Mental Exercise Makes Dogs Happy

Problem Solving Makes Dogs Happy

We know that the simple act of solving a problem can be quite rewarding. But do dogs feel the same way? There are quite a lot of similarities in the emotional responses of dogs and humans, so we might guess that they do.

A team of researchers of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, decided to see if dogs feel the same positive feeling as humans do when solving a problem. They wanted to see whether the act of solving a problem to get a reward had more positive effect on a dog than simply getting the reward without having to solve the problem.

They tested a group of female Beagles. The Beagles had six different tasks to learn. When the dog was successful there was a sound cue followed by a reward. Each dog was trained to perform three out of the six tasks. Then the dogs were tested in different situations. The tests included both solving a problem and not solving a problem but still getting rewarded.

The results clearly indicated that solving a problem was rewarding to the dogs.

The dogs showed many more positive indicators when they solved a problem than when they simply received a reward without earning it. In other words, solving the problem to get the reward made the dogs feel better than getting the reward without any problem solving.

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