The domestication hypothesis for dogs' skills with human communication: a response to Udell et al. (2008) and Wynne et al. (2008)

Domestic dogs have special skills in comprehending human communicative behaviours (Hare & Tomasello 2005; Miklosi 2008). Dogs across a range of breeds use human communicative cues such as pointing or physical markers to find food that is hidden in one of two hiding places (controls rule out the use of olfactory cues; Cooper et al. 2003; Hare & Tomasello 2005; Miklosi & Soproni 2006). In direct comparisons, dogs are even more skilled than chimpanzees at using human communicative cues when searching for food (Hare et al. 2002; Bra¨uer et al. 2006). Moreover, a number of studies suggest that dogs understand human gestures communicatively, as a number of possible low-level explanations have been ruled out (e.g. only responding to movement; reflexively coorienting; using only familiar cues, etc.; Hare et