It is frustrating to look into the eyes of a dog, feel so close to it, and yet have no idea what it is thinking. It is like the first question you ask of a new born baby, with all the love and excitement. Or more wind? It is like that for ever.
I don't know what my staffie is thinking. Is it possible that he did it on purpose? Is he laughing at something? Can he smile? Is he anxious about the future? Can he remember when he was a puppy? I had his knackers off a few years ago, but does he still get the horn? Does he love me? Is it possible to really love me the way I love him?
To get some answers, I enlisted a group of experts, ranging from a zoologist to an evolutionary anthropologist, and used the spirit of Jaak Panksepp, who is commonly acknowledged as the grandfather of dog neuroscience. He left behind a body of research and insight, including the theory that all mammal brains share seven primary emotional systems. The age-old question of why my dog gets so aroused by hi-vis lanyards is one of the questions that fall into these categories. It could be any reason at all.
Play.
Do dogs know how to laugh? According to Dr Brian Hare, an evolutionary anthropologist and author of The Genius of Dogs, dogs seem to respond to our positive emotions like laughter and smiling. He is cautious about interpretation. It is difficult to say whether they understand the reason behind the joke.
Where are you? The staffie is named Romeo. The photo was taken by ZOE WILLIAMS.
Rob Alleyne, a behaviorist who appeared in the TV series Dog Borstal, says that dogs like laughing. They will do something, then look at you to see if you are amused. Rob Beckett said if 500 people laugh at something he said, they are not going to forget it. The same circuit of approbation, creating feelings of gratification, laying down a memory of how to elicit that response in the future, is happening in a dog. It will be slapstick and not be wordplay.
Can a dog smile? Catherine Ledner is a photographer.
One of the most famous strands of Panksepp's research looks at laughter in non-human mammals. He found that dogs can sound as if they are laughing when they are panting, but that is because they are: when you analyse the pant with a sonograph, then map its burst of frequencies, then play those frequencies to other dogs, it reduces stress and increases tail.
As you get to know a particular animal, you will see that dogs have an expression of pleasure or contentment. The owners of some breeds think their dogs are happier than average. This is not the case, says Alleyne. Staffies, rottweilers, and other dogs with broad faces look happy. The expression on a German shepherd will look similar to curling its lips back.
Care.
A few years ago on Kilroy, a segment was called "I love my animal but does my animal love me?" The audience was ready with a gallows for me by the end. I don't think animals love us. They don't have the capacity to do things that we think of as love. We can re home them. I could not remove you from your partner and say: "I have a friend who's a better fit for you." If I took Romeo and gave him to someone else, that will be his owner. I would probably have a new dog if Romeo died three months later. What if we love each other the same amount? Is irreplaceability the measure in interspecies relationships?
Donna Haraway said that tuning ourselves to another species' desires has a profound impact on our own.
Hare says that you are more than a food dispensers if it is not love. Parents and their babies can make each other feel good by staring into each others eyes. Dogs have inserted themselves into this loop so that when they stare at each other, it increases the amount of the stress hormone in both the dog and the owner.
The modern understanding of canine domestication is based on Hare's The Genius of Dogs and the book he co-authored with Woods, Survival of the Friendliest. The benefit to dogs is plain: shelter, nutrition and whatnot, because they gained a social understanding of what humans meant and wanted. Donna Haraway argues in Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People and Significant Otherness that attuning ourselves to the desires of another species has a profound impact on our own cognitive abilities. This is not about what is going on in your dog's head. It is just fascinating.
How much do dogs care about us? The image is from the LWA/Getty Images.
No expert can tell you that your dog doesn't know when you're sad. A few years ago, Alleyne had a dog who would recognize when she was down. He kept his head on my knee for an hour. Sometimes they can tell when you have cancer, but that is more about bio-detection than intimacy.
A simple measure of compassion is yawning. Hare says yawning is related to adults' scores. Over 70% of dogs yawned when they saw someone yawning.
Fear, panic, and grief.
Most dogs don't get anxiety separation according to the director of The Pet Coach. She says she only met one dog with clinical separation anxiety in her career. In puppyhood, isolation distress is usually laid down in destructive behavior, howling for hours, sometimes nipping at the ankle of the owner, lying down in front of the doorway. Your dog doesn't feel safe alone, and will do anything to avoid that feeling of peril. Firth says that they don't come pre-programmed. They don't know when you'll be back in an hour. It takes a lot of training to teach a puppy that being on their own is okay. Nothing amazing is going to happen.
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Dogs are better than cats.
The person is ZOE WILLIAMS.
The real reason dogs are better than cats was reported by The Guardian.
How do they know when you left? If you feed your dog at the same time every day, it can be to-the-minute accurate, as their stomach will become tailored to expect food at that time. The same applies to cats.
A dog that can be left for 40 minutes, yet freak out after 45 is not something to be proud of. The best theory is that your scent fades over time. Humans can smell a spoon of sugar in a cup of tea, while a dog can smell a spoon of sugar in a swimming pool, if you remember.
A young dog will experience distress in the moment, and it is mainly a development. Firth says that it will start to worry that it will have that horrible feeling as it gets older. Humans find keys to set them off in the environment.
A dog can be affected by adverse early experiences. This is a picture ofPatricia Doyle.
Can a dog remember? It is not known whether adverse early experiences can affect a dog's later behavior, though long-term memory is insufficiently understood for us to know whether they can remember them. Service dogs returning from war zones have similar symptoms to soldiers.
Lust.
Does a neutered dog still want to have sex? This feels like one of those things that humans should understand before they do the surgery. Apparently we don't. Dr Naomi Harvey says there is no easy answer to the question. The timing of neutering may be a factor. Gonadal hormones are needed for reproductive behaviour and can be lost during pubertal brain development. A study of free-roaming male dogs in Chile found that castrated dogs showed no reduction in sexual activity.
Harvey says that humping doesn't mean sexual arousal. Dogs feel a lot of stress, andHumping is a fairly common displacement behavior. It cannot be assumed to indicate lust.
It was Rage.
Dogs have the same limbic system as us, which means they can go into fight, flight, or freeze mode under threat. Humans have another way to be violent, but a dog cannot be humiliated. Firth says that the emotional complexity of a two- to three-year-old child makes them not feel guilt or shame.
One of the reasons people are bitten is that they misinterpret signs of fear. A dog that is panting may be stressed. A dog with a whale eye might be stressed or looking at something in his peripheral vision. You have to be able to see the whole picture. You have to be able to put all those things together if he has whale eye, his tail is down, and his ears are back. Keep your distance.
Why do some dogs attack other dogs? Hare counsels that you just have to read it right. Some dogs don't like strangers. A meeting with a strange dog could make it feel like it needs to protect itself. A lot of dog aggression can be explained if you have a good understanding of the dog.
The most common problem I see is aggression, which was 20 years ago. We have been badgered into socializing our dogs. They have become aggressive towards each other because we have never tried harder to befriend them. We haven't thought about what we're doing, what we're really doing is allowing them to be beaten up by other dogs when they're too small to protect themselves. It only takes a single incident for a puppy to learn that other dogs are dangerous.
What are the consequences for dogs? The dog is photographed by the Brighton Dog Photography.
Seeking.
Why do they want to go somewhere? The average New Zealander wants nothing more than a place to live, something to do, someone to love, something to hope for, but without a real concept of the future. The interaction with humans has given them intense desires. Firth says that people don't realize that the mixture is two working dogs. Even if you have the prettiest show cocker, and the prettiest show poodle in their genes, they are meant to be out retrieving.
I am not trying to shame cockapoo owners, but I am appalled that a dog bred to bring down a bull will do so with a labrador. Over generations, we have taught them these urges. If only we would listen, they would teach us cause and effect.
The last bark was photographed by RF Pictures.
