Thread by @bunsenbernerbmd

Bunsen is a big lovable bear.
He wouldn’t hesitate to attempt to rescue anyone he cares about.
Science has concluded your dog would too.
Let’s all have a good cry over
The Super Pawesome Science Thread!
#TSPST

There are going to be variations in how much “rescue” a dog has in them. If dadguy fell and broke his ankle while Beaker was digging or hunting, he might get ignored. If it was MommyFav and Bunsen was around, Bunsen would Kool-Aid OH YEAH man himself through a fence to help.

Science looked at how dogs WOULD react to their human if they were in distress and the conclusion was wholesome and amazing.
There is surprising little research done on this, so a team at Arizona State University set out to get the data.

60 pet dogs with ZERO rescue training were recruited into the study. This was important as the question asked was: Do dogs have the innate desire to rescue their human?
The dog’s human was put in a box and the human began to cry for help.

The box had a door that could easily be opened by the dog as well so there could be a success in “rescue”. Also the cries for help couldn’t use the dog’s name, this was so they could rule out the dog just following a command.
1/3 of the dogs successfully rescued their human.

Now 33% success rate may not sound great but most of the dogs WANTED to rescue the human but couldn’t get the door open.
A subset of the dogs good at problem solving were tested again and the rescue rate was in the high 80%. So the dogs WANTED to help, but not all could.

The dogs were NOT happy their person was trapped either. They were stressed out. Also, after repeated trials, the dogs didn’t get less stressed- they were worried each time their human was stuck.

What is so cool about this study is that is shows, even without training, dogs want to help. They may not know how, but they really want to stop their human from being in distress.
Once they got a bit of training, their success rate was fantastic.
See, we told you!
Happy tears.