We all know that our dogs can learn, recognise us and some can even follow instructions! Dogs carry emotions with them too, and demonstrate some that are similar to human emotions. But really, how much like a person is a dog, and are dog emotions real?
Dog emotions: dogs are sentient?
“Sentience is the capacity to feel, perceive or experience subjectively. Eighteenth-century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think (reason) from the ability to feel (sentience). In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations (known in philosophy of mind as “qualia”). In Eastern philosophy, sentience is a metaphysical quality of all things that require respect and care. The concept is central to the philosophy of animal rights because sentience is necessary for the ability to suffer, and thus is held to confer certain rights.” [Wikipedia]
Also, to be sentient: “the quality of being able to experience feelings” [Cambridge English Dictionary]
MRI scans of dogs
Scientists at Emory University, USA, trained dogs to tolerate the demands of MRI scanning; they can now carry out MRI brain scans of awake and normally alert dogs. This has revealed amazing facts about how and what a dog reacts to by looking at their brain activity while conscious. Studies carried out previously had been carried out whilst the dog was anesthetised and unconscious; this meant that no brain activity that occurred when the dog was conscious could be seen.
We can’t ask a dog what their emotions are, what they are thinking or feeling – well, we can ask but they can’t talk back to us! Do dogs think? MRI brain scans have now helped us deduce what a dog may be thinking or feeling in some circumstances. One brain structure that appears to act similarly in both humans and dogs is the caudate nucleus; this sits between the brain stem and cortex.
The caudate nucleus, the sentient dog
The caudate nucleus plays a key role in the anticipation of things we enjoy, like food, love and money. It turns out that dogs also react in a similar way (but maybe with money, it’s only the smell!). The parts of the caudate nucleus that can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar dog and human scents have been discovered with great reliability in tests. The reappearance of the dog’s owner also showed predictably increased activity in the conscious canine caudate nucleus; this suggests positive emotions in the person’s recognition by the dog. Scientists saw that nucleus activity also increased when the dog was shown hand-signals which indicated food, and the smells of people familiar to the dog.
Other tests associated with positive feelings revealed increased caudate nucleus activity in the conscious test dogs. These results have led scientists to believe that this central part of a canine brain is similar in function to that of a human’s. The ability to experience positive emotions like love and attachment would mean that dogs have a level of sentience comparable to that of a human child; this is no small thing.
Voice areas in the brain
A study in the University of Glasgow discovered that dogs have a voice area or areas in their brain which are similar in function to our own. Dogs can recognise voices and distinguish emotions from their tone, just like we can. Scientists explored this in Budapest (Hungary) using an MRI test setup similar to the above Emory University study. Researchers found that the brains of human subjects responded in very similar ways to those of the conscious dogs. Sounds of laughing, crying, babies giggling, coughing, various types of barking and other noises were playing; the scientists noted how the voice area responded.
Published in Science journal, Attila Andics and his team separately discovered that their test group of thirteen family-owned dogs recognised not only the meaning of the tone of voice used in various commands spoken to them, but also recognised the actual words regardless of intonation. Lead author Andics, from Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest said: “It shows that these words have meaning to dogs.” They too were taught to lie motionless in a scanner in order to assess their reactions to words and tones.
These similarities between human and canine brain responses reflect the close verbal connection that can exist between people and dogs. People and dogs each have voice areas in their brains, but the proportions of the voice areas used for particular tasks are quite different for each species. In dogs, almost half of their voice areas are used to interpret environmental sounds; in humans the proportion is less than a twentieth of the voice area. We won’t be hearing dogs joining in with our conversations any time soon; not enough of a dog’s voice area is dedicated to verbal communication to be able to do that.
Dog senses and language
Dogs seem to have the sense of smell as their primary sensory input – followed by hearing and sight. Scent and body-language are key parts of our dogs’ communication arsenal; this is possibly because dogs have comparatively limited verbal communication ability. Yell at a dog if you like, but they will be aware of how you feel before you shout; they can read us just by our smell and body-language. Dogs are indeed sensitive to our words, but (as many owners could attest), sometimes scent over-rides all verbal input from us!
Dogs can recognise some of our words when trained correctly; they can connect the sound of the word with a particular action or command. In effect this is how we interpret some spoken words too. A few owners have trained their dogs to understand the meaning of hundreds of words or more, though dedicated and prolonged training is required. It seems that some dogs are smarter than others, and dogs that are better at some things tend to be better at others too. This points towards a general intelligence that varies between dogs, as it does between people. Testing such intelligence is extremely difficult, however, and may take many more years of intense study to become reliable.
Hormonal interactions with dogs
We gaze into their eyes and for some reason, we feel better. For many people, this is indeed true – and when we are stroking and cuddling dogs too. This is partly down to Oxytocin hormones, plus other pleasure-inducing chemicals being released into our brains; these make many interactions with a dog a rewarding experience. Stroking, gazing and cuddling release similar chemicals in the brains of dogs too, which leads to increased bonding between them and us. As a consequence, our relationships with dogs are complex and double-sided, even from a basic chemical/hormonal level.
Problem-solving and cognition
“Tests of canine language ability offer a new way of looking at dogs’ mental skills. If a problem can’t be solved by a 2- to 3-year-old child, then it is not likely that a dog can solve it either. And if a training technique won’t work for a toddler, then it likely won’t work for a dog.” [Stanley Coren]
Many years have been spent by people selectively breeding dogs to be better at performing some particular tasks. Researchers have found that parts of the canine brain have changed because of selective breeding and that this seems to reflect the differing skills of each breed. “These results indicate that through selective breeding, humans have significantly altered the brains of different lineages of domestic dogs in different ways.” (Journal Of Neuroscience). Click here to see more on this, including research results.
Learning and play
Dogs play with other dogs a lot, given the opportunity – at least when they are younger. Their play can be frenetic, wild and sometimes seem to be aggressive although very few injuries result. Our two youngest dogs play vigorously for several minutes at a time, until they are both exhausted; they enjoy wrestling and mouthing, flat-out chasing and catching in a remarkable stream of energy. Yet, no injuries seem to occur deliberately; their physical control at high-speed is amazing, and seems to comply with conscious or unconscious ‘rules of engagement’. These rules are expressed using complex body-language and verbal communication. Learned when puppies, these rules help prevent injury to each other and to apologise if accidents do happen! Their awareness, thinking, communication and mutual consideration often appears to exceeds those of toddlers playing!
Empathy, understanding and trust are all evident when dogs play, and play just wouldn’t work without it. There are moral boundaries that cannot be crossed by either dog at play – if fairness is not experienced then play falls apart. Considerable self-control is demonstrated in play as it is in general canine society. A dog needs this self-control and compliance with mutually-agreed rules in order to remain part of their pack, their society; comparisons can be drawn between us and dogs in this area too.
See this great Facebook video by the BBC, describing dog play rules.
Finn’s Law
Dogs are sentient – they feel subjectively, and this has deep implications in how we treat dogs, and how they are viewed in the law. The important and recently-instated ‘Finn’s Law’ makes it unlawful to cause unnecessary suffering to a dog in service. They are now considered to be public servants rather than Police property. This means that anyone causing injury or suffering to a police dog or horse can now be prosecuted under the law. Service dogs used to be considered legally as objects or possessions, so this new law is a great step for canine welfare.
The first ‘Finn’s Law’ (Animal Welfare (Service Animals) Bill) conviction was made on 5th August 2019, of a man who stabbed a Police Dog in the head. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison, three months of which was for attacking the dog, Audi, who is now recovered and back at work.
Conclusion – are dogs like people ?
Do dogs think that they are human? I don’t think so; they are happy to know they are dogs but they also know that they are part of a pack that includes humans. Society is vital for a dog, as it is important for us, and they soon adapt to recognising us as part of the ‘family’. Hopefully you and I are the pack leaders as this leads to a stable and happy relationship with our canine family-members; when we are not seen as the pack leaders then our dogs will misbehave, and think that they can take the lead in spite of what we would like. See my earlier article: ‘Are You The Alpha Dog?’
Dog’s brains seem to be organised in a similar fashion to our own, though different proportions are allocated to cognitive processing and senses. Research from all over the world reveals that dogs have awareness, and subjective experiences far richer than we have believed until recently. Hormones and chemical changes during emotional states are very similar in dogs and people; dog emotions can include joy, fear, anger, disgust and love. In what is similar to 2-year-old children, however, a dog does not experience the more complex emotions like guilt, pride, and shame. What could be seen as a guilty dog is probably just doleful anticipation of chastisement learned from their past experiences.
Jealousy is another matter though; experts may argue that this is too complex an emotion for a dog to experience, but I reckon they usually can. Anyone who has more than one dog will probably tell you that one can be obviously jealous of a possession ‘owned’ by the other dog; whether that possession is a toy, bed or a person, they certainly show all the right signs!
It turns out that dogs are not like people, but they really can be emotional, thinking and loving family members!
SEE ALSO: my new article discussing our mental health and the influence dogs may have over it : Click Here.