Is a baby manipulating us when it cries for food? What a bunch of prats! I don't like the tone of the research or article. There are no astonishing revelations; it is condescending and ignorant in the way of cats.
I also noticed some other idiotic revelations as in teaching a deaf dog "sign language." Any good dog trainer will train with hand signals and find it effective whether a dog can hear or not. In my Merlee's case, he has gone deaf in older age, yet already knew hand signals so has no problem knowing what he's supposed to do. They make it sound as if no one has ever done such a thing before! I mean, it is good they are training the dog in order to have it adopted but they are being a bit dramatic when they say they are teaching it "sign language" imo.
I'm not really grumpy this morning, just don't like pretentious academics coming up with such tripe.:-)