Researchers at Duke University have found that young children tend to help dogs retrieve objects the animals are interested in. The study was published in the journal Human-Animal Interactions.

The study involved 97 children (51 girls and 46 boys) between the ages of 20 and 47 months from middle-class families. Forty-four of the children had dogs at home and 53 did not. The researchers evaluated factors that influenced a child's desire to help a dog get a toy or food that the animals could not get on their own.

Researchers found that children were more likely to help dogs get inaccessible items if they had a dog at home and if the item was food rather than a toy. At the same time, children were twice as likely to help animals that were very interested in the object.

As the authors noted, their results supported the hypothesis that children as young as two years old are not only capable of identifying goals for an animal's behavior, but can and do use that knowledge to help the animal achieve its goals.