Man’s best friend does some pretty weird things, but that doesn’t mean they can be fooled. In fact, dogs are exceptionally smart beings who know more about the world than we can imagine.

A new study conducted by Akiko Takaoka of Kyoto University and her team suggests that dogs know whether you are lying to them or telling the truth. They can understand if a person is trustworthy or unreliable and decide whether to follow their instructions based on the opinion they have of the human, scientists believe.

The research found that dogs can figure out if a person’s gestures are misleading and once a dog has decided that the human is not to be trusted, they will not listen to their commands.

Takaoka says she was surprised to discover that dogs ‘devalued the reliability of a human’ so quickly.

“Dogs have more sophisticated social intelligence than we thought. This social intelligence evolved selectively in their long life history with humans.”

John Bradshaw, a veterinary scientist who specializes in human-animal interactions at the University of Bristol, agrees with these findings and adds that dogs are happiest when they lead stable and predictable lives.

‘Dogs whose owners are inconsistent to them often have behavioral disorders.’