Posted on 01/01/2016 7:11:33 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
This is not a philosophical riddle. Despite their highly variable appearance, dogs can recognize each other by sight alone.
Do you see dogs everywhere?
My ears perk up to the jingle jangle of metal-on-metal, hopeful that it predicts a dog and his collar, disappointed when it turns out to be keys on a belt (boring).
A person walking down the street with their arm outstretched holds the promise of a leash with a dog on the other end (sometimes it's a stroller holding a kid. Oh well).
From a distance, my eyes play a cruel trick on me, where shopping bags are dogs and dogs are shopping bags until I get close enough and one wins out (obviously I'm rooting for the dog).
But catch any part of a tail, and I know I'm in. You could say my motto is, "dog, until proven otherwise."
How about dogs?
Does a dog know, merely by sight, that an approaching being is a fellow dog? Before you answer, remember this: Canis familiaris is the least uniform species on the planet. Members of this species come in a wide range of body shapes and sizes from itty bitty teeny weeny to absolutely ginormos. Adult members of this species appear as tight little packages, huge weightlifters, lean ballerinas, elongated hotdogs and everything in between.
Does a Pug look at an Afghan Hound and say to themselves, "Hello, dog!" or does a Pug look at an Afghan Hound and say, "WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU?" and only after olfactory investigation (smelling) does the Pug realize, "Oh my goodness. How silly of me. You're a dog. Sorry for the confusion my large, long-snouted compatriot."
A number of researchers have essentially wondered what Pugs think of Afghan Hounds. Are dogs able to identify other dogs solely by appearance, they wondered? If olfactory cues are taken out of the equation, would a dog still know another dog when he sees one?
A team of researchers based in France took on this question, publishing their findings in Animal Cognition in 2013. Nine companion dogs joined as study subjects. They all had basic training and extensive experience with both dogs and people, and notably, the participants weren't uniform in appearance -- two were purebred (Border collie and Labrador), and the rest were mutts. Below are the study subjects in all their photographic glory (while they are all my favorites because they are dogs, I vote Cusco winner of Best Eyeliner and Best Ears, while Babel, Cyane and Sweet tie for Most Photogenic). (See Comment)
The experimental setup was simple enough: the nine subjects saw two screens, one on the right and one on the left with a divider between. In each trial, two images would appear simultaneously on both screens, and dogs were reinforced with a click and rewarded with a treat for approaching the "correct" screen — more on that in a moment. Here's what the experimental layout looked like: (See Comment)
Then came the test. Dogs were presented with a wide variety of never-before-seen dog faces paired against never-before-seen non-dog faces. As before, dogs had to approach the dog image and avoid the non-dog image to get a treat. This was no longer an easy feat as the dog images now captured dogs’ vast morphologic diversity in shape, color, size, head shape, ear position, you name it. On top of that, the dog images were now pared against a wide range of non-dog faces including human faces as well as domestic and wild mammals like cats, sheep, gerbils, cows, rabbits, reptiles, and birds, among others. Images were presented head-on (full face) or as a profile. Below are examples of faces dogs saw in the study: (See Comment)
The dogs prevailed! The nine subjects successfully identified "dog" from “non-dog†faces. Some dogs, like Babel, Bag, Cyane and Vodka, were able to do so quite quickly, taking few sessions to approach the required 10-out-of-12 dog images. Other dogs, like Bahia and Cusco, were slower on the pickup and took more sessions to identify "dog" from "non-dog" (dog subjects needed anywhere from 2 to 13 sessions to meet criteria). This is not to say, of course, that Bahia and Cusco don't know a dog when they see one. The researchers highlight that a number of factors - like dog personality, learning styles and strategies, and motivation — can affect dog behavior and performance, particularly when it comes to this type of task.
Even so, the study suggests that despite their wackadoodle appearances, dogs can identify other dogs by sight alone. Dogs seem to have a sense of who (or at least which images) falls in the category of "dog" and who does not. Exactly which features dogs use when tuning into "dog," though, the current study can't say. They offer that as a natural next step in the research.
Autier-Dérian D, Deputte BL, Chalvet=Monfray K, Coulon M, Mounier L. 2013. Visual discrimination of species in dogs (Canis familiaris). Animal Cognition, 16, 637-651.
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
Julie Hecht
Julie Hecht is a canine behavioral researcher, science writer, and PhD student at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She would really like to meet your dog.
My husband and I are like the author, we always notice dogs on the side of the road when we are out driving. We notice dogs first before other things.
My dog keeps alerting on it.
The deer never do.
I have been a dog owner for well over 40 years and have had many different breeds to observe up close and personal. Their level of intelligence is on a much different plain than our as is many other animals. No, they can’t read or write but they do understand not only words but attitudes and feelings.
And it is not just dogs, most animals recognize their own kind. Oh and dogs know other dogs as either friend or foe and they have a great memory and they do hold grudges or remember “friends” even after a long period of separation.
Mine will let me bite his ear (gently)
That’s serious trust from a dog.
Leave the bar before, “last call”!
I had a dog who watched television. He liked light comedy and would walk out of the room for police procedurals. He could spot a dog and bark at it, no matter how small or obscure on the screen. He would bark at CARTOON dogs on TV - even Snoopy, who if you think about it doesn’t really look like a dog. My brother thought that this was indicative of abstract thinking, which seemed to be impossible.
My FIL thought that we were insane until he came over and watched a Sopranos marathon with my dog. When he put the DVR on pause so that he could go to the bathroom, the dog would turn around and give him a dirty look. After that, he believed and told other people about it.
There is still a lot we don’t know about dogs, or how much they may have evolved during their symbiotic relationship with Man.
They can tell from the smell.
I’ve seen dogs fart and not know it was their own fart. Some even growl and act startled and amazed. My theory is that their sense of smell is such that they think there is another invisible dog around who has been eating the same exact food they themselves have, and they don’t like this invisible food thief hanging around back there.
Freegards
Indeed.
I had a Border Collie named Torey(RIP) who liked Classical Music. Her favorite was the “Farandole” from Bizet’s “L’Arlesian Suite”. She also loved when I played anything by Beethoven on the piano.
My Chowbrador, Lynn-Dah, has different tastes. She likes Pink Floyd.
That looks like the “gimme a treat”stare.
I had a dog that would growl and snap at his own tail like another dog was encroaching into his territory. Never though that he was growling at his own farts.
They should have thrown in some fox and coyote pictures to see what happened. My dog knows that a coyote is the enemy, not a potential new friend, a range where I can’t tell it from a dog.
Only the racist ones.
Okay. I looked up the actual study, but it is behind a pay-wall. So I couldn’t see the photos that were used in the study.
“Do Dogs Know Other Dogs Are Dogs?”
Duh. How do you think they figure out how to procreate? Yes, with OTHER dogs! And not only that, they also figure out which ones are the male dogs and which one are the female dogs! Pretty clever, those dogs.
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