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At Hunter College, the New York City dog is leading science

  • Sarah Byosiere, director of the at the CUNY Hunter College...

    Barry Williams/for New York Daily News

    Sarah Byosiere, director of the at the CUNY Hunter College Thinking Dog Center, poses for a portrait in the Center on Oct. 3 in Manhattan.

  • From left, Sarah Byosiere, director of the at the CUNY...

    Barry Williams/for New York Daily News

    From left, Sarah Byosiere, director of the at the CUNY Hunter College Thinking Dog Center, CUNY Hunter College psychology masters student Nicolette Becker, Maury's owner Amy Botello, and canine test subject, Maury Ballstein-a six-year-old Cockapoo, pose pose for a photo at CUNY Hunter College Thinking Dog Center before Maurey took a test.

  • Placing circular cuts of baloney on the center circle of...

    Barry Williams/for New York Daily News

    Placing circular cuts of baloney on the center circle of the two Titchener illusion stimuli presented, the center has made the study dog-friendly to find out if dogs are seeing the circles in the same way humans do.

  • Maury poses with his certificate of achievement after participated in...

    Barry Williams/for New York Daily News

    Maury poses with his certificate of achievement after participated in a study.

  • CUNY Hunter College graduate psychology student Nicolette Becker holds up...

    Barry Williams/for New York Daily News

    CUNY Hunter College graduate psychology student Nicolette Becker holds up boloney to get the dog's attention during the reenactment of a test he's taking at CUNY Hunter College Thinking Dog Center.

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How can you tell how smart your city dog really is? It takes a lot of baloney.

Researchers at the new Thinking Dog Center at Hunter College in Manhattan are using baloney, stuffed animals, chew toys and plenty of other treats to test the cognitive abilities of New York’s furriest friends.

In her Fido-friendly lab a few blocks off Times Square, Dr. Sarah-Elizabeth Byosiere said her center’s focus on questions such as whether dogs are susceptible to optical illusions could help us better understand our prized pooches and possibly unleash their full potential as humankind’s best friends.

During one recent experiment, a 6-year-old Cockapoo named Maury was given an optical illusion test to see how dogs’ brains operate in comparison to humans.

First he proved his ability to recognize and select a slightly larger piece of baloney presented next to an equally delicious though smaller piece.

Placing circular cuts of baloney on the center circle of the two Titchener illusion stimuli presented, the center has made the study dog-friendly to find out if dogs are seeing the circles in the same way humans do.
Placing circular cuts of baloney on the center circle of the two Titchener illusion stimuli presented, the center has made the study dog-friendly to find out if dogs are seeing the circles in the same way humans do.

Next, Maury was subjected to what’s known as the “Titchener Circles” test, where two pieces of baloney the exact same size are presented in a way that makes one appear larger due to the size of the circles drawn around it.

More than half the time, the shaggy subject chose the piece that people also tend to perceive as larger, indicating his tendency to see things in context similar to that of human subjects.

Like previous participants, Maury left the center with a “Certificate of Paw-ticipation.”

Maury’s owner Amy Botello, an East Village resident, said she discovered the center through Instagram and jumped at the chance to participate.

“I thought it would be fun to see how smart he is — to see what he knows,” she told The News.

Joana Ursaciuc lives in Queens with her 3-year-old Pomeranian named Aesop, pictured here.
Joana Ursaciuc lives in Queens with her 3-year-old Pomeranian named Aesop, pictured here.

Byosiere said the program — which is run out of a former art building — was developed after Hunter College saw a tremendous desire among its graduate students to study canine behaviors.

“There was a general trend for students to want to learn and research companion animals and particularly there was a huge interest for dogs. And so that’s where this idea of creating a dog center came about,” Byosiere said. “They added that program and ended up finding me and said, ‘Can you create a dog program for us?’ And so that’s kind of how this all started.”

Byosiere, who’s also conducted dog studies in Austria, Australia, Vienna, North Carolina and Michigan, said she believes New York City dogs are among the best test subjects for her work.

“City dogs are unique in the sense that they’re so immersed in a crazy, human-driven environment,” she told The News. “Because they’re so immersed in our daily life, maybe they are the ideal dog to look at for comparing human cognitive skills and dog cognitive skills.”

CUNY Hunter College graduate psychology student Nicolette Becker holds up boloney to get the dog's attention during the reenactment of a test he's taking at CUNY Hunter College Thinking Dog Center.
CUNY Hunter College graduate psychology student Nicolette Becker holds up boloney to get the dog’s attention during the reenactment of a test he’s taking at CUNY Hunter College Thinking Dog Center.

Her former student Joana Ursaciuc — who lives in Queens with her 3-year-old black Pomeranian named Aesop— said it’s true city dogs are a breed apart.

“I think back to my childhood in Romania and the short list of rules my dogs there had to learn: don’t leave the yard, don’t ‘hunt’ the chickens, and don’t attack visitors. That’s quite different from Aesop,” she said.

“Aesop needed to learn to navigate crowded streets, ride the subway, ignore loud noises, walk past delicious smells without stopping (and) interact with dogs of all breeds and sizes,” she said.

Byosiere and her team said they hope to uncover the mental mechanisms that drive our domesticated dogs to both improve their health and enrich their lives.

“It may inform how we feed our dogs, how we want to train them, because if we know how they see the world, and it’s different from what we see, then we may want to train them in ways that are ideally suited for them not us,” Byosiere explained.

Penny
Penny

And science aside, “this research is fun for the dogs,” she said. “Dogs like to eat baloney.”

Botello also agreed that metro mutts are primed for the work at Byosiere’s center.

“(They’re) a thousand percent unique. They get a New York experience,” she said. “They go to dog cafes, parks, dog runs, parades and cool studies like this that you find out about that other cities don’t do.”

Nicolette Becker, who administers the baloney study, also noted a difference in local New York dogs.

“New York City dogs are more willing to do the studies — they are more trusting,” she said.

The baloney study which will run to the end of the month, is the third the center has conducted with volunteer pups.

Since the center’s opening in May, more than 140 city residents have registered their dogs.

Maury poses with his certificate of achievement after participated in a study.
Maury poses with his certificate of achievement after participated in a study.

Jessica Quenzer had her 9-year-old Puli named Pogacs participate in two studies at the Thinking Dog Center and said her happy hound even picked up a new trick.

“(She’s) using her long hair to whip light objects off a table, and I think she figured that out from activities at the dog center. (She) has an excellent memory,” the Long Island City resident said.

The new Thinking Dog Center is part of the Animal Behavior and Conservation Program in the psychology department at Hunter.

Interested owners can email the program at cacc@hunter.cuny.edu and enroll their dogs online.

“The thing I love most about the dog center in particular is the fact that we get to make science accessible for anyone,” Byosiere said. “It’s a really nice way of showing anyone and everyone what canine science looks like.”

Sarah Byosiere, director of the at the CUNY Hunter College Thinking Dog Center, poses for a portrait in the Center on Oct. 3 in Manhattan.
Sarah Byosiere, director of the at the CUNY Hunter College Thinking Dog Center, poses for a portrait in the Center on Oct. 3 in Manhattan.

She’s also been surprised not just by the smarts of city dogs but also their size.

“I kind of expected we would be getting every sort of small dog breed possible but most of our dogs are 15 pounds and up … so it may just be that an ideal New York City dog might be a larger dog than I had originally expected,” she laughed.

With Nancy Dillon