This reminds me a bit of the some of the problem solving experiments done comparing pet dogs to undomesticated wolves. The experiment wasn't overly complicated, a piece of meat was placed in a locked cage and the animals were given free reign to try their paws at getting to the food. The wolves were persistent, some employed tools like sticks to push the food out, some managed to navigate the clasping mechanism on the cage. The domesticated dogs more often than not quickly gave up and looked to the human present for help.
Think you're referring to Frank & Frank 1985. It's pretty neat in terms of the tests and responses. Lots of springs, levers, and other puzzle boxes with the wolves almost always eventually solving the puzzles unless the wolf was nervous or agitated by the situation for some reason.
"The wolves generally attacked each puzzle immediately upon release from the start box and persisted until either the problem was solved or time had run out. In contrast, the malamutes investigated puzzle boxes only until they discovered that the food was not easily accessible, after which they typically returned to the start box and performed a variety of solicitation and begging gestures toward Experimenter 1."
There's a couple others that have followed on that are kind of neat to and related. Marshall-Pescini, et al. looked at wolves and dogs ability to play shell games, recognize hidden food choices, and rationalize about whether risky choices that don't pay out are better than somewhat not preferable food pellets. Part of the result from that test was that dogs may just not care as much as wolves. That wolves with their diet and carnivore nature, have a much stronger preference toward what researchers believe is the preferable choice. Yet, from the wild dog perspective, they took a long time to have any testing preference for meat vs pellets, compared to the wolves immediate preference. [2]
Which is actually vaguely related to the topic article. You get a mediocre food pellet, but it solves the task, so you don't really care that much and move on. The "quality" of the food pellet in modern human existence has limited bearing.
Some of the dog breeds, most notably French Bulldogs, have been specifically bred for qualities that enhance their interaction and dependency on humans (like having a unique set of facial features and expressions that many people find irresistibly cute and compelling).
Sounds like dogs found another way to solve their problems ie get humans to do it for them. It's a pretty good solution as long as there is a sympathetic human around. Of course, they would be SOL if they ever find themselves alone out in the wild.
I'm not familiar with the study, I wonder if they also did the test with no human around. Anecdotally, my dogs can be pretty lazy about getting into things when I'm around, but seem to get creative when I'm out.
