Does your dog do this? Study reveals why dogs tilt their heads when they hear human voices

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For years, Bekoff and other researchers assumed that dogs tilted their heads to gather more sensory information. This movement could allow them to receive visual, auditory or olfactory stimuli asymmetrically, making it easier to determine the exact direction of what arouses their interest. However, until now, no formal studies have explored this hypothesis.

The new analysis opens up this possibility. To achieve this, researchers observed 40 dogs undergoing object name recognition tests. Each animal learned the names of two new toys and was evaluated for three months. In the tests, the owners asked the dog to look for one of the toys by saying its name, for example: “Bring the rope!” ”, while the objects were in a neighboring room. In total, each dog completed 12 tests during each monthly session.

In each experiment, it was recorded whether the dog tilted its head or not. The most striking finding was that only some dogs quickly learned the names of objects. These individuals were classified as “gifted word learners” (ADP). And it was precisely them who showed a higher head tilt frequency than non-ADP dogs.

According to the authors, this pattern suggests that the gesture is not triggered solely by the familiarity of the stimulus. It would be more associated with the processing of words that have meaning for the dog, which can be interpreted as a sign of greater attention. In other words, when the animal hears a term it recognizes, tilting its head could serve as a mechanism to better concentrate.

Another interesting detail is that all the dogs that recurrently tilted their heads were from the border collie breed, known for its great learning ability. For Bekoff and the study authors, this reinforces the need to expand the research to other races and assess whether the findings repeat in more diverse populations.

Dogs that tilted their heads also tended to always do so in the same direction, raising questions about lateral preferences and their cognitive relevance. Is there a “dominant side” to incline, similar to labor in humans? There are still no clear answers.

Given the reactions to the study, Bekoff emphasizes that it is an “exploratory analysis” and should be seen as a starting point. Although many humans find it “cute” when a dog tilts its head, the academic insists that the gesture is more likely to have a functional purpose: to obtain more information and better understand what is happening around it.

This behavior is not exclusive to domestic dogs. Their wild relatives, like wolves, coyotes, jackals and foxes, also do the same. According to Bekoff, it is reasonable to assume that in these cases the head tilt serves to capture additional details of the environment, especially in the face of possible threats or in hunting contexts.

The researcher also raises the possibility of a “contagious” or social component: a dog could tilt its head while observing another doing the same, interpreting that there is something relevant that deserves attention. This aspect, he says, also requires specific studies to determine whether animals share information intentionally or not.