So what do you all think of this research on dogs? - Page 1

I find any research into dog cognition and affect very interesting.  Says there is much more to dogs than instinct driven behaviors.  Keep in mind, laboratory research is only one of the many areas that a topic is researched in. 

 

http://mic.com/articles/104474/brain-scans-reveal-what-dogs-really-think-of-us

Full of errors in facts and is not very scientific in the approach. Dogs are not the only non-primate that will study your face or body language or look you in the eye if you are a human .. heard of a cat?? Pigs are as smart as dogs in some areas of intelligence and they also will look you in the eye and make eye contact as will many farm animals. About 70% of what a dog, human, pig or horse is or will become is based on environment and the interaction of environment with genetic and epigenetic factors. Only approximately 10% of human diseases are believed to have a purely genetic cause and even then it is not consistent in how or when the disease is presented. Sheep will run to the safety of their guard dog or guardian when a predator or threat is present. The fact that dogs and sheep and pigs as well as other animals have similar cognitive abilities should not be a surprise as we all are mammals and we all share most of our DNA with each other. Humans just aren't that special when it comes down to it and we are just as much like our relatives the dolphin or the dog as they are like us.

Cats do not normally make eye contact. I was reading a book by a well known trainer who trained for movies and TV, and he said it would 'freak him out' if a cat made eye contact with him, as it is NOT something cats normally do!

Uh-oh. Are my cats plotting to kill me? 

My 2 make eye contact all the time, sometimes for extended periods. 

Yep, my Erik I had for seventeen years since he was an 8 week kitten could meet my gaze.  Currently

 I have neighbours either side with two cats each, 3 of the 4 can do this and they aren't even my cats.

(I'm working on the 4th, stand offish bugger !)  I do find cats vary though - but I think dogs do too.

\reading human facial expressions is not the same thing as looking humans in the eye.  The vast

majority of animals, even domestic ones, will fail the blink test and look away if you stare them down.

Don't recommend experimenting with stare-out for dogs you don't know well, though, as it will be

interpreted as aggression.

I've always believed there was much more to animals than the dated "instinct driven" behaviors.  Research like this is exciting and just the start I believe.  As more is found out, then more research will be needed that is reproducible and verifiable.  Any type of research that is not tangible and concrete is difficult to do because of the limits of testing and ethics (thank goodness for ethics otherwise there would be more studies along the lines of Harry Harlow, although his research findings were extremely illuminating regarding bonding, they were cruel to the baby monkeys and left them with life time issues).

I remember those monkey studies from my animal behaviour courses in university.   http://muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/harlow.htm  The pictures on these pages were in one of my textbooks.

Yeah, there was a lot of cruelty involved in animal behaviour studies in those days! Even in high school we were supposed to 'pith' frogs (destroy part of their brains with a dissecting needle). We never did it, but it was in our lab manual!

That was the reason I loved ethologists like Jane Goodall, George Schaller and Konrad Lorenz, who studied animals in their natural environment. I still love geese, after reading Lorenz's studies of how they mate for life, and actually show symptoms of depression similar to what humans experience if they loose their mates. (Loss of appetite, weight loss, lethargy, etc.)

However, it really bothers me when people 'humanize' animals. Dogs are NOT 'kids with fur', and if we treat them that way, we will never fully understand them.

So true Sunsilver, when we infantalize dogs, we deny them their full potential and yes, we deny ourselves the ability to understand them better.  Dogs are not humans in fur clothing, they need firm, fair, consistent boundaries.  Dogs evolved to live with humans and as such deserve our respect and care.  Dogs are used in human psychology to study motivation, curiosity, learning, bonding, and such.  My one professor used dogs to study motivation and curiosity, he was extremely humane because he found respect and positive reinforcement yielded much better results than when his older professor used compulsion.  I do believe animals have the same neurotransmitters running through their brains as we do (many studies have supported this).  To think otherwise is rather elitist and allows for compulsion and punishment training, less than optimal housing, and disregard for animals as feeling beings. I do believe we are judged by how we treat vulnerable beings, whether human or animal.