Chris,
If person or animal in the house knows when the owner will return, then the experiment is valid. Alex thinks that animals are more likely to behave this way if people are about, but it is easy to prevent the other people knowing the return time - so what is your problem?
Who knows - perhaps the dogs like to do this to tell the humans what they know!
It is easy (but pointless) to tighten up an experiment in such a way as to remove the signal along with potential extraneous effects.
If you think there are normal explanations for this effect when there are other people present who do not know the return time - please tell us all what they are.
Obviously it would be nice if the dogs would perform entirely on their own, but dogs do perform diferently in front of people.
David |