Free-ranging dogs are capable of comprehending complex human pointing cues

Dogs are one of the most common species to be found as pets and have been subjects of human curiosity, leading to extensive research on their socialization with humans. One of the dominant themes in dog cognition pertains to their capacity of understanding and responding to human referential gestures. The remarkable socio-cognitive skills of pet dogs, while interacting with humans, is quite well established. However, studies regarding the free-ranging subpopulations are greatly lacking. The interactions of these dogs with humans are quite complex and multidimensional. For the first time, we tested 160 adult free-ranging dogs to understand their ability to follow relatively complex human referential gestures using dynamic and momentary distal pointing cues. We found that these dogs are capable of following distal pointing cues from humans to locate hidden food rewards. However, approximately half of the population tested showed a lack of tendency to participate even after successful fami...