With shorter words, that means it’s a story about how our dogs think.
Those of us who live with dogs discover in them an empathy, loyalty, and intellect reflected in their time with us. Carl Zimmer over at TIME has written a wonderful article about discoveries in canine behavior. Out of all different animal species, dogs have had an extremely close social relationship with humankind as part of their domestication. This has bred into them a number of thinking tools that aren’t as available to other animals.
Henry the schnoodle just did a remarkable thing. Understanding a pointed finger may seem easy, but consider this: while humans and canines can do it naturally, no other known species in the animal kingdom can. Consider too all the mental work that goes into figuring out what a pointed finger means: paying close attention to a person, recognizing that a gesture reflects a thought, that another animal can even have a thought. Henry, as Kivell affectionately admits, may not be "the sharpest knife in the drawer," but compared to other animals, he’s a true scholar.
It’s no coincidence that the two species that pass Hare’s pointing test also share a profound cross-species bond. Many animals have some level of social intelligence, allowing them to coexist and cooperate with other members of their species. Wolves, for example–the probable ancestors of dogs–live in packs that hunt together and have a complex hierarchy. But dogs have evolved an extraordinarily rich social intelligence as they’ve adapted to life with us. All the things we love about our dogs–the joy they seem to take in our presence, the many ways they integrate themselves into our lives–spring from those social skills. Hare and others are trying to figure out how the intimate coexistence of humans and dogs has shaped the animal’s remarkable abilities.
Link, via TIME.com
If you recently added a kitten to your family, learn what behavior you can expect from month to month with our kitten behavior basics tip sheet.