Welcome, Dog Emotion and Cognition students — now become the scientist.
The games and science behind the course, applied to your own dog in the CanineQ app.
From the course to your dog
You've studied how dogs think. Dognition lets you run the experiments yourself. It comes from the same research tradition as the course: the work of Dr. Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods at the Duke Canine Cognition Center.
The 20 science-based games measure five cognitive dimensions: empathy, communication, cunning, memory and reasoning. Your dog's results map to one of nine cognitive profiles, calibrated against data from 25,000+ dogs.
Play two free games with your dog
These are two of the 20 games from the Dognition Assessment, simplified so you can try them at home with nothing but a cup or two and a treat.
Free Game #1: Empathy: The Yawn Game
Do dogs catch yawns like we do? Sit facing your dog and yawn widely. If your dog yawns back, you're seeing contagious yawning — one of the ways researchers measure empathy in dogs. At the Duke Canine Cognition Center, dogs that catch human yawns score differently on the empathy dimension, and this simple game is how you can check it at home.
How to play: Get your dog's attention, yawn exaggeratedly a few times, and watch for the next 30 seconds. Yawning, licking, or settling close to you all count as an empathetic response.
Free Game #2: Communication: The Pointing Game
How well does your dog read you? Hide a treat under one of two cups, then point at it and see whether your dog follows your gesture. Dogs are remarkable at using human pointing — it's a skill shaped by thousands of years living alongside us, and Dr. Brian Hare's research showed that dogs follow a human point better than our closest relatives, chimpanzees.
How to play: Place a treat under one cup while your dog watches, then point at that cup and say nothing. A dog that goes straight to the pointed cup reads your gesture as communication; one that sniffs both cups is testing the world with its nose instead.
How it works
- 1
Create your account and add your dog
Sign up in the CanineQ app and set up your dog's profile.
- 2
Play the Dr. Hare cognitive games at home
20 short, science-based games adapted from Duke Canine Cognition Center experiments. All you need is a few treats and cups.
- 3
Get your dog's cognitive profile and report
See how your dog scores across empathy, communication, cunning, memory and reasoning, and which of nine profiles fits them.
- 4
Keep learning with DognitionGPT and Your Dog's Story
Explorer and Genius plans add DognitionGPT video analysis and Your Dog's Story for ongoing insight into how your dog thinks.
Become part of the science
Every dog who plays adds to one of the largest datasets on dog cognition. You're contributing to the very science you studied — 122,043 dogs assessed to date.
Ready To Play & Learn ?
Choose the plan that fits how deeply you want to understand your dog. It's all served up in our CanineQ App.
Have a gift code? Redeem it here →
- 20 Dr. Hare cognitive games
- Cognitive profile
- Cognitive profile report (yours to keep)Included
- DognitionGPT questionsUnlimited
- Video analysis10/mo
- Breed-aware behavior analysis
- Your Dog's Story
- Monthly AI insights
- Weekly Challenges & Games
- Health Concerns
Questions from students
- Do I need to finish the course first?
- No. You can start the games at any point in the course, or after it. Many students find it fun to play the games while the matching lectures are fresh.
- Which plan should a student start with?
- The Assessment plan covers all 20 games and your dog's cognitive profile. Explorer and Genius add ongoing AI analysis, including DognitionGPT video analysis and Your Dog's Story.
- Is this the same science as the course?
- Yes. Dognition is built on the research of Dr. Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods at the Duke Canine Cognition Center, the same research tradition the course teaches.
- I used Dognition years ago — what happened to my account?
- The legacy Dognition platform is being retired at the end of 2026. CanineQ is the new Dognition app; use Log In at the top of this page to sign in or create your account.
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