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Interesting, but it makes me wonder if any of these researchers are dog owners. Dogs will wait a crazy long time for a reward. I'm sure I could train a dog to wait for an hour not eating a biscuit if it knew a steak was coming. Once you established the reward conditions, I think you could stretch the time quite a bit.
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But would the dog hand the biscuit back? :)
I suspect I could train a rat to do the same, actually. But that's not surprising, as rats are the only non-primates demonstrating metacognition. They also have been shown to feel empathy. They're eerily human in many ways.
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Yes, I do think I could train the dog to give the biscuit back even. :) My father had a dog that, when he threw newspapers as a paperboy, if he missed the customer's porch, the dog would pick up the paper and put it on the porch. Dogs are capable of quite a bit if you take the time.
I agree, rats are interesting creatures, -social and communicative. I've worked with lab rats, and even those domesticated and environmentally deprived rats seem to have some complexity going on.