potato_head (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
potato_head) wrote2011-08-07 11:56 pm
potato_head) wrote2011-08-07 11:56 pm
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Dogs Decoded
Watching this wonderful documentary, Dogs Decoded. It's available to stream on Netflix, EVERYBODY GO WATCH IT IT'S AWESOME
It summarizes some research into communication between dogs and humans. Some really interesting things:
Dogs look to the left of people's faces first - as people do when looking at each other to get a more accurate read of emotions. They don't do this with each other (obviously, as dogs don't express emotion in their face, for the most part).
And they just demonstrated quite a few people very accurately reading the emotion and situation of the barks of dogs they weren't even familiar with :D
These are both behaviors that they must have evolved during the long process of domestication, since wolves obviously have no need to read the emotion in people's faces - nor do they - and they only bark as a warning.
I doubt we'll ever see this kind of communication with cats, even if we gave them as much time domesticated as dogs have had; cats are rarely selected for their ability to communicate with people, because they don't perform any job that requires it. Dogs, on the other hand, even the pets we have today, are descended from animals that performed closely with people for a very long time, and were selected for their ability to perform tasks with people and work for people.
There's also the fact that that potential was probably already there - wolves were working together long before we started domesticating them. Cats are generally loners, not social animals.
I think I discussed last time I watched a dog documentary - that dogs understand the human indication of pointing, which wolves do not. I didn't realize, though, as they show in this one, that chimps don't understand it, either. I'm surprised they haven't developed that yet. Also, they're now demonstrating that dogs don't just understand pointing, but also the human gesture of the indicative glance.
Also, a collie is currently demonstrating her ability to use abstract thinking by seeing a photo and bringing the toy it represents. AMAZING. The best part was that you could just see her getting it the first time they did it - she stared at it for a moment, then barked suddenly and turned and ran to the toys. Ffff dogs are so awesome
It summarizes some research into communication between dogs and humans. Some really interesting things:
Dogs look to the left of people's faces first - as people do when looking at each other to get a more accurate read of emotions. They don't do this with each other (obviously, as dogs don't express emotion in their face, for the most part).
And they just demonstrated quite a few people very accurately reading the emotion and situation of the barks of dogs they weren't even familiar with :D
These are both behaviors that they must have evolved during the long process of domestication, since wolves obviously have no need to read the emotion in people's faces - nor do they - and they only bark as a warning.
I doubt we'll ever see this kind of communication with cats, even if we gave them as much time domesticated as dogs have had; cats are rarely selected for their ability to communicate with people, because they don't perform any job that requires it. Dogs, on the other hand, even the pets we have today, are descended from animals that performed closely with people for a very long time, and were selected for their ability to perform tasks with people and work for people.
There's also the fact that that potential was probably already there - wolves were working together long before we started domesticating them. Cats are generally loners, not social animals.
I think I discussed last time I watched a dog documentary - that dogs understand the human indication of pointing, which wolves do not. I didn't realize, though, as they show in this one, that chimps don't understand it, either. I'm surprised they haven't developed that yet. Also, they're now demonstrating that dogs don't just understand pointing, but also the human gesture of the indicative glance.
Also, a collie is currently demonstrating her ability to use abstract thinking by seeing a photo and bringing the toy it represents. AMAZING. The best part was that you could just see her getting it the first time they did it - she stared at it for a moment, then barked suddenly and turned and ran to the toys. Ffff dogs are so awesome