Can Animals Recognize Objects Covered with a Plate?

[Edgardo]

Hi all,

I saw this on TV, and maybe you could try this:
Put food in a bowl and show your cat/dog that there's food in that bowl (take a bowl or a small bucket). Then cover that bowl/bucket with a plate, still your dog /cat is watching what you're doing. Then look, if your dog or cat will take off the plate.

In that TV report the dog and the cat didn't take off the plate.
They somehow considered the bowl covered with the plate as
a new object and didn't recognize that the plate can be taken off.

Maybe you could try this at home and tell me if that worked.

 

[Moonbear]

Sounds like a very well trained dog. Every dog I've ever owned would knock over or dig under anything that had the slightest smell of one stray piece of food until it found the food.

 

[Monique]

So does that mean when I am having snacks on the table, I just cover them and walk away to the kitchen? The second I walk out of the room, the table will be cleared of all the food I'm sure!

 

[hypatia]

I just tried it witha dog treat. First the dog sniffed it, then pawed it till the plate came off.