Dogs—They Know

by Malcolm Riordan

Many of the incredible, fascinating attributes and qualities of man's best friend are traced back in evolution as inherited from the ancestor of the domesticated dog, the gray wolf:

Their Hearing:   Estimations are that dogs can hear a sound at 4x the distance that humans can, their ability to perceive frequencies way above our range is well known, and we observe that their ability to pinpoint the exact location of a sound is more accurate and faster than ours.

Their Vision: A dog's vision is less acute or as sharp as ours, once was even measured at 20/75. They are red-green colorblind, but their night vision easily exceeds our own. So does their visual discrimination for moving objects—a dog may not be able to see its owner standing still at a mile away, yet they are able to see and discriminate from even a mile off should a walking person be their owner.

Their Sense of Smell:  A dog's sniffer is way off the charts when compared to their masters'.  Dogs can detect the presence of a specific odor at ten to the seventh power (10 million X) better than us. As well, they are able to categorize odors and will make and retain associations with each odor. This is a world we can't even begin to comprehend, a world we can only fathom. And even then, but through a keyhole.

These abilities, inherited from wolf ancestors, interest and amaze us.

Equally amazing are traits and abilities which are not inherited from the wolf.  Domesticated dogs have evolved beyond just a predisposition to show social intelligence—social intelligence in itself is very uncommon in the animal world.

During their association with man—estimated at roughly 15 thousand years—dogs have indeed evolved signs of sophisticated social cognition that can be demonstrated by science.

From the "Dogs Decoded: NOVA" documentary, I learned two things of which I was fully unaware. One, from the field of human psychology, is that our faces are asymmetrical.  In our facial expressions, the right side of the human face expresses emotions more accurately, and not only more honestly, but also more intensely!  We instinctively know this, as we demonstrate the subconscious tendency to gaze first, and for a longer period at the right side of other people's faces.  This is believed to have evolved in association with our adaptive cognitive processes.

The second new concept for me was that dogs also have evolved to instinctively do the same!  Films of dogs' eye and head movement demonstrate that they automatically scan the right side of a human face first and for longer periods.  They have evolved the ability to access at a glance our emotion of the moment.

This is highly important information for fulfilling the role of best friend!

It has been demonstrated that the social cognition of dogs exceeds that of even our closest genetic relatives, the other higher-order primates.  In the time scale of evolution, this evolved, inherited canine capacity is a recent genetic acquisition, and it distinguishes the dog from its ancestor, the wolf.

Dr.  Stanley Coren, a psychology professor and neuropsychological researcher at the University of British Columbia, has also argued, though armed only with anecdotes, that dogs demonstrate the relative sophistication of having "theory of mind," citing evidence that dogs are known to practice the art of deception.

Theory of mind, here, means that dogs have "the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others, and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from one's own."   Well, we all have had the thought that our dogs are more advanced than some people we know!

A couple pages of anecdotal evidence of dogs practicing deception would be delightful – perhaps if found, it will be shared here.  Stay tuned.

Woods Rafter Cat image on banner by Malcolm Riordan. Dog images on page from Funny Dog Site