A new discovery about dogs is one that plenty of humans will be able to relate to, notes Gizmodo. It seems they don’t perform well on an empty stomach. Researchers in Australia and New Zealand found that scent-detection dogs made more mistakes before breakfast than afterward. More specifically, the six dogs in the study raised more false alarms when they were hungry. After eating, they did a better job of ignoring “non-target” scents, according to the study published in Learning and Motivation.
“When dogs hadn’t eaten, they were more likely to respond to non-target smells as though they were the target when they were working for treats,” says Tim Edwards of the University of Waikato, per Phys.org. He drew a comparison to human behavior: “The reason for this is probably very similar to the reason that, when you have lost your keys and need them very urgently, every small metallic thing looks like your keys. When we are highly motivated to find something, we are biased toward seeing it or smelling it in the case of our dogs.” The upshot is that dog handlers may want to pay closer attention to how and when the dogs are fed before sending them out on duty, the researchers say. But more research is needed to tailor the recommendations.