----- Original Message -----

From: Cj

To:

Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2008 8:25 PM

Subject: [working-gundog] Torsti, try this

Smart dogs, smart humans?

 

The intellectual advantage that dogs have over wolves is their readiness to seek help from a human pack member, something that wolves cannot do.
My dogs have trained me to respond to their requests in a relatively complete fashion since they have trained me to open the door when they want
to go out and to take them for a ride when they want to see the countryside.  They were exceptionally efficient in training me to hunt properly and to
take them hunting when they wanted to go.  Wolves don't solicit help with a problem whereas dogs show no hesitation in demonstrating their needs
and emotional state to a human.  Since dogs can efficiently solicit help from a human they take advantage of human intelligence to a greater degree
than any other species.  I consider that ability to be part of a dog's intelligence.

Many of my dogs' behaviors are asking for something, the trick is learning what they need help with.  I encounter many dog handlers that are only too
willing to try to teach or direct a dog in how to hunt when the dogs need no help.  I run into babblers all the time and, quite interestingly, they are ready
to direct the dog in the field but haven't a clue when the dog actually requests their help.  Many handlers cannot shut up during a field search but when
the dog is retrieving blind it will often look to the handler to solicit guidance and the handler stands mute... what a peculiar dichotomy.  After training
and working with a few retrievers the trainer often learns to use body language and subtle signals to guide the dog under difficult  retrieving conditions. 
Eventually the 'hup' or 'sit' command takes on a new meaning, it says "pay attention to me" and the dog comes to expect a human signal of some sort
after receiving such a command. Dog body language can be very subtle as can human body language, you tell your dog far more than you know.

The classic and most easily diagnosed dog question is seen in the water retrieve in versatile dog tests, it is the solicitation of help, the dog swims out
and suddenly turns and looks to the handler, the dog is waiting for the handler to throw a stone to direct it towards the bird.  The naive trainer will,
more often than not, start searching for  something to throw for the dog, this is a consequence of training of the handler by the dog. With more
sophistication on the part of dog and handler you can answer the dog's question by the orientation of your  face or the direction of your gaze.  Can
dogs engage in complex behaviors?... when a dog approaches and throws a stick or a ball at your feet it is asking you to play with it, a relatively complex
request involving both solicitation and anticipation linked to a specific play object.

My dogs have a half dozen or so barks or sounds that have specific  meanings and an extensive repertoire of body language to engage my  attention.  In
this I found that mallard ducks and black ducks are more vocally communicative than dogs in that they have a richer sound vocabulary of calls whereas
the dogs have a more extensive body language vocabulary.  Most forms of contact that I have with my dogs are instances in which the dogs want or need
something from me, of course the converse is also true, when I have an interaction with one of my dogs usually I want something as well.  A lot of this kind
of behavior is termed allelomimetic, a fancy word that essentially means they're copying the body language of their pack mates.  Yes, dogs learn a lot of
behaviors from other dogs since they are preprogrammed for learning body language.  It is also important for the trainer to understand that dogs learn a
lot of their body language signals from humans, a form of communication that is particularly difficult to diagnose.  Dogs can, and do think about things
that interest them and are far more than simple responders to external cues.  You can spend your whole life reading dogs and still encounter new language
from both old and new dogs.

We have evidence that man and dog have been together for perhaps 35,000 years and in that time there has been some coevolution.  We have dogs that
almost seem to instinctively understand human emotional states and human body language but even more interesting is the behavior of humans that
seems to instinctively adapt to dog body language.  It is almost automatic for humans to encourage a dog to approach by squatting down and holding
out the hands.  This behavior is naturally a releaser for the approach of an uncertain dog.  Why does spreading out the arms encourage a dog to come to
a human?  We have many unlearned responses and behaviors that trigger innate behaviors in the domestic dog that seem to be automatic body language
interactions understood by the dog. 

Yawning is one of the inexplicable behaviors of humans and it is contagious, a yawn will trigger yawns from other human observers.  This is an interesting
phenomenon since we have known for years that our closest animal relative, the chimpanzee, can also be triggered to yawn by observing a human yawn,
the behavior is contagious across two closely related species.  Recent research has shown that contagious yawning can be demonstrated in one other
species, the dog will respond to human yawns by yawning itself.  Now we have three species that display interspecific contagious yawning. 

I can easily understand how a body language sensitive social animal such as the dog can learn to respond to humans but how do humans instinctively know
so much about dog behavior?  Why do dogs "grin" at humans and yet never display this signal to other dogs?  Why does the heart rate and blood pressure
of both dog and human fall when they are in physical contact?  What is the reciprocal calming effect that both  man and dog experience when a man strokes
a dog's back?  Dogs have been selectively adapted to man but it also seems that man is selectively adapted to dogs.

After examining my own emotional responses to dogs I find that I respond to them in ways that don't occur to me when I encounter a wolf, fox or coyote. 
Part of this difference is learned but part of it is innate. As far as I can tell humans can readily learn to read a dog but it is a more difficult task to learn to read
a wolf or coyote.  Why is it so much easier for us to interpret a dog’s emotional state than it is to judge how a wolf will respond to a human?

When it comes to interactive sniffing, that is scent investigation by a dog, dogs selectively determine what parts of another dog or person are sniffed.  These
body areas are different for mature dogs and puppies and they are equally different for adult humans and children.  Why  does a dog recognize a juvenile human
and sniff different body areas than it does with an adult human?  With children dogs sniff the face and head but with adults they sniff the same body areas that
they do with other mature dogs, a social distinction made by no other animal species.

Humans have undoubtedly selected almost the entire behavioral repertoire of domestic dogs but it appears that in so doing we have been modified by our dogs.
We are interesting paired species that may have more in common than we expect. 

Cj