A group of researchers has shown that different types of growling dogs have a different meaning. Article scientists published in the journal Animal Behaviour. Brief paper wrote New Scientist.

The study set out to test whether dogs to distinguish what information is growl. Experts recorded sounds, which 20 animals were issued in three different situations: during a game with the owner, during which the dog protected him from any object in competition with another dog for the bone and the approach of a stranger.

At the next stage of the experiment, researchers put 36 entries received by other dogs who were in the room where lay the bone. When the animals heard the second record (the competition for the bone), they departed from the bone and remained on the sidelines. On the first record (the game with the owner) so reacted only four of 12 dogs, and the third (the approach of a stranger) - 2 out of 12. However after a while all but one of the dogs returned to the bone.

In other experiments, whose results are still nowhere to be published, the researchers showed that the sound of growling dogs are able to determine the size of the "companion". The authors suggest that one or another type of growl sends a definite message, and select dog varieties Rykov intentionally. Moreover, according to researchers, growling bears much more sense than the barking. An indirect proof of this point of view is the fact that wolves almost never bark, but actively use growl.

Recently, another team of researchers has clarified another aspect of the lives of dogs. Scientists have found the arrangement of olfactory organs in dogs and by what these animals are able to perfectly distinguish between the odors