Have you ever noticed how well your dog knows your schedule? Your best friend takes on a despondent look before you even leave the house for work. And at the end of the day, there they are eagerly anticipating your return. Dogs are smarter than they let on, and the scientific community agrees.
Does the knowledge of our schedule give proof to the fact that dogs are using the sun to determine the time of day??? Probably not to that length, however, they are social animals who, for a variety of reasons, have significant mathematical reasoning.
Scientists around the globe are delving deeper into the canine brain and finding out that man’s best friend is big on communication and numbers.
In terms of communication, dogs barking in a certain style have a purpose or meaning associated to that bark. Through the number of barks and the pitch used with the bark, our canine friends are communicating with their peers and with us. For example, when a dog is playing, their barking is far more irregular and usually a higher pitch. When a dog is concerned for itself or its ‘pack’, you will find that the dogs barking is far more rapid – usually in excess of 15 barks in under a minute, and also a deeper more aggressive style of barking. There is also a number of barking style associated with excitement, separation from the owner/pack, boredom and territorial enforcement.
Therefore, it is far to say that not all barking should be considered nuisance barking – this is mainly made up of dogs barking in relation to separation from owners, boredom and territorial warnings (be it someone walking past the front gate to a bird flying overhead). Nuisance barking is the most common contributor in relation to complaints about barking dogs. There is a good number of products available in regards to reducing nuisance barking, that do not hinder on more communicative styles of barking.
Further to being able to communicate, dogs are fantastic at being able to respond to communication. In fact, in a recent New Scientist article it states that of all animals, dogs are the only ones capable of reading people’s emotions through their facial expressions. Within a glance, our fido friends recognise if we are happy, sad, angry, or pleased, is it any wonder that we refer to them as “man’s best friend”.
Researchers at the University of Lincoln have discovered that dogs use a “left gaze bias” only when looking at a human face. This is the same trait we humans use when seeing a new face, this allows us to ‘read a person’, as the right hand side of their face is usually most expressive in regards to their emotional state. This trait is only used when we or our canine counterparts are viewing a human face, dogs don’t even use it when meeting another dog – ‘butt’ that’s a whole different subject.
Our pooches can Read and Ruff, but can they handle ‘Rithmetic? Robert Young at Brazil’s Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte tests the canine calculations. A number of dogs were shown treats, a cover was then placed over the treats and they were either added to, taken from or left unchanged. The cover would then be lifted, revealing the treats again to the dogs. If the amount of treats were changed, the dogs would take a longer look, as this did not equal their first view. This mathematical ability, according to Young, traces back to when dogs were more like wolves and lived in packs. For further information, click on the below links;
http://www.all-creatures.org/aip/nl-9aug2002-dogs.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3354028/Dogs-can-read-emotion-in-human-faces.html
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