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Newsweek
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Man Calls to Golden Retriever via Ring Cam—Unprepared for What He Does Next
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A man out driving thought it would be cute to call out to his roommate's golden retriever via the Ring camera set up in their living room. What he hadn't bargained for, however, was the dog's hilarious response. Research has shown dogs are capable of identifying their owners by voice alone. In 2022, a study published in the journal Animal Cognition, saw 28 dogs and their owners recruited for a special game of hide-and-seek. The experiment saw the dogs challenged with finding their owner in one of two hiding spaces. Researchers would play a recording of the owner's voice from one of the hiding spaces and a stranger's voice from the other. It was then up to the dog to determine which was their owner. This game was played multiple times, with researchers pairing the owner voices with 14 different voices, some of which were picked for sounding similar. The study concluded that dogs were able to find their owners in 82 percent of cases, indicating dogs are more than capable of identifying human companions by voice alone. Frank the golden retriever appeared to instantly recognize his owner Bryan's voice when he began speaking to him through the Ring camera in the front room of their home in Orlando. "We were watching our golden retriever, Frank, on Live View from the car when he suddenly realized we were talking to him through the Ring camera," Bryan's roommate Katherine told Ring. Frank's adorable reaction was captured on the Ring device with the footage subsequently shared with Newsweek. It was an adorable mix of joy at hearing Bryan's voice and assuming he was home, followed by confusion when he realized he and Katherine were nowhere to be found. "Frank, albeit being only 1-year-old, is usually a bit of a slow mover, but he immediately perked up and started searching for the voice—it was hilarious!" Katherine said. The pure blind confusion that plays across Frank's cuddly face had the canine's human companions in stitches. Katherine, meanwhile, thought it was worthy of a wider audience. "My roommate Bryan and I couldn't stop laughing," she said. "We use the camera to talk to all four of our pets, but this moment with Frank was just too funny not to share." It's not the first time a dog has taken center stage on a Ring video. One pet owner in Massachusetts vowed to never speak to his English bulldog again through the camera following the pup's surprisingly spooked reaction. Another dog's adorable habit of waiting outside his neighbor's house for his canine best friend to come out and play was also captured on a Ring device. Then there's Kota, the dog who sprung a doorbell surprise on his owner, who thought he was happily playing in the garden, not realizing he had dug his way out.
Daily Mail
26-04-2025
- Science
- Daily Mail
Hold your horses! Now scientists say our equine friends CAN understand what we're talking about
Be careful what you gossip about if you're passing a stables – the stalls have ears. Scientists have found that horses eavesdrop on human conversations, then store up the titbits they've gathered. In a novel experiment, nosey nags tended to change their feeding habits after watching two people discussing eating a carrot. The research by St Andrews University suggests that horses may understand far more than we give them credit for. The study – published in the journal Animal Cognition – concludes: 'This indicates, for the first time, that some change their feeding strategies after eavesdropping on human-human demonstrations. 'The unintentional impact of humans on creating interspecies communication… needs to be reconsidered.' The research is a collaboration between St Andrews equine psychology expert Kate Farmer – author of Thinking Horse and The Harmony Project – and Nürtingen-Geislingen University in Germany. During the study, 17 horses were familiarised with a choice of two different buckets to feed from. Researchers noted which tub – yellow or blue – the animals favoured. Then, to see if horses would eavesdrop, each was allowed to witness from behind a fence an interaction between two humans in a riding arena. They watched a woman help herself to a carrot from one bucket and begin eating it. She was then either praised or scolded by a second woman known to the horses. The researchers made sure that the telling-off happened at each animal's favourite bucket. After six repeats, the women left the arena and the horse was allowed in to choose which tub to feed from. The process was repeated for eight days on the trot – after which 16 of the 17 horses were mostly feeding out of the 'good' bucket. Of those, 12 had significantly changed their habits, including five who now entirely shunned the 'naughty' tub. Animals who stabled together and lived more social lives were better able to pick up the signals. It is already well known that horses can respond to human commands as well as following the direction of someone gazing or pointing. And they have even been taught to pick out symbols to pass on the message that they want a rug on or off. But this research suggests they also share the intelligence of other animals who have shown an ability to develop new habits after watching and listening to humans. The study states: 'Such social learning has been discussed for Japanese macaques [monkeys], which demonstrate the washing of potatoes before eating them.' Previous eavesdropping experiments involving dogs show that they warm towards people who hand out praise or have been rewarded for good behaviour, but they still relied on those people remaining present. Jessica Pryor, who runs her own 'intelligent horsemanship' practice in Crosshill, Ayrshire, said: 'This study shows horses are capable of seeing and learning a lot more than they've been given credit for. 'It should engender respect for them, more for who they are than what they are. 'Not so long ago, horses were considered just things that did a job, then they were leisure animals that had to make their owners money. 'But they are actually smart, social and always switched on to what's going on round about them. 'Here, we can see them problem solving and asking themselves whether they have the right answer to the question.' She added: 'We ask horses to do so many bizarre things and they trust us to be the leader. 'Thankfully, there's a large body of people now keeping horses more naturally than they have been – they're not supposed to be alone in a stable 23 hours a day. 'It was interesting in the study that the horses who lived together picked up the cues more easily. 'In a group, matriarchal mares are very good at teaching the youngsters good manners.' The research will doubtless be of interest to Britain's horse lovers, which includes everyone from Sir Alex Ferguson to Queen Camilla. The research also confirms the close bond between humans and horses that equestrians have long espoused. This relationship was famously explored in Hollywood movie The Horse Whisperer, starring Robert Redford. In the 1998 film, Redford's cowboy character displays an almost magical ability to calm unruly horses. It was said to be based on the real-life story of Dan 'Buck' Brannaman, whose training technique for difficult or troubled horses comes from the so-called 'natural horsemanship' movement. Instead of 'breaking' horses, Brannaman communicates with them and tries to envisage the world from the horse's point of view.
The Independent
25-02-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Dogs may have a preference for this colour, study suggests
Dogs roaming freely on Indian streets have a strong preference for yellow objects, a new study suggests. Dogs see colours differently than humans because they have fewer colour-sensitive cone cells in their eyes. Humans have three types of cone cells that enable us to see a range of colours. Dogs have only two types of these cells, making it difficult to differentiate between colours. Dogs can see blue and yellow shades distinctly but fail to distinguish among shades of red, green and orange which all appear to them as tones of yellow or grey. Now, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Kolkata say dogs appear to have a preference for shades of yellow. This could be due to shades of yellow sticking out prominently in their vision. The research, published recently in the journal Animal Cognition, suggests this preference for yellow is so strong because it likely stemmed from when dogs evolved from wolves. The researchers assessed over 130 street dogs in the Indian city of Kolkata as each of the canines faced yellow, blue or grey food bowls placed on the ground. Most of the dogs headed straight for the yellow bowl, significantly more than did for blue or grey, 'even when the grey bowl had food in it and the yellow one did not'. 'This preference is so strong that it supersedes their attraction towards food, whether biscuit or chicken,' the study notes. 'Together, these results lead us to the conclusion that the observed preference for yellow is a result of attraction towards yellow.' 'We don't yet know what exactly is causing this strong preference for yellow,' it adds but rules out the behaviour being due to a 'repulsion towards other colours'. The researchers suspect one reason for the preference could be that most street dogs have fur shades of orange or brown that appear yellowish in the vision of other dogs. Since colour preference can be either genetic or learned, the researchers call for future experiments to test the trait's innateness. 'Comparative studies with companion dogs and wolves can help to understand the evolutionary trajectory of this preference for yellow,' they say. As previous studies in Morocco did not point to any canine colour preference, the researchers suspect the findings may be localised to Indian dogs.
