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What have dogs taught us?
21 February 2011
Dogs, say some social anthropologists, taught humans compassion*. Any dog owner will understand that claim, especially if he or she has ever had a puppy. It's tempting to believe that the relationship between humans and dogs began with puppies, perhaps an abandoned litter our prehistoric ancestors came across. But it might have come about through something more pragmatic like frequently shared hunting grounds or prey.
The relationship between humans and dogs is complex, but since it began, we have overall learned as much from dogs as they have from us. Our level of civilization - indeed our maturity as a species - can be measured in our relationship with other species, especially with our domestic companions. Because of their long term association with humans, dogs have become a yardstick for our humanity.
Dogs are synonymous with concepts like loyalty, friendship, steadfastness, obedience and affection. Some trainers insist dogs aren't human and should not be treated as such, nor are their personality traits ours, and treating them like adults or children only reinforces bad behaviour. But I disagree. We have selectively bred dogs for those traits we want for dozens of centuries. We have bred them and kept them within our homes, shared our living spaces and food with them. We have made them dependent on us for the basics - food, space, exercise and even the opportunity for biological necessities like urination and defecation. They aren't humans, but neither are they wolves. They are a hybrid of the two and, at least our home companion dogs, they lean closer to the former in many attributes.
Some trainers insist dogs are pack animals and we should relate to them in a pack hierarchy. That's only partially true. Human family units are not structured like a wolf pack, humans don't behave like wolves, and we should not try to emulate them. Dogs have evolved to deal with a radically different type of social interaction with humans, so much so that they have often lost all pack instinct and instead live in a perpetual state of puppyhood. Besides, dogs understand and communicate through a different battery of senses than ours. We don't have the biological equipment to interact with them on any but a pale travesty of an alpha wolf, let alone a whole pack.
We project our emotions on their behavior and anthropomorphize it, perhaps, but like many dog owners, I believe many of these are real attributes of dog psychology, not merely wishful thinking. Others agree. Lord Byron wrote this epitaph on the death of his beloved dog, Boatswain, in 1808 and had it inscribed on the dog's tomb at Newstead Abbey:
Humans may well have learned and developed these attributes for ourselves in our relationship with dogs. It's a symbiotic relationship, not merely one way. Along the way, our evolving relationship with canines taught us to share, to take responsibility for others, and to recognize that other species were not merely food, or even competitors, but could be partners. Our appreciation of animal intelligence comes from our initial relationship with dogs.
But then what have cats taught us? Altruism? Obedience? Hierarchy and structure? It's a more complex relationship to categorize because it lacks the symbiotic pack/social involvement. More on cats, in a later post.
The close, mutual relationship between humans and dogs is at least 14,000 years old**, with evidence of distinctly domesticated dogs (what we would identify as "breeds" today) dating back to at least 6600 BCE***. But there is reasonable evidence it may be much older - canine remains found in Paleolithic, human-occupied caves dating to 125,000 years ago suggest that, even if not domesticated, canines and humans lived in close proximity that might mean some sort of beneficial, cooperative relationship between the species. Other scientists peg our relationship somewhere in between. Regardless of which hypothesis you believe, the relationship between dogs and humans pre-dates history, pre-dates civilization.
Dogs seem to have been domesticated before time humans learned to domesticate herd animals, but the relationship between humans and dogs seems to have solidified around that time, probably because the role of dogs changed and became more closely defined in the hierarchy of relationships: humans-dogs-other domestic animals. Dogs became our intermediary with our herds and were rewarded with special status. In return, that new responsibility seems to have sharpened their natural intelligence much in the same way reading sharpened human intelligence. It also changed them, socially and behaviourally.
Dogs are possibly the second most intelligent animal on the planet, although dolphin and ape aficionados may argue that statement. Certainly dogs are smart, inquisitive, playful and sentient creatures. They have self-awareness. They are, according to one study at least, generally optimistic, too.****
Many years ago, we had a wonderful Sheltie named Wellie. He was a remarkable dog in his patience and acceptance of other animals in our house. We have a photograph of him lying down while three tiny kittens nestled in the fur on his back - they crawled onto him for warmth and he let them, without moving to shake them off. We have photos of him playing with Woozle, a ferret with whom Wellie formed a close friendship (we had two other dogs at the time). They loved to chase one another around the house, and would steal each other's toys to get the other to chase. Wellie exhibited attributes like friendship and compassion, which are square pegs in the round holes of pack-behaviour thinking.
An article on animal intelligence in National Geographic, March 2008, describes Border Collies that have large vocabularies and learn new words as quickly as a human toddler:
Ferrets and cats may have first been domesticated in or around Sumerian times, when humans were developing their first cities, mostly to control the growing rodent population as these took entrepreneurial advantage of the newly developed granaries and food stores in early human settlements. By that time, dogs had been partners with humans for many millennia. But dogs as companion animals, not merely working partners, further changed both human and canine behaviour.
Dogs, say some researchers, learned morals and to abide by social rules from humans. That, they say, explains why dog play seldom escalates to the position-dominance contests seen in wolves (other researchers argue that dogs are not alone in moral behaviour, but that's another post too...).
In this article, the author reports studies that show how the relationship affects dog behaviour:
We think we teach dogs through obedience, but rather what we do is reinforce their natural instincts to operate in a social environment, where obedience is a survival skill. We subvert their pack mentality to work within our own social structures. We teach them to live within the altered human pack.
At the same time, dogs continue to teach us many things - compassion, responsibility, acceptance, patience, and otherness (that awareness and appreciation of the merit of another species). Anyone who doesn't learn these things from his or her dog is either not paying attention or is too young to understand.
~~~~~
* i.e. The Lost History of the Canine Race: Our 15,000-Year Love Affair with Dogs, by Mary E. Thurston, Andrews & McMeel, 1996.
** Clutton-Brock J. 1995. Origins of the Dog: Domestication and Early History. In: J. Serpell, (editor.) The Domestic Dog, Its Evolution, Behavior People. Cambridge University Press. Among recognized breeds today, the Samoyed (Bjelkier) dog appears to be the oldest identifiable breed, dating between 2,000 and 3,000 years.
*** From the Neolithic site at Jarmo, between Iran and Iraq. These include skeletal remains, and clay figurines of curly-tailed dogs. The dogs appear to have been large wolf descendants. Similarly, Vlasac, a site in Romania, dated between 5400 and 4600 BCE shows evidence of highly-developed dog human relations. but the dogs were smaller. Only recently has the human-canine relationship been studied, and at many sites excavated in the past, animal bones were routinely ignored or even destroyed. However, according to this site, DNA analysis of large canid fossils from Goyet (Belgium), dated at c. 31,700 BP is "clearly different from the recent wolves, resembling most closely the prehistoric dogs." So that might be the earliest authenticated domestic dog. That pushes back the previous "earliest" date from around 14,000 BP (see here), also based on genetic evidence.
**** Ascribing intelligence and sentience - even sapience - to dogs seems natural to us today, but it's a fairly recent change in our philosophical outlook on animals. As noted in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Descartes, for example, believed animals not only lacked consciousness, but were mere automata - machines that only acted as if they were conscious, and their behaviour could be explained in purely mechanical terms. This archaic attitude, which goes back at least as far as Aristotle, still lingers in some sciences (and countries) today and arises as justification for cruel vivisection - and other brutally, inhumane and uncivilized practices. In a similar vein, Descartes, like many of his Christian forerunners and contemporaries, did not believe animals had souls - a debate that still sparks controversy today (at least among those who believe in souls).
The relationship between humans and dogs is complex, but since it began, we have overall learned as much from dogs as they have from us. Our level of civilization - indeed our maturity as a species - can be measured in our relationship with other species, especially with our domestic companions. Because of their long term association with humans, dogs have become a yardstick for our humanity.
Dogs are synonymous with concepts like loyalty, friendship, steadfastness, obedience and affection. Some trainers insist dogs aren't human and should not be treated as such, nor are their personality traits ours, and treating them like adults or children only reinforces bad behaviour. But I disagree. We have selectively bred dogs for those traits we want for dozens of centuries. We have bred them and kept them within our homes, shared our living spaces and food with them. We have made them dependent on us for the basics - food, space, exercise and even the opportunity for biological necessities like urination and defecation. They aren't humans, but neither are they wolves. They are a hybrid of the two and, at least our home companion dogs, they lean closer to the former in many attributes.
Some trainers insist dogs are pack animals and we should relate to them in a pack hierarchy. That's only partially true. Human family units are not structured like a wolf pack, humans don't behave like wolves, and we should not try to emulate them. Dogs have evolved to deal with a radically different type of social interaction with humans, so much so that they have often lost all pack instinct and instead live in a perpetual state of puppyhood. Besides, dogs understand and communicate through a different battery of senses than ours. We don't have the biological equipment to interact with them on any but a pale travesty of an alpha wolf, let alone a whole pack.
We project our emotions on their behavior and anthropomorphize it, perhaps, but like many dog owners, I believe many of these are real attributes of dog psychology, not merely wishful thinking. Others agree. Lord Byron wrote this epitaph on the death of his beloved dog, Boatswain, in 1808 and had it inscribed on the dog's tomb at Newstead Abbey:
Quote
Near this Spot
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferosity,
and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.
This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
if inscribed over human Ashes,
is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG,
who was born in Newfoundland May 1803
and died at Newstead Nov. 18, 1808.
When some proud Son of Man returns to Earth,
Unknown by Glory, but upheld by Birth,
The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And storied urns record who rests below.
When all is done, upon the Tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been.
But the poor Dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his Master’s own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonoured falls, unnoticed all his worth,
Denied in heaven the Soul he held on earth –
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.
Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power –
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy tongue hypocrisy, thy words deceit!
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on – it honors none you wish to mourn.
To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one – and here he lies.
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferosity,
and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.
This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
if inscribed over human Ashes,
is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG,
who was born in Newfoundland May 1803
and died at Newstead Nov. 18, 1808.
When some proud Son of Man returns to Earth,
Unknown by Glory, but upheld by Birth,
The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And storied urns record who rests below.
When all is done, upon the Tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been.
But the poor Dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his Master’s own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonoured falls, unnoticed all his worth,
Denied in heaven the Soul he held on earth –
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.
Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power –
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy tongue hypocrisy, thy words deceit!
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on – it honors none you wish to mourn.
To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one – and here he lies.
Humans may well have learned and developed these attributes for ourselves in our relationship with dogs. It's a symbiotic relationship, not merely one way. Along the way, our evolving relationship with canines taught us to share, to take responsibility for others, and to recognize that other species were not merely food, or even competitors, but could be partners. Our appreciation of animal intelligence comes from our initial relationship with dogs.
But then what have cats taught us? Altruism? Obedience? Hierarchy and structure? It's a more complex relationship to categorize because it lacks the symbiotic pack/social involvement. More on cats, in a later post.
The close, mutual relationship between humans and dogs is at least 14,000 years old**, with evidence of distinctly domesticated dogs (what we would identify as "breeds" today) dating back to at least 6600 BCE***. But there is reasonable evidence it may be much older - canine remains found in Paleolithic, human-occupied caves dating to 125,000 years ago suggest that, even if not domesticated, canines and humans lived in close proximity that might mean some sort of beneficial, cooperative relationship between the species. Other scientists peg our relationship somewhere in between. Regardless of which hypothesis you believe, the relationship between dogs and humans pre-dates history, pre-dates civilization.
Dogs seem to have been domesticated before time humans learned to domesticate herd animals, but the relationship between humans and dogs seems to have solidified around that time, probably because the role of dogs changed and became more closely defined in the hierarchy of relationships: humans-dogs-other domestic animals. Dogs became our intermediary with our herds and were rewarded with special status. In return, that new responsibility seems to have sharpened their natural intelligence much in the same way reading sharpened human intelligence. It also changed them, socially and behaviourally.
Dogs are possibly the second most intelligent animal on the planet, although dolphin and ape aficionados may argue that statement. Certainly dogs are smart, inquisitive, playful and sentient creatures. They have self-awareness. They are, according to one study at least, generally optimistic, too.****
Many years ago, we had a wonderful Sheltie named Wellie. He was a remarkable dog in his patience and acceptance of other animals in our house. We have a photograph of him lying down while three tiny kittens nestled in the fur on his back - they crawled onto him for warmth and he let them, without moving to shake them off. We have photos of him playing with Woozle, a ferret with whom Wellie formed a close friendship (we had two other dogs at the time). They loved to chase one another around the house, and would steal each other's toys to get the other to chase. Wellie exhibited attributes like friendship and compassion, which are square pegs in the round holes of pack-behaviour thinking.
An article on animal intelligence in National Geographic, March 2008, describes Border Collies that have large vocabularies and learn new words as quickly as a human toddler:
Quote
"Dogs' understanding of human forms of communication is something new that has evolved," Kaminski said, "something that's developed in them because of their long association with humans." Although Kaminski has not yet tested wolves, she doubts they have this language skill. "Maybe these collies are especially good at it because they're working dogs and highly motivated, and in their traditional herding jobs, they must listen very closely to their owners."
Scientists think that dogs were domesticated about 15,000 years ago, a relatively short time in which to evolve language skills. But how similar are these skills to those of humans? For abstract thinking, we employ symbols, letting one thing stand for another. Kaminski and Tempelmann were testing whether dogs can do this too.
Scientists think that dogs were domesticated about 15,000 years ago, a relatively short time in which to evolve language skills. But how similar are these skills to those of humans? For abstract thinking, we employ symbols, letting one thing stand for another. Kaminski and Tempelmann were testing whether dogs can do this too.
Ferrets and cats may have first been domesticated in or around Sumerian times, when humans were developing their first cities, mostly to control the growing rodent population as these took entrepreneurial advantage of the newly developed granaries and food stores in early human settlements. By that time, dogs had been partners with humans for many millennia. But dogs as companion animals, not merely working partners, further changed both human and canine behaviour.
Dogs, say some researchers, learned morals and to abide by social rules from humans. That, they say, explains why dog play seldom escalates to the position-dominance contests seen in wolves (other researchers argue that dogs are not alone in moral behaviour, but that's another post too...).
In this article, the author reports studies that show how the relationship affects dog behaviour:
Quote
...this relationship and the way humans use their behavioral repertoire seems to be the greatest influencer on a dog’s behavior. Voith, Wright, and Danneman (1992) reported that it is poor pet-owner relationship rather than poor obedience training that results in the majority of behavior problems. They surmise that the more a dog fits into a human family structure and is attached to certain persons, the more likely it is to behave like a member of a bonded social group instead of behaving individually. This has also been shown with military and police dogs where the dogs that spent their “off-duty” time at home with the handler’s family had fewer behavioral problems (Lefebvre, Diederich, Delcourt, Giffroy 2006). Thus the behavior of a dog with a well developed relationship is more subject to its owner’s actions. It would appear that the relationship itself is a key component in the communication of information; it provides in a sense, the medium for the message from human to dog.
<snip>
Dogs have also been shown to have the capability for functional referential communication with their owners. Referential communications is an understanding that an item that is present in an individual’s proximal space may be the concept of ‘discussion’ with another individual. Dogs will ‘show’ their owners via their gaze where a piece of food or toy (the goal) is that they can not get access to or the door or leash when they want to go out.
<snip>
Dogs have also been shown to have the capability for functional referential communication with their owners. Referential communications is an understanding that an item that is present in an individual’s proximal space may be the concept of ‘discussion’ with another individual. Dogs will ‘show’ their owners via their gaze where a piece of food or toy (the goal) is that they can not get access to or the door or leash when they want to go out.
We think we teach dogs through obedience, but rather what we do is reinforce their natural instincts to operate in a social environment, where obedience is a survival skill. We subvert their pack mentality to work within our own social structures. We teach them to live within the altered human pack.
At the same time, dogs continue to teach us many things - compassion, responsibility, acceptance, patience, and otherness (that awareness and appreciation of the merit of another species). Anyone who doesn't learn these things from his or her dog is either not paying attention or is too young to understand.
~~~~~
* i.e. The Lost History of the Canine Race: Our 15,000-Year Love Affair with Dogs, by Mary E. Thurston, Andrews & McMeel, 1996.
** Clutton-Brock J. 1995. Origins of the Dog: Domestication and Early History. In: J. Serpell, (editor.) The Domestic Dog, Its Evolution, Behavior People. Cambridge University Press. Among recognized breeds today, the Samoyed (Bjelkier) dog appears to be the oldest identifiable breed, dating between 2,000 and 3,000 years.
*** From the Neolithic site at Jarmo, between Iran and Iraq. These include skeletal remains, and clay figurines of curly-tailed dogs. The dogs appear to have been large wolf descendants. Similarly, Vlasac, a site in Romania, dated between 5400 and 4600 BCE shows evidence of highly-developed dog human relations. but the dogs were smaller. Only recently has the human-canine relationship been studied, and at many sites excavated in the past, animal bones were routinely ignored or even destroyed. However, according to this site, DNA analysis of large canid fossils from Goyet (Belgium), dated at c. 31,700 BP is "clearly different from the recent wolves, resembling most closely the prehistoric dogs." So that might be the earliest authenticated domestic dog. That pushes back the previous "earliest" date from around 14,000 BP (see here), also based on genetic evidence.
**** Ascribing intelligence and sentience - even sapience - to dogs seems natural to us today, but it's a fairly recent change in our philosophical outlook on animals. As noted in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Descartes, for example, believed animals not only lacked consciousness, but were mere automata - machines that only acted as if they were conscious, and their behaviour could be explained in purely mechanical terms. This archaic attitude, which goes back at least as far as Aristotle, still lingers in some sciences (and countries) today and arises as justification for cruel vivisection - and other brutally, inhumane and uncivilized practices. In a similar vein, Descartes, like many of his Christian forerunners and contemporaries, did not believe animals had souls - a debate that still sparks controversy today (at least among those who believe in souls).
