Essays on Non-virtual reality: Do dogs know that we love them? – The News-Messenger

Ken Baker, Ph.D., Columnist Published 10:24 a.m. ET March 10, 2020

Ken Baker and Cocoa(Photo: Submitted)

We Americans sure like our dogs. But do they like us?

Its not as easy a question to answer as it might seem at first blush. That tail-wagging, bouncing up-and-down, open-mouthed, tongue-lolling, goofy expression they greet you with at the front door after youve been gone for an hour to the Kroger as though youve just returned from a three-month excursion to Antarctica

That sure looks like affection. Common sense suggests it is and now, thanks to a raft of controlled studies over the past decade, most scientists would agree. Perhaps a more interesting question might be, do our pets know that we love them back? And here the unsatisfying answer seems to be: Maybe, but maybe not.

A 2018 study by the American Veterinary Medical Association reported that 38.4 percentof U.S. households were home to one or more pet dogs, amounting to a canine population of some 76.8 million animals. In purely economic terms, that translates into a whole lot of dog food, trips to the Vet, chew toys and way too many hours bent over with a pooper-scooper in the backyard.

Canine cognition laboratories are making significant inroads into the once unapproachable question of, Whats it like to be a dog?(Photo: Chewy)

We must love them. And a lot of research suggests they do appreciate the attention and care we give them and even love (its not too strong a word) us for ourselves, aside from the food and treats. But again, do they have a sense as to how we feel about them? Do they have, in the parlance of behavioral science, a theory of mind the ability to recognize that others (as well as they themselves) have their own active mental and emotional lives?

Not an easy concept to grasp. Human social interactions are founded on the assumption that others fundamentally think and feel much as we do ourselves. But that level of mental awareness requires a physiologically complex brain that dogs, and indeed most if not all, other animals, may not possess. But what if animal brains are complex enough to experience the world much as we humans do?

Its an area of active research and one with significant ethical implications. What if, for example, those untold millions of mammals and birds we house in industrial production facilities for human consumption, do have the neurological wiring to experience the world with an internal mental and emotional life at least somewhat approximating our own?

This is one reason many have opted for a vegetarian life style. Alternatively, such concerns are commonly viewed as unwarranted and overly sentimental anthropomorphisms by many others, while its likely that most of the rest of us have opted to not think too closely about the question at all.

Because of their size, tractability and obvious intelligence, the thinking and emotional aspects of dogs have been the subjects of more scientific study than any other group of animals, with the possible exception of chimpanzees. Canine cognition laboratories established in countries across the globe have made significant inroads into the once unapproachable question of, Whats it like to be a dog?

In some ways, it appears, not all that different from being a 3-year-old human toddler.

The two hemispheres of all mammalian brains possess similar structures, with lobes and parts bearing the same names and basic functions. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) studies can identify which components of the brain are activated when an animal undergoes a given mental or emotional experience (by locating the regions receiving enhanced blood and oxygen flow).

Dogs (and other mammals investigated so far) process fear, anxiety, happiness, memories and spatial awareness in the same parts of the brain as do humans.

Some of the most interesting work in canine cognition over the past decade has come from studies conducted in neuroscientist Gregory Burns lab at Emory University. Since 2012, he has trained some 100 dogs to willingly submit to fMRI examination of neurological activity in their brains under a variety of circumstances. (YouTube has an intriguing TEDxAtlanta video on how the dogs were trained.)

Burns work provides strong evidence that dogs probably experience many of the same emotional highs and lows in a similar way that we do. But there are, of course, important differences.

Dogs may have the same basic brain structure as humans but their overall brain size and complexity of certain areas (especially of the cerebral cortex) is much smaller. One result is that while dogs appear to experience the full array of basic (gut) feelings that dont require much thought e.g., fear, affection, anxiety they never develop the so-called reflexive emotions like guilt, pride, contempt, shame or grief, which require conscious thought.

They dont experience guilt? What about that hang-dog expression when you come home to find shredded paper all over the kitchen? The research is pretty clear thats more a function of fear of punishment than a recognition of having been bad.

University of British Columbias Stanley Cohen indicates that the mind of an adult dog is roughly comparable to that of 2-to 3-year old human child. At that age a child has some, but not the full range of emotions she will eventually develop.

And yes, dogs do have an active dream life. Curiously enough, small dogs are much more active dreamers than larger ones, with small poodles experiencing as many as six short dreams per hour compared to a Great Danes one longer dream during that span.

Ken Baker is a retired professor of biology and environmental studies. If you have a natural history topic you would like Dr. Baker to consider for an upcoming column, please email your idea to fre-newsdesk@gannett.com.

Read or Share this story: https://www.thenews-messenger.com/story/news/2020/03/10/essays-non-virtual-reality-do-dogs-know-we-love-them/5008947002/

Read the original:

Essays on Non-virtual reality: Do dogs know that we love them? - The News-Messenger