Researchers Joshua Van Bourg and Clive Wynne, Arizona State University professor of psychology and director of the Canine Science Collaboratory wanted to find the answer to this question. They evaluated 60 dogs who had no specific training to rescue people, by having the dog’s owners hidden in a box with a movable door. The owners were taught how to sound distressed and called out “Help” or “Help me.” As one control they had the owners sit in the box and read from a magazine and as another control drop food in the box. Out of the three tests, 84% of the dogs rescued their owners, more than the control tests.

“What’s fascinating about this study,” Wynne said, “is that it shows that dogs really care about their people. Even without training, many dogs will try and rescue people who appear to be in distress — and when they fail, we can still see how upset they are. The results from the control tests indicate that dogs who fail to rescue their people are unable to understand what to do — it’s not that they don’t care about their people.