In human psychology circles, the ‘Rouge Test‘ is considered an important assessment tool for evaluating self-awareness in children.
Human toddlers start recognizing themselves in a mirror when they are around 18 months old. Passing the ‘Rouge Test’ is one sign that a child’s cognition is developing according to generally accepted benchmarks.
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In the animal kingdom, however, only higher primates, dolphins, orcas, elephants, and European magpies recognize that what appears in a mirror is actually their reflection. And (not surprisingly), pigs don’t recognize themselves, but do use clues in mirrors to focus on food that is placed behind them.
So what about dogs? Dogs are usually startled by images in a mirror when they are young, and when the images don’t pass the ‘sniff test’ (which they never do!), dogs learn to just ignore them.
Here, Juno fell asleep looking at herself! Now just what does that say about her? Highly evolved or…diva?
Do your dogs try to “chase” what’s in the mirror, or do they leave it alone?
Wow, this is fascinating. I’ve always been very curious about dogs’ responses to themselves in the mirror. How do they formulate in their mind who that other dog in the mirror is?? My dogs usually ignore their images but sometimes they’ll startle themselves and bark at it. It’s so interesting. The other thing I wonder is what dogs make of what they see on television? They will watch other dogs on TV but they don’t run up to the TV anymore. They somehow realise that a bark from the TV is not a ‘real’ bark, but when they hear the neighbour’s dog barking, they’ll bark at that.
Don’t you wish you could spend just one day inside a dog’s head?! We would learn so, so much!
Like most dogs, Eko was spooked by mirrors as a puppy but now (with the occasional exception) pays them no mind. One interesting theory I read says the test favors species with good vision. Dogs aren’t interested in mirrors possibly because the reflections don’t pass the sniff test in the first place, so no further investigation is needed. Now if you put food behind Juno, I have a feeling she would know exactly what to do!
Haha, you’re exactly right!