In 1994, after some discussion, we decided to clear
our laboratories of the aquaria that had been in use
for many years in a research programme on the
ethology of learning in the paradise fish (Csanyi
1993). To be honest, the exact reason for this move
at that time was not exactly clear to me, but I had
no great regret for the research topic because we
were the only laboratory studying learning processes
associated with antipredator behaviour in
this little East Asian labyrinth fish.
However, the idea of approaching dog-human
social interactions from an ethological perspective
did not seem to be much of an improvement in that
respect, because literature on the subject was simply
non-existent. Thus József Topál, my colleague
and friend, and I were a bit uncertain about the
future when Professor Vilmos Csányi, the head of
the department at that time, began to argue enthusiastically
that the study of dog behaviour in the
human social context could be very important in
understanding cognitive evolution, with many parallels
to human behaviour (Csányi 2000). We were
told hundreds of causal observations of dog-human
interaction (many people would call these anecdotes),
and it seemed that the task would be to provide
an observational and experimental background
to these ideas. Csányi pointed out that in order to be
successful in the human social world dogs had to
achieve some sort of social understanding, and very
likely this came about in course of their evolution.
Accordingly, the social skills of dogs can be set in
parallel with corresponding social skills in early
humans. I do not know what exactly József thought
about all this, but at least he owned a dog.