Dog-Robot Interactions

I recently came upon an interesting article talking about experiments on the behavior of dogs in encounters with robots.

Quoting from the article' s abstract:

"...Dogs spent more time staying near the robot experimenter as compared to the human experimenter, with this difference being even more pronounced when the robot behaved socially. Similarly, dogs spent more time gazing at the head of the robot experimenter when the situation was social..."

Full article can be found here:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-013-0670-7

and THEN... i remembered when i witnessed for the first time an (accidental) encounter between a robot and dog, sometime around 2011-2012. Below you can watch the corresponding video :)