Your dog’s funniest behavior may not be accidental because dogs are good at learning which actions keep humans engaged.
Laughter can become part of that feedback loop.
Dogs learn through reinforcement, so an odd pose or playful movement that earns laughter and attention is more likely to be repeated.
A 2014 study of 46 dog-human play sessions recorded 116 human laughs, with laughter appearing in 61 percent of interactions and often following unexpected canine behavior.
Other experiments show dogs distinguish emotional information in human voices and faces, including positive signals such as laughter.
A dog therefore does not need a human-style concept of comedy to notice that an antic reliably produces a rewarding response.
Charles Darwin even described dogs teasing humans with keep-away games in 1871.
Science cannot prove dogs understand jokes, but it supports something nearly as intriguing.
Some dogs may learn exactly which behaviors make their people laugh.