Most recently, I was enchanted by studies revealing how the dogs we love so much love us. For me, I was surprised the first time I experienced the uniquely intrinsic sense of response dogs have to humans. It is not something you can define; it is something you can only know and understand once you have experienced it. And once you have experienced it, you continually ask yourself, "Can my dog read my mind? Is my dog psychic?"
It was revealed through scientific studies that among animals, dogs are the only creatures that visually read our facial movements much the way we humans read each others' faces. It is known that body language does much to predetermine our responses to each other. Intrinsically, we respond more to the visual "read" of facial expressions and far less to the words being spoken. Would it surprise you to know that dogs do the same thing we do when reading our faces?
Through eye tracking technology, dogs viewed a variety of faces on a screen, including other animal faces. It was conclusively determined that dogs reacted to human faces the same way that we do, first looking to the left focusing on the right side of the human faces that were displayed. Our naturally attained sixth sense facial expressions are not done symmetrically.
As humans, we look to the left, or the right side of the face. I have always been aware of this as I am self-conscious of the fact that I seem compelled to look predominately at a person's right eye, often wondering if this is obvious to the other person. While I have not been as much aware of our facial micro-movements, I have put it down to addressing the left brain, the "non-emotional" side of the human being.
The conclusion from the study here is that the dog is performing much as we do when picking up on the sub-conscious ticks and twitches which occur in the face, some of them almost undetectable, yet with their keen eyesight, the dog satisfies the myriad understanding of our moods in this process. In so doing, dogs understand us in a way that humans cannot. I speculate that language does not get in the way of their keen perception. It does not escape me that there is the intrinsic awareness of potential reward in the dog's ultra keen perception.
For us, as humans, in a certain mindset we can almost understand what dogs are thinking. Can we understand the barks of dogs? Tests performed where dogs were provoked to bark in a variety of situations and the testers recorded the barks proved that simply listening to the sounds of their barking, people were able to discern what the dogs were experiencing, or communicating through their barking. The results were remarkably accurate.
It has always been assumed that dogs descended from wolves. Interestingly enough, wolves only bark as a warning whereas dogs have developed their barks as a means to communicate quite well with us. Some scientists believe that our instruction has a biochemical signature that acts as a bond much like that of mother and baby. Their is a chemical release of oxytocin, the polypeptide hormone, produced by the posterior lobe of the pituitary gland, that stimulates contraction of the smooth muscle of the uterus.
It has been determined that this chemical release plays a role between dogs and their owners. Blood samples taken prior to and during interactions revealed a burst of oxytocin released naturally. It has a powerful physical effect. Owning a dog can even extend your life, lower your blood pressure and heart rate.
Following the premise of ancestry, scientists have compared mitochondrial DNA markers in domestic dogs to discover that they are most closely related to wolves and that every single one of them was identical. Dogs are most certainly descended from wolves. The timescale for domestication is 100,000 years or more. It is clear to see that our relationship with dogs goes back farther than with any other pets.
And it makes sense that as scavengers, dogs would place themselves within our perimeters as we would leave the carcasses of dead animals where they could nourish from the remains and bone marrow, thus setting themselves up for interaction with humans. This would naturally lead to a fundamental change in our development.
When comparing the skulls of wolves to domestic dogs significant differences made it clear that the domestic dog's skull had a more raised forehead with a much shorter snout . The larger skull denotes a bigger brain over time. Further cognitive studies have proved that dogs think more like us than even our closest animal ancestor, the chimp. Through exercises between humans and chimps and humans and dogs, the dogs were able to make the visual leap of faith to look in the direction of the outstretched arm and grasp the understanding of what is intended by the all-too human gesture of pointing.
In every attempt made with the chimps to get them to understand that the human pointing to the treat hidden under the cup was giving away the answer, they seemed completely disinterested in this free information., whereas the dog was not only tuned into this communication, they knew there was a reward at the end of the pointing finger continuing off into empty space and in the direction indicated. Dogs following pointing is very natural for them, just as picking up on something as subtle as a gaze, a skill dogs only use with us; they don't even do it with each other. Thus, dogs are bilingual, in a sense.
New research has revealed that their abilities go beyond what anybody thought. It is not too far fetched to believe that Timmy could, indeed, second guess what Lassie was telling him, as we have learned that dogs are capable of abstract thinking. Children can determine that a drawing can represent a three dimensional object. So can dogs. Dogs are more intelligent than we ever thought possible.
Further investigating the origin of such behaviors, the question arose, how did dogs come to be these docile, obedient and doting creatures in the first place? Is the wolf, after all, the true ancestor of the domestic dog deriving in appearance, somewhat, and slightly removed from function, while general character from an earlier form has certainly taken on a dramatic change. If they are 99.8 % genetically identical to wolves then is it, perhaps, the way that we have raised them?
That's what took us to Budapest where five day old wolf cubs are being raised in the home to establish intense bonding early in their development. At eight weeks differences start to show up. The wolves apparently had their own interests divorced of human interaction. There was very little eye contact and they behaved much as they would if they were still in the wild. They became increasingly aggressive and by the second month, battles worsened and they wanted to destroy everything. It is impossible to turn a wolf into a dog.
We next looked to a Siberian experiment where a Soviet scientist set up a breeding program to domesticate silver foxes. In this program, 1% of foxes being introduced to humans were non-aggressive and therefor selected to breed with other non-aggressive foxes. After only three generations, these aggressive behaviors were completely bred out. Cross fostering to deliver mothering behaviors had no influence on the cubs. The difference is almost entirely genetic. Tamer foxes produce lower adrenaline. Interestingly, as the foxes were continually bred, their physical features began to change. They were beginning to look more like dogs. In this, selective breeding has gone from roles to appearance.
It is further easy to understand with continued cross breeding as has been typically done to accentuate features or maintain a tiny stature, etc., it is clear that this process over time has delivered the animal that most closely resembles human characteristics. What an amazing creature hath been made. I still think there is significant weight to the idea that dogs are intrinsically aware of the treat factor and I know they are keenly aware of how much we can do for them in this department. It reminds me of the studies done to prove telepathic communication as to where the treats are kept. But I'll save that for another blog.
