Persistence and gazing at humans during an unsolvable task in dogs: The influence of ownership duration, living situation, and prior experience with humans.

The experiences that domestic dogs have with humans take many forms. We hypothesized that more experience with humans would lead to greater dependence on humans in problem-solving situations. We used the unsolvable task to compare persistence and gazing in dogs with differing degrees of experience with humans: 1) dogs living in a home for a year or more; 2) dogs living in a home for less than a year (including foster dogs); and 3) shelter dogs.