ArticleAnimal cognition2020
That dog won't fit: body size awareness in dogs.
Article in Animal cognition, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- The modal-modular model of animal self-representation: a comparative and operational framework.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Influence of agility training on body-size and object solidity perception in pet dogs.PloS one · 2026Article
- Do dogs rationally infer the causes of failed actions?PloS one · 2026Article
- Spatial Problem-Solving in Working Dogs: The Combined Effect of Body-Size Awareness, Social Learning and Functional Breed Selection.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Body Size Awareness and Modular Self-Representation in Reedfish (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Comparing the Performances of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in Two Self-Awareness Tasks.American journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Body Awareness Does Not Need a Pedigree: Mixed-Breed Dogs Rely More on Self-Representation Than Social Learning in a Spatial Task.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- A multidimensional approach to the self in non-human animals through the Pattern Theory of Self.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Wistar Male Rats (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- Cats are (almost) liquid!-Cats selectively rely on body size awareness when negotiating short openings.iScience · 2024Article
- Cleaner fish with mirror self-recognition capacity precisely realize their body size based on their mental image.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The Inner Lives of Cephalopods.Integrative and comparative biology · 2023Article
- Body size awareness matters when dogs decide whether to detour an obstacle or opt for a shortcut.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Ferrets (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Can Dogs Limbo? Dogs' Perception of Affordances for Negotiating an Opening.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Article
- Dogs (Canis familiaris) recognize their own body as a physical obstacle.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Hooded Crows (Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Bumblebees perceive the spatial layout of their environment in relation to their body size and form to minimize inflight collisions.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Shells as 'extended architecture': to escape isolation, social hermit crabs choose shells with the right external architecture.Animal cognition · 2020Article
- Mental representation and episodic-like memory of own actions in dogs.Scientific reports · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
With very few exceptions, no coherent model of representing the self exists for nonhuman species. According to our hypothesis, understanding of the Self as an object' can also be found in a wide range of animals including the dog, a fast-moving terrestrial predator/scavenger, with highly developed senses and complex cognitive capacity. We tested companion dogs in three experiments in which they faced three different variations of the same physical challenge: passing through an opening in a wall. We predicted that if dogs are capable of representing their own body size, they will react differently when faced with adequate or too small openings. We found that dogs started to move towards and approached the too small openings with significantly longer latencies than the suitable ones; and upon reaching it, they did not try to get through the too small openings. In another experiment, the medium-size (still large enough) opening was approached with latencies that fell between the latencies measured in the cases of the very large or the too small openings. Having discussed the potential underlying mechanisms, we concluded that our results convincingly assume that dogs can represent their own body size in novel contexts.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.