading them to the hiding place. Even this animal knows how to create false signs while hiding food.

However, the most remarkable animal in the art of directions is honey bees. They guide their fellow people to a place where there are many nectar with complex dances. In addition, many scientists believe that pet dogs can also learn how to find food through communication with the same type.

To test this hypothesis, scientists from the Swiss Animal Research Institute starved 13 dogs and hid food at four locations. While hiding the food they deliberately let some children see it but blindfolded the others. Then they in turn dropped each of them off the cage so they could search. Food is hidden inside the sealed container so the dog cannot use the ability to detect odors to search. Of course the blindfolded children could not find anything.

Dogs smell each other's breath to get information about food.(Photo: freefoto)

The team then exposed all 13 dogs to another group of 11 dogs. All dogs in the second group do not know where to hide food. Experts noticed that the dogs sniffed each other's noses. They dropped each of them in the second group to get them out to look for food.

The results showed that if the second group of dogs sniffed the dog's nose with blindfolded in the first group, they would not find food . However, if sniffing the dog's nose is not blindfolded, they will run straight to where there is food. This shows that the second group of dogs search for food based on the smell of the first group.

' It is the smart behavior of dogs, but we know almost nothing about the mechanism of information transmission by sniffing their nose ,' said Marianne Heberlein, the leader of the research team.