The More the Merrier:Dogs can Assess Quantities in Food-Choice Tasks

Abstract

Animals in their natural environment often face situations where it may be advantageous for them to be able to make decisions based on numerical or quantity discrimination. Canids like pet dogs, wolves and coyotes have been known to have a preliminary sense of number. We tested 303 unique free-ranging dogs for seven food-choice tasks, skewed in terms of stimulus: olfactory, visual and reward obtained. The dogs primarily used olfactory cues in the decision-making process, rather than visual cues, to discriminate between different quantities in a context-dependent manner.