Who says dogs can't understand human ways of communication and that they will never change their hardwired behaviors?
http://www.harvard-magazine.com/on-line/030374.html
http://www.harvard-magazine.com/on-line/030374.html
An interesting read....comments?
- Thread starter Doberluv
- Start date
It's interesting but I'm not surprised. I read somewhere that humans have had dogs "domesticated" as "pets" for about 14,000 years.
I'd say we're pretty tight. LOL
I do believe that they understand some of the ways we communicate but of course not all. I also believe that they still retain a lot of their own species body lanugages or whatever you want to call it and use it.
It's definitely clear to any dog owner though, that they can understand many of our gestures or body language.
I'd say we're pretty tight. LOL
I do believe that they understand some of the ways we communicate but of course not all. I also believe that they still retain a lot of their own species body lanugages or whatever you want to call it and use it.
It's definitely clear to any dog owner though, that they can understand many of our gestures or body language.
Glad you like it. I think it's fascinating about how dogs have changed so much since their beginnings, not only physically, but behaviorally. And they'll probably change more in another 20,000 yrs. With the way we put "pressure" on them, our ways mixed in with theirs, just co-existing the way we do...they'll either have to sink or swim. The phenomenon, the fittest survive is what makes these changes, of course.
And what about us? What could have been different in our own evolution if we hadn't taken up with dogs I wonder. There are scientists who believe that our own evolution was influenced because of our tight bonding with dogs.
Here's something I had posted on another forum about that experiment/study:
An important phenomenon occured during the evolution of the domestic dog as well as in our own evolution. If you notice, most animals as babies are very playful. As they mature, they play very little. Little lambs, calves....all kinds of babies play but as they grow up to be adults you do not see them playing very much. Of course they do somewhat. But compared to our dogs, not nearly as much. You see an adult dog who is very into fetch, tug and lots of romping. Until they are physically unable, they are very into play.
We humans are like that. Look at all the 50 year olds who still love to ski, bike, ride motorcycles, play games, golf, love jokes. Adult humans retain that playfulness until they are unable to.
This tendancy to continue exuberant play into adulthood is one of the factors that leads most scientists to consider dogs and humans as paedomorphic, or juvenilized versions of their more grown-up relatives. Paedomorphism is the retention of juvenil characteristics at sexual maturity, characteristics that usually fade away as an animal matures. In these animals the normal developmental process is delayed for so long that in some ways they never grow up.
Changes in developmental processes have much to teach us about how and why dogs can be so different from wolves and yet still be of the same species.
A Russian scientist named Dmitry Belyaev was interested in how the process of domestication resulted in animals who are less aggressive than their anestors. Borrowing a group of foxes from Ruissian fur farms, Belyaev selectively bred only the most docile of foxes. He had to choose carefully because most of the foxes with which he was working didn't take kindly to handling. Out of each litter he only bred the foxes that were least likely to try to flee or bite and that were the most likely to lick the oustretched hand of the experimenter and to approach volutarily. In just ten generations, 18% of the foxes born were what he classified as the domesticated elite...eager to establish contact with strangers, whimpering and licking the experimenters' faces like a puppy. By the twentieth generation 35% of them were eager to be petted rather than trying to flee or bite as most adult foxes would.
What makes this study so interesting and so important to science, is that when the researcher selected for just one trait, that of docility, changes occurred in a multitude of other aspects of the foxes' behavior, anatomy and physiology. The floppy ears of young canid pups stayed with the foxes into adulthood. The adult domesticated elite continued to act like pups even as they aged, showing less fear of unfamiliar things at a later age than the normal population of foxes, and reacting submissively to strangers by raising their paws, whining and doing full body wags as young pups do. Amazingly they developed patches of white in their fur, like so many of our domesticated animals.
They also showed some signs of defects like our dogs do...undershot jaws...they had curly tails, rather than straight ones of adult foxes and wolves, curly or wavy fur, a drop in adrenal production and higher levels of serotonin production. These last two physiological changes relate to an animal's overall level of stress, lower levels of corricosteroid production from the adrenals and higher levels of serotonin are associated with animals who are less stressed by unfamiliar things and more open to change. Adult animals are more wary than their young. That's what makes watching children and young animals such a joy....their innocence and cuteness.
The common factor in all these traits of Belyaev's foxes is paedomorphism, or the retention of juvenile traits in the adult form, also replicated in our domesticated dog: overall, adult dogs act much more like juvenile wolves than adult ones.
This selection for juvenile characteristics can, in the case of dogs be attributed to two different explanations. The traditional argument suggests that domestic dogs evolved from wolves because of artifical selection, wherby humans selectively kept and bred the more docile of wolves. Another argument is that docility developed through a process of natural selection, whereby dogs with shorter flight distances began gathering around human settlements to scavange on their left over food. It is most possible that both processes occurred simultaneously.
What is relevant to us for whatever reason, we have a whole bunch of characteristics in our dogs associated with juvenile canids, even after they've grown up, including being remarkably playful.
And we humans, playful and childlike into our old age, play right along with our dogs until neither one of us can physically continue. This tendancy has led to the suggestion that humans are paedomorphic primates. John Fiske, in 1884 made this hypothesis. It is not a new one. He suggested that our eternal youth has played a role in our evolution. One of the defining characteristics of humans is our creativity, our willingness to try new things and new ways of interacting with our environment....all traits normally associated with youth. Of course, old people are not as apt that way as children but more so than that of most species.....besides dogs.
This is part of the reason I don't buy that most dogs are dominant (in the real, normally used.... sense of the word) Some of course are. But I think a lot of the misbehavior; aggression, pushiness and other obnoxious stuff that everyone rushes to label as dominant, alpha etc, etc....is really a dog not having been taught our ways of living with us....a dog who is spoiled rotten, in other words. Some say it's the same thing. But I see some different nuance....can't quite put my finger on it yet. LOL.
And what about us? What could have been different in our own evolution if we hadn't taken up with dogs I wonder. There are scientists who believe that our own evolution was influenced because of our tight bonding with dogs.
Here's something I had posted on another forum about that experiment/study:
An important phenomenon occured during the evolution of the domestic dog as well as in our own evolution. If you notice, most animals as babies are very playful. As they mature, they play very little. Little lambs, calves....all kinds of babies play but as they grow up to be adults you do not see them playing very much. Of course they do somewhat. But compared to our dogs, not nearly as much. You see an adult dog who is very into fetch, tug and lots of romping. Until they are physically unable, they are very into play.
We humans are like that. Look at all the 50 year olds who still love to ski, bike, ride motorcycles, play games, golf, love jokes. Adult humans retain that playfulness until they are unable to.
This tendancy to continue exuberant play into adulthood is one of the factors that leads most scientists to consider dogs and humans as paedomorphic, or juvenilized versions of their more grown-up relatives. Paedomorphism is the retention of juvenil characteristics at sexual maturity, characteristics that usually fade away as an animal matures. In these animals the normal developmental process is delayed for so long that in some ways they never grow up.
Changes in developmental processes have much to teach us about how and why dogs can be so different from wolves and yet still be of the same species.
A Russian scientist named Dmitry Belyaev was interested in how the process of domestication resulted in animals who are less aggressive than their anestors. Borrowing a group of foxes from Ruissian fur farms, Belyaev selectively bred only the most docile of foxes. He had to choose carefully because most of the foxes with which he was working didn't take kindly to handling. Out of each litter he only bred the foxes that were least likely to try to flee or bite and that were the most likely to lick the oustretched hand of the experimenter and to approach volutarily. In just ten generations, 18% of the foxes born were what he classified as the domesticated elite...eager to establish contact with strangers, whimpering and licking the experimenters' faces like a puppy. By the twentieth generation 35% of them were eager to be petted rather than trying to flee or bite as most adult foxes would.
What makes this study so interesting and so important to science, is that when the researcher selected for just one trait, that of docility, changes occurred in a multitude of other aspects of the foxes' behavior, anatomy and physiology. The floppy ears of young canid pups stayed with the foxes into adulthood. The adult domesticated elite continued to act like pups even as they aged, showing less fear of unfamiliar things at a later age than the normal population of foxes, and reacting submissively to strangers by raising their paws, whining and doing full body wags as young pups do. Amazingly they developed patches of white in their fur, like so many of our domesticated animals.
They also showed some signs of defects like our dogs do...undershot jaws...they had curly tails, rather than straight ones of adult foxes and wolves, curly or wavy fur, a drop in adrenal production and higher levels of serotonin production. These last two physiological changes relate to an animal's overall level of stress, lower levels of corricosteroid production from the adrenals and higher levels of serotonin are associated with animals who are less stressed by unfamiliar things and more open to change. Adult animals are more wary than their young. That's what makes watching children and young animals such a joy....their innocence and cuteness.
The common factor in all these traits of Belyaev's foxes is paedomorphism, or the retention of juvenile traits in the adult form, also replicated in our domesticated dog: overall, adult dogs act much more like juvenile wolves than adult ones.
This selection for juvenile characteristics can, in the case of dogs be attributed to two different explanations. The traditional argument suggests that domestic dogs evolved from wolves because of artifical selection, wherby humans selectively kept and bred the more docile of wolves. Another argument is that docility developed through a process of natural selection, whereby dogs with shorter flight distances began gathering around human settlements to scavange on their left over food. It is most possible that both processes occurred simultaneously.
What is relevant to us for whatever reason, we have a whole bunch of characteristics in our dogs associated with juvenile canids, even after they've grown up, including being remarkably playful.
And we humans, playful and childlike into our old age, play right along with our dogs until neither one of us can physically continue. This tendancy has led to the suggestion that humans are paedomorphic primates. John Fiske, in 1884 made this hypothesis. It is not a new one. He suggested that our eternal youth has played a role in our evolution. One of the defining characteristics of humans is our creativity, our willingness to try new things and new ways of interacting with our environment....all traits normally associated with youth. Of course, old people are not as apt that way as children but more so than that of most species.....besides dogs.
This is part of the reason I don't buy that most dogs are dominant (in the real, normally used.... sense of the word) Some of course are. But I think a lot of the misbehavior; aggression, pushiness and other obnoxious stuff that everyone rushes to label as dominant, alpha etc, etc....is really a dog not having been taught our ways of living with us....a dog who is spoiled rotten, in other words. Some say it's the same thing. But I see some different nuance....can't quite put my finger on it yet. LOL.