Name: Shelby

Fredrickson
Date: 12/13/08 Per 6
Teacher: McGolrick
Subject: GT Science

Science Project Abstract

This experiment was designed to find out if there is a

correlation between a dog’s tail wagging response to various
emotive stimuli and their brain lateralization. 16 test dogs
were filmed in the same environment as they were shown 5
different stimuli. These stimuli include a toy, a treat, a
stranger to the test dog, another dog, and a cat. From the
dog’s tail wagging response to these stimuli, their brain
lateralization was able to be determined from the maximum
angles of the tail wags. The major findings of this project are
shown by graphs A-G. 50% of the test dogs were found to be
right brained and 40% of the test dogs’ tail wags showed
that the dominant side of their brain was their left side. The
remaining 10% of the test dogs’ data showed that they were
actually whole brained, as the differences between the
maximum left and right angles were too small to
differentiate between them. Therefore, a final decision on
the brain lateralization of the dog could not be reached.
Other findings include that there was almost always a very
distinct gap between the angles from either side of the tail
wag, averaging over 10°, which proves the hypothesis that
this preference of the side of the tail wag could show the
brain lateralization of the dog. Future experiments should
include the filming of a control dog and use even more
different types of emotive stimuli.