Scientist says new research proves 'dogs are people too'

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


I think it's meant a little more literally than that.

The colloquial usage of "person" or "folk" doesn't really carry over properly in this particularly context.

This statement is both right and wrong. In a literal sense, it is wrong; dogs are not people, nor are their social senses anything more than self-serving. This is probably what citizen earth takes umbrage with: dogs, like all animals, are stupid, morally blind creatures who've learned to manipulate humans with their lovable features *(on a side note, dogs are an evolutionary deviation from the wolf; with domestication has come the softening of the wolves features - which had led to the dog. The more gentle and playful breeds possess softer and gentler features; this is an evolutionary process called pedomorphism; where an animal forgoes the later stages of physical and maturational development, which includes hunting for food, fighting off predators, etc, in favor of the hang around humans and maybe they'll feed us method. This process eventually resulted in the toy dogs we have today; who lived off the lap of the wealthy)

At the same time, dogs are completely able to co-regulate with a human being. No other creature on this planet feels the same comfort that dogs feel around us; this allows them to connect with us - and not flee, or freeze, or attack, as most animals would.

This relaxed frame of reference allows dogs to form bonds with humans (I've actually been reading a bit on dogs lately; you should check out Alexandra Horowitz book "Inside of a Dog" for an interesting exploration of the canine experience), which, although absent of any moral quality, is definitely peppered with real love, real loyalty, and real joy when playing and relating with its owners.

My only problem is the "either - or" assumption people take; the word either applies or it doesn't. As shown, it applies in one sense, in that dogs can form real emotional bonds with people, but not in the sense that dogs possess any understanding of the nature of the relationship beyond what it receives from the human; they have no moral sense; have no mental markers that give meaning to their relationship with a human. Its just emotional, instinctual. It can be felt very deeply for them. They can cry when they're left alone; whine so as to be taken with you; feel a very visceral sense of needing to protect their owners. These aren't thought out responses, but feelings which derive from earlier experiences. Show kindness to a dog and a dog will learn to see in you a dependable benefactor.

reply to post by Astrocyte


I do not think that the theory of dogs evolving to exploit human emotions is accurate.

I think that it is, for the most part, a unique human trait to be able to deceive. Unless you are talking fighting/playing dead type stuff involving fight or flight scenarios.

Emotion or inner feeling passes unimpeded into an outward physical gesture. Dogs cannot lie. Although I do understand that you mean the evolutionary path for dogs has made them liars whether they know it or not....I do not see that as being founded in anything.

ETA: i do agree with the remaining balance of your post.

reply to post by Astrocyte


There is something I've dubbed "Homeward Bound Syndrome" after the movie series of the same name. This is a condition where humans naively apply human characteristics and faculties to animals, as in the movie Homeward Bound (there's another condition called "looks who talking syndrome" where adult abilities are attributed to infants). In the literal sense the movie displays it: they speak, have a sense of meaning, even pass judgement on human behaviors, and societal structures.

I remember getting into an argument here with an overzealous dog owner who was certain that her dog had a sense of proportional justice. If one of her dogs was given more of a treat than her other dog, the dog who was given less would go up to her and look at her like "I have less than he does! that's not fair!".

Aye, that she argued this once again proves how the internet levels the playing field between the amateur and the knowledgeable. Instead of promoting knowledge, it often promotes ignorance. Anyone who has ever read a book or taken a course on evolutionary biology or ethology knows that animals act of self interest. The dog went up to his owner because it was experiencing jealousy. Knowing that the owner is the arbiter of how much food or treat is to be given, and knowing that the owner often responds to cute little gestures(my dog does this to me all the time; it's amazing how efficient they are keeping score, albeit, unconsciously), like putting it's head on your lap or giving an awkward turn of the head, it is able to secure what it wants: more treat.

The genius of Dogs by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods covers the scientific literature and not once have dogs passed the justice test - at least not when their tested again and again in different contexts to determine whether they have an actual sense of equity.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

I do not think that the theory of dogs evolving to exploit human emotions is accurate

I disagree. It's a basic staple of evolutionary biology i.e the survival of the fittest.

The theory of how dogs came about goes like this. Wolves, in general, are terrified of humans. But when civilization arose 10 to 15 thousand years ago, a certain number of wolves with a low reactive nervous system decided to scope out human garbage sites for food: these wolves were chosen by evolution to become dogs.

These wolves were calm and docile enough to be around humans. Eventually, humans co-opted these primitive dogs for hunting. And, from there, the modern day dog breeds emerged.

All of this reflects the exploitation of environment for adaptation. The less reactive wolves exploited the unguarded garbage heaps; by doing so, these wolves developed their own particular niche within natures available food-supply. when these wolves learned that humans were letting them do this, they allowed themselves to come closer, to make contact and risk emotional connection with them. Eventually, humans recognized how these primitive dogs could be exploited for hunting.

This, in an important sense, is what makes humans so fundamentally different from other creatures: we have the capacity for self transcendence. To not act out of our lowly, biological desire to exploit others and our environment.

Dogs cannot lie

They also don't make any explicit commitments. How can a dog lie if it never makes it's inner will visible?

Only human beings can do that. We have language - but even without the spoken word, people can lie - just ask the deaf.

reply to post by Astrocyte



While I love animals and love the type of relationship humans can develop with them, I am of the opinion that favoring relationships with animals over humans is a generally unhealthy thing to do..

So many people who've experienced trauma in their relationships with people give up, admit defeat, accept their losses, accept their weakness, and devote most of their time to hanging out with animals - whether that be their dog, cat, horse, etc.

This is such an easy cop out. Animals are the simplest things to get along with. They provide no challenges, no hurdles in any relationship. A relationship with an animal should be supplementary - should happen in addition to stable human relationships.

If these are the only relationships you have, and the only relationships you want, I just feel bad for you.

reply to post by Astrocyte

If these are the only relationships you have, and the only relationships you want, I just feel bad for you.

You put this in a reply to yourself.
Hmmm

reply to post by Phage


Just adding to my earlier post.

reply to post by Astrocyte

Ok.
So, has anyone said that their only relationship is with animals and those are the only relationship they want? I agree that such situations are rather sad, and odd. But it doesn't seem to have much to do with the topic or what anyone has said so it sort of sounded like you might be projecting. Never mind.

reply to post by Phage


I agree that it was tangential.

I got there after I started thinking about the stupidity of thinking dogs can be concerned about justice, which got me thinking about how T.V and movies which show dogs speaking actually influence the beliefs of people who believe this; which got me thinking "why do people believe this..why are they so willing to ascribe human characteristics to animals?".. Eventually I was led to the conclusion that people who think this way are people who over-state the importance of animal-human relationships. These same types are prone to exaggerate the abilities of animals i.e. they're moral, they're smarter than humans, etc.

Also, I'm bored, and am in the mood to write.

Sorry if it annoyed you.

reply to post by Astrocyte


You kept using the term moral in a denying fashion towards dogs. But I would say they do have some sense of morals, and it is taught to them by experience, just like humans. Basically it knows life is valuable, and will protect and defend its owner/family. That is the meaning of morals, knowing the value of life and choosing not to hinder life with ones actions. When a dog is hungry and noone around to feed it, what stops it from eating a small child near by? Likewise if a man is angered to an extreme extent and has the urge to kill someone, what stops him? Fear of punishment, and learned experience of what is right and wrong, what is acceptable behavior. Dogs are conscious beings, but not on the same level as humans (obviously) but conscious beings non the less, just as new born baby humans arent as conscious beings as humans,new born baby humans arent as conscious as beings as grown dogs. When it comes down to it, there is a 'central intelligence agency' of identity and experience and self which drives and experiences the existence of the being. Just as you were born as a being, so is a dog. Yes dogs are more limited by their evolved hardware and software but they are less limited then perhaps a worm or simple celled organisms.

I find it interesting that humans see an animal, such as a dog, way down the evolutionary scale. Yet, people say all the time, dogs are capable of unconditional love. However, there are very few cases where man has exhibited that very trait.

reply to post by EarthCitizen07

.unless we have lots of bored progressive women here with nothing better to do.

Wow, generalize much? You have been here long enough to realize there are numerous animal lovers at ATS for better or worse I suppose, although I can't see it being worse.

Anyone who's had a loving pet knows that they are conscious beings who think and process live interactions and form love for people and other animals. Animals are amazing especially dogs.

reply to post by hknudzkknexnt


Anyone who has ever had the pleasure of a companion, is already aware. It's so sad that some need "proof" LOL smh...

Astrocyte
reply to post by Phage

 

I agree that it was tangential.

I got there after I started thinking about the stupidity of thinking dogs can be concerned about justice, which got me thinking about how T.V and movies which show dogs speaking actually influence the beliefs of people who believe this; which got me thinking "why do people believe this..why are they so willing to ascribe human characteristics to animals?".. Eventually I was led to the conclusion that people who think this way are people who over-state the importance of animal-human relationships. These same types are prone to exaggerate the abilities of animals i.e. they're moral, they're smarter than humans, etc.

Also, I'm bored, and am in the mood to write.

Sorry if it annoyed you.

Dogs are wholly concerned with justice. Don't believe me?

www.npr.org...

Dogs have an intuitive understanding of fair play and become resentful if they feel that another dog is getting a better deal, a new study has found.

The study, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at how dogs react when a buddy is rewarded for the same trick in an unequal way.

Friederike Range, a researcher at the University of Vienna in Austria, and her colleagues did a series of experiments with dogs who knew how to respond to the command "give the paw," or shake. The dogs were normally happy to repeatedly give the paw, whether they got a reward or not.

But that changed if they saw that another dog was being rewarded with a piece of food, while they received nothing.

"We found that the dogs hesitated significantly longer when obeying the command to give the paw," the researchers write. The unrewarded dogs eventually stopped cooperating.

Scientists have long known that humans pay close attention to inequity. Even little children are quick to yell "Not fair!" But researchers always assumed that animals didn't share this trait.

"The argument was that this is a uniquely human phenomenon," says Frans de Waal, a professor of psychology at Emory University in Atlanta and a researcher at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center.

That changed in 2003 when he and a colleague named Sarah Brosnan did a study on monkeys. Monkeys had to hand a small rock to researchers to get a piece of food in return. Monkeys were happy to do this to get a piece of cucumber. But the monkeys would suddenly act insulted to be offered cucumber if they saw that another monkey was getting a more delicious reward, a grape, for doing the same job.

"The one who got cucumber became very agitated, threw out the food, threw out the rock that we exchanged with them, and at some point just stopped performing," says de Waal.

In that experiment, the monkeys considered the fairness of two different types of payment. But when Range and her colleagues did a similar study with their trained dogs, testing to see if dogs would become upset if they only got dark bread when other dogs received sausage, they found that dogs did not make that kind of subtle distinction. As long as the dogs got some kind of food payment, even if it wasn't the yummiest kind, the animals would play along.

Dogs, like monkeys, live in cooperative societies, so de Waal was not surprised that they would have also some sense of fairness. He expects other animals do as well. For example, he says, lions hunt cooperatively, and he "would predict that lions would be sensitive to who has done what and what do they get for it."

reply to post by Astrocyte


Dogs have a language. You don't understand it, and it likely lacks the breadth of human language. But it is also less likely to be misconstrued.

Dog language is tied into nervous response, and is autonomic.

A happy dog wags its tail. Always. The communication is a combination of physical gestures and sounds. The physical gestures are a direct correlation to their thoughts. Thus, you will not see things like a dog wagging its tail and acting playful so that it can get in closer to bite you or swipe your sandwich. If you come home and your dog has done something destructive, it can't hide its shame.

They are incapable of lies because to lie would mean that physical traits would have to disassociate from their thoughts. They would have to employ a poker face, so to speak.

Astrocyte
reply to post by Astrocyte

 

I remember getting into an argument here with an overzealous dog owner who was certain that her dog had a sense of proportional justice. If one of her dogs was given more of a treat than her other dog, the dog who was given less would go up to her and look at her like "I have less than he does! that's not fair!".

See the article I just linked for you. Dogs are completely into proportional justice, or equality.

These dogs pretty much summed up this theory for me at the end of the video. They really touch my heart.




Their facebook page

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

Dogs have a language. You don't understand it, and it likely lacks the breadth of human language. But it is also less likely to be misconstrued.

Umm, do dogs have language?

If by language you mean a way to communicate specific ideas, that may be true. However, the range of ideas is likely to be extremely limited.

That book I mentioned earlier, the "Genius of dogs" by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods, mentions studies which analyzed the various tones and manners of a dogs bark. They identified 10 or 15 different types.

Now, to think dogs communicate in any way that we could describe as abstract, or not immediately related to their dogly experience, is to dabble in homeward bound thinking.

If you want to understand what dogs think (Inside of a dog, by alexandra horowitz, analyzes this) just study their evolutionary history; what do dogs need to thin about? How do dogs live? What do dogs seek? This all leads to an interesting analysis of a dogs internal experience.

I have a dog, and as a psychologist, I enjoy extrapolating from what I see what he inner experience is. Sometimes I see myself saying "you're so stupid", other times I say "you're so smart". Smart and Stupid are usually meant in reference to human abilities. When my dog does something that is just inanely dumb, I balk and remind myself that humans truly are a special species. On the other hand, when I realize I can walk to the end of the street with my dog - without a leash - and I can trust that she will sit there, look up at me, and wait for the go ahead; and after she does her poo, can do her thing, but once she sees me leaving to go back to the house, she runs towards me with such tremendous earnestness, stops at the street again to wait for the go ahead, and come towards me, I feel such a sense of love and pleasure in the intelligence of dogs. That another animal besides oueselves can share in our experience, albeit, at it's animalistic level, is endearing, humbling, and spiritually settling.

If you come home and your dog has done something destructive, it can't hide its shame.

That's true, I can always read my dog when she did something wrong, haha. They are incapable of guile.

Actually, let me rephrase that. Their experience of having done something that is "wrong" or a no no, is so great that they can't hide it. On the other hand, my dog constantly deceives me, and I think she consciously intends to.

For example, she loves laying on the couch, but nobody likes it, so we tell her to get off. Once i'm ready to go to bed, I say goodnight to maggy; a second or two later once I'm out of sight (they're always watching our faces), I see her creep out of her bed and onto the couch. And if I come back in, she gets off the couch and runs back to her bed! Its cute as hell!

This is clearly her trying to deceive me. Brian Hare also gives examples of this when he describes how his own dog will take a child's toy he has taken a liking to after the family starts eating; he'll deliberately go as far from the dinner table as possible, or into a back room, to chew on the toy.

Dogs are clever creatures. They definitely know how to get what they want.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


You should probably read those books I suggsted.

One study is not definitive proof. Perhaps we will never have definitive proof. But, meta-anaylses (statistical analyses of many studies) have strongly indicated that dogs don't have a sense of justice. They really have no reason to begin with for having one; they're scavengers; they take whatever is available.