Testing dog heroism
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
Do dogs have an innate capacity for heroism on behalf of
their people? Do dogs instinctively know how to fetch help for a
person in crisis?
Hal Herzog in Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat
acknowledges the abundance of heroic dog stories–“Just Google ‘dog
saves owner,'” he challenges–but cites a 2006 study by University
of Western Ontario psychologist Bill Roberts and dog breeder/trainer
Krista Macpherson which found that none of a dozen dogs they tested
responded at all to either a man who was faking a heart attack or a
man who was pinned to the floor by a fake falling bookshelf.