Study at OSU

So last week mom and dad signed me up to be a guinea pig. How nice of them huh? It wasn't that bad though. I was part of a canine cognition study at OSU (GO BUCKS!). It was a lot of fun actually and I got a brand new toy just for helping them out (which I got to pick myself). When we got there they did a physical exam on me (I am in great shape). Then they put me and dad in a pen, can you believe they caged up dad to? In the pen with us was an umbrella, beach ball and a sombrero. They video taped me for one minute to see if I would approach any of them and if so how long it took me. Mom thought I would bark at the umbrella for sure but I didn't. There was also a drain area and I was more interested in that. The lady thinks something was dead in there because another dog was rolling over it earlier in the day. Anyway they marked me down as shy.

The second part of the study had 4 stations. Each station had a puzzle and food as the reward (good food to, like chicken and meatballs). Dad had to sit in the middle of the room with sunglasses on and not talk to me or watch me. I sniffed around each station but didn't take the food. I did figure out the corner one where it was a fence on each side and food behind it. I just walked behind it and ate the food. They told us that most dogs don't do this they said the dogs just keep running to the end of each side and don't figure out to just walk around it but I did. I didn't take any food from the other stations though. They think it is because of my therapy dog training I have always been taught not to steal food and they told the people doing the study that so they wanted to retest me with dad giving me permission to take the food and I got all the puzzles figured out and ate the food that way. They really seemed to like me and want me to come back for the second part of the study later on.

Here is a photo mom took when we first walked in.