Another reason dogs rule: They know what you're thinking

This is fascinating news. I've always believed that animals are much more in tune with our thoughts than science has led us to believe. I've often felt that dogs can read our minds. By giving a dog a command while also visualizing the dog doing the desired action, it helps them to understand and successfully complete what we're requesting them to do.

Getting back to what the article is saying, dogs are very perceptive to our emotions, facial expressions, and chemicals we release.

"Another reason dogs rule: They know what you're thinking"
vitals.msnbc.msn.com...

Scientists have finally proven what every dog owner knows – our canine friends read our facial expressions like dedicated detectives.

Dogs don’t just depend on verbal commands to figure out what we want, a new study shows. Instead, they look into our eyes and try to guess what we’re up to, according to the study published in Current Biology.

Hungarian researchers showed that dogs will even follow our gaze if we make eye contact with them first.

This study “reveals that dogs are receptive to human communication in a manner that was previously only attributed only to 6-month-old human infants,” said study co-author Jozsef Topal a researcher at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Topal and his colleagues studied 29 canines. The dogs were shown a movie of a woman who sometimes would stare straight at the dog and call out to him and then turn her head to stare at an object next to her. The other times the woman would just turn her head and stare at the object.

For the most part, dogs who were addressed both through eye contact and with a verbal greeting tended to follow the gaze of the woman in the movie. When no eye contact was made, the dogs didn’t follow the gaze of the woman.

There have been similar experiments in babies, Topal said. And the dogs are behaving just as 6-month-olds do.

“When they learn verbal commands, they are learning a foreign language,” said the 48-year-old dog trainer from Hollister, Calif. “Dogs normally speak through body language and facial expression. It’s more natural to them.

“If you’ve ever watched dogs at a dog park, you’ve seen it. Within 30 seconds of the time they enter the park a huge amount of information has passed back and forth between the new dog and the ones already in the park. They’re exchanging looks, observing eyes and body posture. In seconds they know who is dominant and who is submissive.”

That skill just transfers to relationships with their owners, Jones said. “If people are upset and crying the dog sees the upset facial expression and also smells the adrenaline,” she added. “Dogs read all of that.”

reply to post by Afterthought


It's good to see that those scientists are finally catching up with us dog owners.

reply to post by ThinkingCap


I agree!
Now all we need are the "dogs are below humans" crowd to get with the program.

Oh now I get why they run in front of moving vehicles....

reply to post by Afterthought


Cats rule..

..cats don't care what you think !!

Cosmic..

Funny you should make this thread right now.

A co-worker brought his Lab to work today (shop/office)
The dog hasn't been outside all day to do his doggy business and I asked him if he wanted me to tke the dog out back(he was really busy). Just as I said that I looked down and saw that the dog had already taken care of his business all over the office tile floor. I looked at the dog and he made NO inclination of cowing, as I wasnt mad at him. It was our fault that we didnt take him outside earlier. Another co-worker walked in and saw the mess, he said nothing, but imediatly the dog started to cow down.

I could almost read the other co-workers mind through his facial expresions. "Damn dog pissed all over the floor!!"
amazing how the dog didnt cow at me or his owner even though we both saw what he did (we werent mad at him)
And the second the other employee walked in and looked down he droped to the floor cowing.

I love dogs, the truley are humans best friend. I wish everyone acted more like dogs. Listen to the song "love me like my dog" and you'll know what I mean.

S&F

reply to post by Talltexxxan


How funny! The dog may have been able to sense your guilt for not allowing him to go outside earlier and, as you stated, could sense the disgust from the other person possibly through their facial expressions or could see the pictures in the guy's mind.
Truly amazing.

I live in Riverside ca, the Meth capital of the world lol...

Anyway I was driving home one night with my Boxer/pit mix, she is the sweetist dog on the planet, loves everyone, never barks at people (piss poor guard dog)

She was sleeping on the floor of the car, not on the seat, I was taking a long winding road when I came to a stop sign, suddenly She leaps from her sleeping position and jumps across my lap and slams her face against the window... Keep in mind this is a 79 pounds of pissed off angry boxer pit on my lap, barking and growling like her life depends on it.

So im trying to wrestle her of me since im driving, and figure out what was wrong, I look over, and in the shadows behind a bush is what appears to be a tweaker hiding in the darkness, staring at my car...

I had no idea he was there, or his intentions, what ever they where they woke my normally calm sedate boxer and made her viciously try to get at him...

She was protecting me, when I had no idea of the danger.

I saw the ABC go video of this news report and they mentioned the dogs getting up and going to the door when their owners leave work.

I have no doubt in my mind dogs are intelligent and emotional creatures, perhaps with a little bit of a sixth sense as well.

well I wonder how many tax dollars were spent to figure out the obvious.

all animals communicate and interact with us in their unique way. I have spent my life learning animal language and it's fascinating.
Horses for example. So easy to train using their language - the way you look at them, where you look, if you're riding them and you know the animal real well you can just literally think something like lets speed up and go left, and ta-da it happens. because we give subtle signals through our muscles and eyes when we 'think to them'. So it is like telepathy.
dogs are the same way, they are just super observant to subtle body language signs.
even parrots can communicate effectively with us and us with them.
you just gotta learn their language and in turn they learn ours. so many subtle signs....
what I have found even more fascinating is the way the parrots interact with the dogs. even they have learned to read each others 'thoughts', body language, etc.
animals rule.....

reply to post by benrl


Very cool!

A couple of weeks ago, I went to sleep with the window cracked. In the middle of the night, my dog was beside the bed stomping his foot and shaking his collar. I woke up and asked him if he had to go potty, but he stomped his foot again. This is not characteristic of him when I ask him this. So, I got up and went outside. The entire neighborhood was thick with smoke. He was obviously worried and trying to get me up to save me. Once we went outside and saw that there was no immediate danger, we inside and he fell asleep on the bed right away.

Such a smart boy! I don't know what I'll do without him.

reply to post by Afterthought


Your story reminded me of this:



A workshop was on fire and the owner told the dog to find some help, so the dog led a police officer who was patrolling in his car (and had gotten lost trying to find the fire) to the burning building.

reply to post by Talltexxxan


Yes dogs truly are the better more forgiving gentle species,

Watch try this.

Put your dog and your wife in the trunk of the car for an hour.

When you open the trunk, who is really still happy to see you?

reply to post by Casandra


That video just gives me chills! It's nice that those firefighters weren't the type to say "stupid dog" and ignored what he was trying to tell them.

Its funny, all the hate on scientists, first they need to test before they can say it.

I bet a lot of scientist could also be dog owners and they might even notice this but did not do any study because it might not be important and the commity might not take it serious or there are other experiemnts the fund may go into.

Not just dogs, lot of animals can see into your eyes and sense emotions. Dogs are best mentioned because tigers are hard domesticate.

Cool stuff. You can also use channelling as a method of communicating with pets.

reply to post by Casandra


thanks, what a great video! (s)
man, animals understand so much more than most people give them credit for. just because they can't speak human talk doesn't mean anything.
kudos to the officer that had the smarts, understanding and knowledge to follow the dog too...

Originally posted by ElOmen
Oh now I get why they run in front of moving vehicles....

Exactly,they are just trying to see your face to determine whether or not you mind that they cross the street.

Ah well, most animals will do that. Even people.

This is really cool. I am not surprised they read facial expressions. It makes sense. Their communication is based on body language and I guess facial expressions are a part of body language, after all.

Regarding the comment of dogs running in front of cars, when I was in Houston, I immediately noticed the high number of stray dogs. They were often seen in packs and stayed under the overpasses.

The craziest thing I noticed is that these dogs were so seasoned into the stray lifestyle that they would actually wait at the corner and knew when it was safe to cross!

Now I know why the show Animal Cops is televised in Houston. These folks need to start caring about their pets more and take responsibility for their animals. It's just not fair to toss them away and/or not get them spayed and neutered.

reply to post by luciddream

Not just dogs, lot of animals can see into your eyes and sense emotions. Dogs are best mentioned because tigers are hard domesticate.

Actually dogs are specifically the only animal known to pick up on human gestures and facial ques from birth.

A tiger or monkey wont pick up human gestures and meanings unless directly trained to do so, dogs pick them up from the time they are puppies.

Smile nice and big at a monkey or gorilla and look in their eyes, in the wild no amount of happy emotions and calming thoughts will be portrayed to them in any way.

Dogs possess a two-year-old child's capacity to understand human pointing gestures, with dogs requiring next to zero learning time to figure out the visual communication, according to two recent studies

dogs get gestures

Article goes on to say they understand them better than even animals that are closest geneticly related to us...

reply to post by Afterthought


Here's another video that shows us that animals are smart, even more than people sometimes!



This dog has the good sense to cross the highway properly and not risk his life like people frequently do.