Can Dogs Tell When You're Lying?

While people know dogs can’t respond, that doesn’t stop them from talking to their pets often. It’s always endearing to watch them looking at you like they understand what you’re trying to communicate. But have you ever felt like they can also pick up on your lies?

Researchers at Kyoto University in Japan have shown that dogs can tell when you are lying or otherwise manipulating the truth. The scientists put together an experiment involving dogs and containers to prove this theory.

They lined up some containers, and they would point towards a certain one to indicate to the dog they wanted them to go there. The dog would run to the container and find food inside. That would create an expectation in the dog’s mind. After that, the scientists would point towards another container, but when the dog would get there, they would find an empty container. Their trust in the scientists would be shaken, so they would proceed with caution. If the scientists tried to point the dogs towards an empty container, the dogs wouldn’t even budge.

In this experiment, a total of 34 dogs were used, and the study was repeated multiple times. Each time, the same results took place. Scientists concluded that dogs understand consistency in what humans do. They link certain human gestures with certain events, and they act according to those links. If a certain past human behavior was correlated with something bad, like the mishandling of the truth, dogs will know.

Dogs are like a walking lie detector and there’s nothing you can do about that.