How smart is your dog?  Many dog owners will brag that they have their dog is a little genius, but it is only in the past twenty-five years that scientists have studied canine cognition in depth.  Both Brian Hare and Alexandra Horowitz have conducted important studies on dogs and the results are very interesting.  As we'll see in this chapter, dogs exhibit average skills as compared to many other animals, but their ability to understand human behavior and emotions is unique in the animal kingdom and one reason for the strong bond they have with us.

Canine Intelligence

Some measures of dog cognition are to be expected given dog's descendence from wolves.  Dogs have a good ability to navigate outdoors.  They can use landmarks and internal mental maps of terrain to navigate, use shortcuts and find food.  Dogs undoubtedly use scent maps to help find their way; but there have also been suggestions that they use the earth's magnetic field to guide them.

As you might expect, dogs can gauge size and amounts of food.  Given the choice between a large amount and a small amount of food, dogs pick the larger amount, although sometimes they might pick the smaller of 3 vs 4 biscuits or 5 vs 7.

Tools

Dogs aren't so good at using tools.  If a string is attached to a biscuit that is out of reach, a dog can learn to get the biscuit by pulling the string.  But if there are two strings, and only the farther string is attached to a biscuit, the dog will still pull the nearer string that's attached to nothing, indicating that she doesn't seem to understand that the string is a means to an end.  Wolves seem to be better than dogs at manipulating objects to get food.  Wolves can, through trial and error, learn to pull three different ropes in a correct sequence to get a food reward, although they may also destroy some of the ropes in the process.  Dogs do poorly on that test.  Wolves are also much better than dogs at escaping from closed cages.

Object Permanence and Invisible Displacement

There are standard tests to measure whether an animal has a concept of object permanence: for example, a toy that the dog wants is placed under a bucket.  Does the dog know the toy is there even though it can't see it?  Like children at around one year old, the dog knows the toy is there and will cheerfully knock over the bucket to get the toy.  Invisible displacement is another test: the toy is placed in a bucket, the experimenter goes behind a screen and comes out and shows the dog the empty bucket.  Again, like small children, as well as hamsters, dolphins, cats and chickens, the dog understands that the toy must be behind the screen, and will cheerfully go get it.  However, if a ball is placed under one of two buckets or the invisble displacement test is run with two screens, the dogs can get confused.  As Alexandra Horowitz says, "Show your dog a ball, then conceal it from him while you place it under one of two overturned cups. Faced with the cups, and assuming he can’t smell it out, a dog will look under either cup at random: a reasonable approach when he has nothing to go on. Lift one cup to reveal a peek of the ball underneath, and you won’t be surprised that when allowed to search, your dog will have no trouble looking under that cup. But give a peek under the cup holding nothing, and researchers found that dogs suddenly lose their logic. They search first under the empty cup."  In the invisible displacement test, if the experimenter carries the container behind the first screen, shows the dog the empty bucket, then goes behind a second screen, the dogs will race behind the second screen first, even though they should know the toy wasn't there.  Horowitz says, "These dogs were stymied by their own skill. When presented with a problem of any kind, dogs cleverly look to us. Our activities are sources of information. Dogs come to believe that our actions are relevant—often leading, we might note, to some interesting reward or even food. So if an experimenter ducks behind a second screen, as she does in the more complicated invisible displacement tasks, why, there might be something of interest behind that screen. If she lifts up an empty cup, that cup becomes more interesting simply because of her attention to it."

Gestures

Prior to 1995, most psychology researchers thought that only humans understood communicative intentions: touching, pointing or looking at an object to draw another person's attention to it.  From 9 months old, infants follow our gaze, start to point, and follow our pointing in order to read people's intentions.  Brian Hare thought his dog could do the same thing, and after running a number of experiments on his and other dogs, he showed that even nine week old puppies were far more skilled than chimpanzees or other animals in  following a pointing gesture.  The classic test that Hare used was to place a food reward under one of two buckets and then point to the bucket that has the food.  Dogs will usually follow the point and knock over the bucket to get the food.  Hare found that dogs can follow a variety of gestures: head nods, gazing, pointing with elbows.  Hare says, "Dogs are more skilled at using our gestures if we pay attention to them while giving the gesture. Like infants, dogs are best at following the direction of your gaze when you signal the communicative nature of your head movement. Dogs are more likely to look where you are looking if you call their name and make eye contact before shifting your gaze. Dogs are less skilled at using a gesture that is not intended as communicative. If you extend your arm as if you are pointing but then look at your watch, dogs are less likely to use your pointing gesture. Dogs have trouble understanding threatening gestures to prevent them from going somewhere. Dogs are more likely to follow your pointing gesture if you use a high-pitched voice (not even necessarily their name) to attract their attention before gesturing. Dogs are also more determined to search for a hidden object when you use a high-pitched voice as opposed to a low-pitched voice. Making eye contact with your dog, calling their name, and encouraging them with a high-pitched voice will maximize the likelihood they will use your gestures."

Learning by Watching

Dogs often learn by watching others, a behavior that befits animals who live in packs like their wolf cousins.   Brian Hare describes another test:

Alexandra Horowitz described that if a dog saw another dog get around the fence by going left, it would follow in that direction, even if a shortcut opened up on the right side.  And a dog would most likely imitate a human's path if the person got the dog's attention by calling its name or talking to it.

Imitation

A dog's ability to learn a trick, like how to open a gate, doesn't mean that the dog understands how a gate works; she's just learned an arbitrary sequence of actions that can get her something she wants.  It's hard to access to what degree dogs can generalize or infer things about the world.  Alexandra Horowitz described a dog which seemed to understand the concept of imitation: "The single subject, an assistant dog trained to work with the blind, had already learned by operant conditioning to do a number of non-obvious actions on command: to lie down, turn around in a circle, put a bottle in a box. What the experimenters wondered was whether he could do these actions not just to a command, but after seeing someone else do the action themselves. Sure enough, the dog ably learned to turn around in a circle not after the Turn around in a circle command, but on simply seeing a human do such a thing, followed by the imitation request Do it! They then examined what he would do when seeing a human do a new, completely odd action, such as running off to push a swing, tossing a bottle, or suddenly walking around someone else and returning to their starting spot. He did it. It was as though this dog had learned the concept imitate, and, given that notion, could apply it more or less in any direction. To do this, he had to map his body onto a human’s: where a person tossed a bottle by hand, the dog used his mouth; he used his nose to push the swing."

The Kobayashi Maru Test

Brian Hare described a Kobayashi Maru test given to dogs.  This was based on a Star Trek episode in which the Starship commander was given a problem that was impossible to solve.  In Hare's test, dogs were given a container with food in it that they had to open to get the food.  After they learned how do do this, the container lid was locked so that it couldn't be opened.  Some dogs kept trying and trying to open the container without success.  Others tried a few times and then turned to a human to ask for help: they looked at the person, they whined, they sat, and used a variety of attention-getting and solicitation behaviors to get the human to help open the container for them.  Hare found that those dogs which persevered in trying to open the container had a temperment which fit well with detector dog training.  Those dogs that quickly asked for help were much better suited to assistance-dog training.  Wolves, like the detector dogs, never ask for help; they keep trying to open the container until they destroy it in the process.  Alexandra Horowitz remarks, "By standard intelligence tests, the dogs have failed at the puzzle. I believe, by contrast, that they have succeeded magnificently. They have applied a novel tool to the task. We are that tool. Dogs have learned this—and they see us as fine general-purpose tools, too: useful for protection, acquiring food, providing companionship. We solve the puzzles of closed doors and empty water dishes. In the folk psychology of dogs, we humans are brilliant enough to extract hopelessly tangled leashes from around trees; we can magically transport them to higher or lower heights as needed; we can conjure up an endless bounty of foodstuffs and things to chew. How savvy we are in dogs’ eyes! It’s a clever strategy to turn to us after all. The question of the cognitive abilities of dogs is thereby transformed: dogs are terrific at using humans to solve problems, but not as good at solving problems when we’re not around."

Fairness, Guilt, Deception and Theory of Mind

Fairness

Concepts like fairness, deception and guilt are often thought of as higher level cognitive skills and researchers have explored to what degree dogs experience them.

Horowitz described an experiment that demonstrated that dogs who see another dog getting a reward for doing an act like shaking a paw on command, but who do not themselves get rewarded for the same act eventually refuse to shake anymore.    Dogs at play who are interrupted by a dog that doesn't seem to play fair will shun that dog and refuse to play with it.  And dogs watch humans and evaluate which humans are generous and which are not.  Brian Hare says, "Dogs watched people interacting with one another or with other dogs before choosing whom they wanted to interact with. In one condition, the first person shared food with someone, and the second person stole food from someone. In another condition, the first person allowed a dog to win a tug-of-war battle with a rope, and the second person did not let the dog win. In both situations, dogs immediately preferred the generous human who gave food and the nice person who allowed the dog to win the tug-of-war. Dogs do not need to interact with potential cooperative partners to form an opinion about them. They can evaluate cooperative partners just by watching them play, compete, or even share food with others. Dogs seem skilled at detecting which individuals will be the best cooperative partners."

Guilt is a fairly complex emotion: it demonstrates that an animal knew it was doing something it shouldn't have, and it signals that they feel regret.  But do dogs really feel guilty?  Alexandra Horowitz did an experiment where a dog and its owner were placed in a room with an experimenter.  A treat was put on the floor and the the owner told the dog not to eat it.  The owner then left the room.  When the owner returned, the experimenter told the owner whether or not the dog had eaten the treat.  However, in some trials the experimenter took away the treat and falsely told the owner that the dog had eaten it, and in other trials they falsely told the owner that the dog had not eaten the treat when the dog had.  Horowitz described the reaction of the dogs: "All the dogs survive the experiment looking well fed and a little bewildered.  In many of the trials, the dogs could be models for the guilty look: they lower their gaze, press their ears back, slump their body, and shyly avert their head. Numerous tails beat a rapid rhythm low between their legs. Some raise a paw in appeasement or flick their tongue out nervously.  But these guilt - related behaviors did not occur more often in the trials when the dogs had disobeyed than in those when they had obeyed.  Instead there were more guilty looks in the trials when the owner scolded the dog, whether the dog had disobeyed or not.  Being scolded despite resisting the disallowed treat led to an extra - guilty look. This indicates that the dog has associated the owner, not the act, with an imminent reprimand. What’s happening here?

The dog is anticipating punishment around certain objects or when seeing the subtle cues from the owner that indicate he may be angry.  The guilty look is very similar to the look of fear and to submissive behaviors. It is no surprise, then, to find so many dog owners who are frustrated with attempts to punish a dog for bad behavior.  What the dog clearly knows is to anticipate punishment when the owner appears wearing a look of displeasure. What the dog does not know is that he is guilty.  He just knows to look out for you."

Deception

A lack of guilt does not mean that dogs do nothing wrong.  Dogs are quite capable of disobeying on purpose and seem to gauge when they might get away with it.  Dogs told to stay and not touch food are most likely to obey if the owner stares at them.  If the owner turns his back, the dogs are more likely to cheat and if the owner leaves the room, all bets are off.  Dogs at home with a videotaped image of their owner will happily follow the prompts that the videotaped owner gives to find food, but will ignore many of the videotaped verbal commands.  Brian Hare describes an experiment where, "two open boxes were placed on their sides and strings of bells were attached to the openings. To get to the food inside the box, the dogs had to push through the bells. The trick was that one set of bells had their ringers removed. Once the dogs were familiar with the noisy box and the quiet box, a human experimenter put food in both boxes and forbade the dogs to take it. The human then stood between the two boxes. In the condition where the human was facing the dog and the boxes, the dogs pilfered from either box, but when the person’s back was turned, the dogs avoided the box with the functioning bells. Even more amazing, they did this on their very first trial."

Language

How many words or gestures can a dog learn the meaning of?  Many dogs can learn the meaning of one or two hundred words or gestures.  Gestures are probably easier than words for dogs to learn because dogs use body language innately.  Certain breeds of working dogs, such as border collies probably have a better language skills than other dogs since they've been selected for following complex commands.

Scientists have studied how dogs process language by training them to sit motionless in an MRI machine and watching to see which areas of their brains light up when they hear different spoken commands.  Results suggest that dogs recognize the emotional content of a voice: a pleasing high pitched baby talk voice versus a neutral or threatening voice, in the lower auditory centers of the brain.  The words are analyzed separately in a cortical area of the dog's brain.  Intonation is very important in conveying information to dogs.  It has not been shown that dogs can understand grammars or syntax; their word understanding is best thought of as simple associations of sounds with objects or commands.

The Dog-Human Bond

Where does the dog-human bond come from?  Alexandra Horowitz speculates that both humans and wolves evolved social bonds to allow them to hunt: "The best answer here is that both we and dogs (and dogs’ forebears) are social animals, and we are social because it turned out to confer an advantage. For instance, one popular theory is that human sociality allowed for the distribution of roles that enabled them to hunt more effectively. Thus our ancestors’ success at hunting made it possible for them to survive and thrive, while those poor Neanderthals who stuck it out on their own did not. For wolves, too, staying in social family groups allows for cooperative hunting of large game, for the convenience of a mating partner, and for assistance in rearing the pups."

The bond that a dog forms with a caregiver can form very quickly.  But what part of the dog's psychology do we hijack to form the attachment?   Partly it is the bond that puppies have with their mother: they look to us as parents.  But it may also be part of the protection that wolves give to other members of the pack, including wolf pups.   That sort of pack protection is how sheep dogs bond with and protect their flock.   And with female dogs, part of their bond may come from maternal bond towards puppies.  I had a German Shepherd that bonded with our eight year old son and followed him everywhere.  Even though he wasn't the caregiver, it seemed like she was acting like a mother looking after her pup.

While we know we feel a bond with our dogs, how do we know the dogs really feel a bond toward us?  Or as Emory University researcher Gregory Berns says, "With dogs there’s always this overriding question: Are they just trying to scam us by acting cute?"  Berns decided to answer that question by training dogs to sit in an MRI machine and measuring the activation in the dogs' caudate nucleus, part of the dopaminergic pleasure center of the brain.  As Berns said, "In the experiment, we showed them an object that signaled they would get food, then another one signaling that their owner would pop into view and say, “Good girl!” There were a handful of dogs that preferred praise over food. There were also a couple of dogs at the other end of the spectrum. For them it really was all about the food! [Laughs] But the vast majority of dogs had equal responses to both food and praise."  In another study, Berns showed that the reward system in dogs was activated when presented with the smell of their owner on a t-shirt, but not when presented with the smell of a stranger.  Perhaps the quote by 19th century author Josh Billings is true:  "A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself."

Empathy

Dogs appear to have empathy toward other dogs and humans.  Brian Hare writes, "Two studies suggest that both wolves and dogs display consolation behavior. Consolation behavior in dogs is particularly striking. Dogs prefer to console whoever loses the fight and submits, rather than the winner. In half of the consolations, the third party who was not involved in the fight actively initiated the contact with the victim by approaching. In many cases, this occurred even though the consoler did not witness the fight. It appeared that the dogs were reacting to the whimpering of the victim. Just as a human might comfort a puppy bullied by another dog, it seems dogs will do the same."

In another study, dogs were exposed to a stranger who was sitting in the same room as their owner.  When the stranger pretended to cry, the dogs approached the stranger and sniffed, nuzzled and licked the stranger.  The author says that this suggests that dogs have empathy, but it could just be that they've learned to be rewarded for such behaviors in the past.

Mirror Neurons

In the 1990's researchers identified neurons in monkeys' brains that fired both when the monkeys performed a particular motor task, as well as when the monkeys observed another monkey performing that task.  These neurons have been described as mirror neurons, because the neuron mirrors the behavior of another, as though the observer were itself acting.  Since the 1990's there has been a lot of experimental work using fMRI machines which show that parts of human brains are activated both when performing a task as well as observing another performing that task.  It is thought that mirror neurons play a significant role in human development, understanding intentions (theory of mind), understanding language, imitation, and empathy.   It is very plausible that dogs have mirror neurons that activate areas in their brain in sympathy to what they observe in humans.  Studies haven't yet proven that, but it could explain how dogs are able to imitate us.  It could also explain how dogs contagiously yawn: more than 70% of dogs were shown to yawn in response to the yawning of an experimenter.  Mirror neurons could also explain how dogs can discriminate between emotional expressions of human faces.

Puppy Dog Eyes

Researchers have shown that dogs' eyes differ significantly from those of wolves in two ways: dogs have a muscle that allows them to lift their eyebrows that is absent in wolves, and dog have another muscle that shows the whites of their eyes more than is shown in wolves.  The researchers theorized that these changes allowed dogs to be more expressive and gave dog faces more of an infant-like appearance, thus eliciting a caregiving response from humans.  Another researcher showed that dogs who used their eyebrow muscles more were adopted faster from shelters.

Alexandra Horowitz points out that staring is often a sign of aggression.  Among wolves and monkeys, staring and eye contact can be interpreted as a threatening act that can preceed an attack.  With humans, eye contact can be threatening or under appropriate conditions, can enhance bonding with loved ones.  Horowitz says, "So something changed with dogs.  While the threat of aggression prevents mutual gaze among wolves, chimpanzees, and monkeys, for dogs the information to be gained by looking us in the eyes is worth enduring any residual, ancient fear that a stare might cause an attack.  That humans respond well to a dog gazing at them is a happy circumstance — and our bond with them is thereby strengthened."

Eye contact is key in building trust and bonds between humans.  Laurie Santos, Director of the Canine Cognition Center at Yale says, “What makes humans unique relative to primates?  The fact that babies are looking into your eyes, they really want to share information with you. Not stuff that they want, it’s just simply this motivation to share. And that emerges innately. It’s the sign that you have a neurotypical baby. It’s a fundamental thread through the entire life course. The urge to teach and even to share on social media and so on. It makes experiences better over time when you’re sharing them with someone else. We’ve built another creature that can do this with us, which is kind of cool.”

Several studies have shown that gazing between a dog and its owner as well as petting can increase production of oxytocin in the brains of both the dogs and its owner.  Oxytocin is a hormone which plays an important role in human lactation, trust, romantic attachment and parent-infant bonding; it is often called the love hormone or cuddle chemical.  We'll look more at human feelings toward pets in next week's reading.

Dog Training

Alexandra Horowitz describes the "recapitulation of domestication"  that occurs every time a person brings a young dog home from a shelter.  "No dog knows, on first turning his eyes on the person who peeks at him in his shelter cage, what the person expects of him. Many people’s expectations, at least in this country, are fairly similar: be friendly, loyal, pettable; find me charming and lovable—but know that I am in charge; do not pee in the house; do not jump on guests; do not chew my dress shoes; do not get into the trash. Somehow, word hasn’t gotten to the dogs. Each dog has to be taught this set of parameters for his life with people. The dog learns, through you, the kinds of things that are important to you—and that you want to be important to him."

Likewise, the obligation is reciprocal: the person must learn how to take care of the dog: how to feed it, when and for how long to take it outside, what play and cuddle activities the dog likes and how best to let it play with other dogs and people.

There are lots of different training methods; Here is one page that provides an overview.  But it is always best to keep your relationship with your pet top of mind.  Your pet is not a slave or robot that should be trained to do as you say; it will respond best to you if you give it love and respect.

There will be bumps along the way: your pet may display unacceptable behaviors that you have a hard time changing.  Brian Hare emphasizes thinking about dog cognition when training your dog.  As we've discussed before, punishing your dog for infractions is very often counterproductive unless you catch the dog in the act, because dogs have lousy episodic memory.  Petting your dog to calm her down when she barks ferosciously at a passing toddler is also a bad idea: you petting can be interpreted as praise to encourage the dog to continue the behavior.  Rewarding a dog with a treat for performance may reduce motivation if the treat stops being given for the behavior.   Over-training can be counterproductive; dogs trained best when they were trained once per week in a single session and did worse if they were trained daily.

Obedience training

Horowitz says, "Nothing in a wild animal’s life prepares him to be asked to maintain the state of holding his rump on the ground, unmoving, until released by your cheery okay!  It is notable that dogs can learn these seemingly arbitrary things at all."  Despite the arbitrariness of obedience training, it can do wonders for the relationship with your dog.  Obedience may tie in to the dominance/submissive behaviors among wolves that reinforce their place in the wolf pack.  In one study, dogs that had a history of excessive barking and jumping when people came to the door were trained on a one minute down stay.  After training, barking and jumping decreased by at least 90% and owners were very happy.

Dog Boredom

Do you worry about leaving your dog at home all day while you work or play golf?  Will your dog be bored?  Will she get into trouble?  Alexandra Horowitz says, "If you return home to find apparently restless socks, shoes, or underwear that have magically migrated some small distance from where you left them, or straggled bite - sized reminders of what you threw in the garbage yesterday — the answer is both Yes, your dog was bored, and No, at least not during one manic hour of chewing. Imagine a child complaining, There’s nothing to do: that is just the case for most dogs left alone. Left without anything to do, they will find something. Your solution, for the sake of your dog’s mental health, and for the sake of your socks, is as simple as leaving something for them to do.  Even if you return to find the house a bit unkempt, a warm depression on the forbidden couch cushion, what is also reliable is that the dog is still alive and usually looks well. We get away with leaving them, with boring them, because they generally adapt to their situations without much complaint.  In fact, dogs take comfort in habit, in reliable occurrences, just as we might.  If so, then their boredom may be tempered by resignation to the familiar. And they may even know how long they typically need to stay in the suspended animation of waiting at home for you. It is one reason why your dog may be waggily waiting at the door even when you try to quietly sneak in at the workday’s end. And it is why I leave more treats hidden around the apartment the longer I will be gone. I’m telling Pump I’ll be away — and leaving something to mind the time."

For Class

Come to class with anecdotes and observations about your dog's behavior, your experience in dog training, what problems you've had and what successes you've had together.