We used the words puppy and baby interchangeably when our daughter was born.
My husband and I both grew up in households with dogs, and now have a 35-pound black dog with a white chest named Scout. We would say things like, "Oh, the puppy is hungry," or "The baby needs a walk." We would call the dog our toddler. It caused confusion because we had to clarify whether we meant the human baby or the four-footed one.
I would refer to the doctor's office as the veterinary office. Our approach to our daughter's health was similar to our dog's, with questions like "is her energy good, is her nose cold, and does she have a happy disposition?" She is fine. I think we both wanted to instill a love of dogs in our daughter.
I notice some similarities between our baby and our dog as she gets older. Both of them had a tendency towards devious problem-solving, whether it was the baby figuring out how to escape from her playpen or the dog climbing on a chair to access the garbage can. Maybe our mix-up of language was more than just an affectation. I am not the only one who refers to their pet as their "fur child" or puts animal ears on a toddler. Recent research shows that dogs and children have a lot in common.
Neither dogs nor children can talk in full sentences. You can ask them to do things as well, as noted by the director of the Computational Cognitive Development Lab at Brown University. Babies and dogs show attachment to their parents, as well as showing eye contact, and both expect social engagement from the caregivers.
Dogs are good judges of character. The February study explored how dogs were able to differentiate between humans who give them accurate data and those who don't. A person would point to a cup where a treat could be found in the study. The correct person would point to a cup without a treat, while the incorrect person would point to a treat. The question was if dogs could learn which person would share the treat. The work found that dogs are able to follow the more accurate person and that children have the ability to understand who is a good person to learn from.
Dogs have a basic understanding of object specifics, which means understanding object permanence and solidity. She said that even very young infants have some expectations about how objects should behave, though this continues to develop in toddlerhood and beyond. Children spend a lot of time experimenting with and learning about object properties from about 12 to 18 months of age, according to the author.
Some dogs are able to comprehend language.
The way that canines learn about other things is similar to the way that humans learn. According to Brian Hare, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Duke University, dogs can learn words through fast mapping. He explained that rather than being taught every word, the dogs learn by being excluded. A child knows the word ball but not the car when there is a red ball and a toy car on a table. They will grab the object on the table that is not a ball if you ask them to get the car.
Some dogs are able to comprehend language. According to NPR, the border collie Chaser knew more than 1,000 words, which is about the average number of words a 3-year-old child knows. The University of California–San Diego is studying dogs that seem to be able to communicate concepts with the use of buttons. The dogs do not have full language skills.
It's not all about thinking. Our love for our dogs is comparable to our love for our children in some senses. The director of the Arizona Canine Cognition Center noted that domestication may have been the reason for thejuvenile characteristics of wolves. Wolf puppies have a lot of the same features as adult wolves, but they have a lot of small eyes, short snouts, and floppy ears. They appear immature because of these traits. Dogs are like Peter Pan, according to MacLean. They are playing a trick on our brain to see them as babies that need to be taken care of. A study published in the journal PLOS One found that when women look at pictures of their children and dogs, they have similar emotional and brain responses.
If you are a parent, you may have felt the happy high that comes with staring at those big eyes and little body. Dogs can insert themselves into the oxytocin loop so that they can stare at their owner when they are not very verbal.
The similarities between dogs and children can point to new avenues of research. Busch is studying joint attention in dogs. It is an important part of toddler development when a child wants to play with a toy with another person. For any dog owner, that behavior may sound familiar, because you are playing fetch and your dog returns a ball to someone else. These studies help us understand how intelligence works.
It is important to remember that there are differences between dogs and humans. As humans, we underestimate how dogs see the world. Our primate relatives see the world primarily through vision, but dogs rely more on scent.
Someday my child will learn how to speak 20,000–35,000 words, write essays, care for herself, and cook her own dinner. Our dog will always depend on us for her life. She will always be our baby, even though she is more immature than an infant.
