Dogs can improve their cognitive abilities with chewing, but it doesn’t work with everyone

The results of the tests showed that dogs with high fearfulness performed better on the spatial working memory task after chewing the toy, while less fearful dogs, on the contrary, coped with it worse. The researchers believe that chewing helped anxious animals to focus and reduce physiological arousal, while calm dogs were probably only distracted by chewing. In the case of long-term memory, chewing was beneficial for both types of dogs.