[Dailydrool] dogs learning by imitating humans

[Valerie]

Laura asked what behaviors our own hounds have clearly learned by watching humans and then imitating their actions.

when Bo was a younger dog, he used to "garden" with me. I would sit in the garden and pull up weeds by their roots and stack them outside the garden. Bo would sit next to me and with his teeth grab onto the tops of plants, pull them up by the roots with his mouth and toss them out of the garden. He never did this on his own, only when I was out gardening and he was sitting next to me. the problem, of course, was that he couldn't differentiate between weeds and flowers and vegetables. But there was no doubt that he was "helping me weed".