Your Dog May Know If You've Done Something On Purpose, Or Just Screwed Up

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/09/01/ [login to see] /dog-human-mistake-study
Anyone who has ever accidentally stepped on a dog's tail has probably wondered if dogs can understand the difference between doing something by mistake about doing it on purpose. Now a new study suggests that, at least in some circumstances, dogs do seem to know when their humans have just screwed up.

"I have to say I was surprised. I didn't expect to have this clear picture," says Juliane Bräuer, head of the dog studies lab at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, who published her team's findings online Wednesday in the journal Scientific Reports.

But not everyone buys her group's conclusions.

"I'm not convinced," says Clive Wynne, the founding director of the Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University in Tempe, who did not work on this study. "I think it's a fascinating question, but it's a tremendously difficult question to get a handle on, and so at this point, I think the jury is still out on whether dogs actually understand human intentions or not."