Let’s face it, we’ve all been in a situation where we weren’t as polite as we could be. Maybe you told off a cold caller or snapped at your son because he can’t find his jacket (hanging on the hanger in the closet) or is missing his shoe.

If you do, you may be surprised to learn that your dog can tell—and he doesn’t have a good opinion about it.

Researchers based in Tokyo, Japan learned that children as young as one-years-old can discern rudeness in adults, and they wanted to see if a dog could do the same. They set up a situation where the dog’s owner struggled to open a container with a toy in it, and turned to one of two actors for help.

The actor would then either help, refuse to help, or remain neutral. The owner would than turn to the other person, who would do one of these things as well. At the end of the skit, the actors would then offer a treat in a neutral position to the dog.

Dogs preferred to take treats from neutral or helpful actors over rude actors. If the skit included a neutral actor and a positive actor with no rude actors, the dog had no preference.

It’s likely that this means dogs can detect when someone is behaving in an anti-social manner, but don’t have the skill to understand the difference between helping and not helping. This is similar to how infants respond when confronted with similar tests.

This means that while you might need to take it with a grain of salt, if your dog genuinely doesn’t like someone they’ve met, it may well be for good reason. They might have noticed that person was rude in the past.

https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/dog-detecting-rudeness-study-263745