# @canineorg on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DV3d35GjQXu
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/59624355-canineorg-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/a578e6c7c1.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-03-14T13:33:20.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Canine Companions (@canineorg) — https://gondola.cc/canineorg

## Caption

⚛️🥼 Since 2018, we've partnered with the dukeuniversity Canine Cognition Center to better understand puppy social and cognitive development. 

Over the course of a five-year study, the Duke team played cognition games with Canine Companions #puppies every two weeks from ~8-20 weeks of age. This study also explored rearing differences during this early period of brain development: some puppies enrolled in the Duke Puppy Kindergarten lived on campus with students, while others lived in homes with their puppy raisers. 

A new paper published in Animal Behaviour in January 2026 shares some of the exciting findings. 

🐶 New Research: Puppy Skills Don’t Develop at the Same Time 

The study followed more than 100 future #servicedog puppies and has revealed something fascinating: puppy cognitive skills don’t all develop at the same time. 

Instead, different abilities “switch on” at different ages — a pattern scientists call Multiple Intelligences, meaning there isn’t one single “smartness” that grows uniformly. 

🔍 What researchers found: 
• Between 8–20 weeks old, puppies didn’t improve evenly across tasks. Some abilities – like social skills such as understanding human communicative cues and making eye contact when asking for help - ramped up quickly after they first appeared. Other skills - like the ability to remember where a treat is hidden after a delay – improved gradually. 

• Even when puppies were raised under different socialization strategies, their developmental patterns stayed remarkably consistent. Early rearing differences didn’t shift the timing of these cognitive milestones. 

💡 Why it matters: 
Just like human kids learn different skills on their own timelines, these findings suggest that puppies may learn different kinds of skills best at different stages of early development. 

Understanding these patterns could reshape how we support future #servicedogs and deepen our appreciation for young puppy minds.

📃 Link in bio to read the full published paper.

⚛️ Learn more about our science and research program: canine.org/research
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#ScienceEducationDay #science #research #canineresearch #CanineScience #LeadWithIndependence #STEM #puppy

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## Tags

servicedogs, servicedog, caninescience, leadwithindependence, science, scienceeducationday, research, stem, puppy, puppies, canineresearch

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