Dogs can recognize liars and dishonest people, says this Japanese study

Dogs are known for a variety of qualities with the standout ones being strong sense of smell, alertness and loyalty. However, one study that was performed by researcher Akiko Takaoka and team at Kyoto University in Japan found that dogs had the ability to smell out the truth.

A dog's sense of smell is believed to be 100,000 times stronger than a human. Dogs, it appears, are more skilled at picking up on human behaviour than you’d like to believe. According to the team of scientists in Japan, dogs can tell if you're telling the truth or not.

The research was a three-stage experiment which involved 34 canine participants.

In the first stage, researchers pointed towards bowls filled with hidden food and noticed as the dogs ran towards it.

The second stage saw the dogs being signalled towards empty bowls, and they rushed towards it as well, but found them empty.

When they pointed to bowls filled with food in the third stage, the dogs appeared to be refusing to believe the signal.

None of the 34 dogs responded in the third stage of the experiments. The scientists believe this implies that the canines unanimously found the person pointing wasn't trustworthy due to the previous experience.

For a long time, humans have understood that pointing at an object causes a dog to run to it. This data was used by the team in their research.

Lead researcher Takaoka said, “Dogs have more sophisticated social intelligence than we thought. This social intelligence evolved selectively in their long-life history with humans,"

Takaoka added that she was shocked that dogs were quick when they "devalued the reliability of a person." 

This experiment presumably indicates that dogs can detect deception or that they have significant trust difficulties.