Transy Dog Behavior and Cognition Lab

We loved seeing some of our favorite familiar faces in the dog lab tonight! Señor and Annalee are always such a joy!

Scout is a renaissance man! Not only did he help us troubleshoot when our treat machine stopped working, but he also delighted us with his tricks! Thanks for visiting the dog lab, Scout!

Who knows what breed Prosecco is? You may not have seen one before!

Duck and Bailey had a great time with our study at Dog Daycare & Boarding today! Does your dog attend Canine Club and want to contribute to our research? Reach out and we can get them on the list!

The pups had another successful week of science! With the amazing weather this week, the dogs loved going on little walks (even if they weren't able to sniff anything). We also started our Blicket Detector task, and the pups seem to understand it better than we do!

Today the dog lab is 2 years old! Havoc was our very first dog in the lab! We have grown a lot since then — today we had our 700th dog enroll AND we fully booked our new study within an hour of sending scheduling info! We are so grateful each and every one of you and your lovely dogs. We couldn’t do any of this without you!

Update: Well, I sent out the scheduling link, went out to walk my dog, and while I was gone ALL appointment filled up! The Lexington dog community is the BEST. We will add more appointments soon!

New study alert! We just sent out scheduling information for our brand new task: the “blicket” study. Blicket tasks are often used in child psychology to understand causal reasoning and categorization in children. Can dogs understand this task? Dogs will see objects interact with a “blicket detector” - it delivers treats when a “blicket” is placed on it (one of the objects) but not when a non-blicket is placed on it (the other object). Can dogs learn the rule? Here you can see Olive thinking hard when given a choice between the objects. If you are interested but didn’t get scheduling info reach out! We would love to have your pup join us!

We had some really good helpers visit the lab today as we work through the logistics of our latest study— coming soon!

This week at the Lexington Humane Society, we were lucky to work with some especially snuggly participants! Science was accomplished with a few additional cuddle breaks built into the schedule for Cleo, Killian, Annie, and Barney! 🐾🐶

Today defended her thesis! Although we couldn’t make it to Sweden, we heard that she gave a great presentation and she had lots of enthusiastic questions about her work. We are so proud of you, Frida!