The evidence for social cognition in dogs’ brains has important implications for the dog-human relationship. Dogs watch us constantly, even though we may not be aware of it. With furtive glances, they take in their surroundings and form mental models of what we humans are intending to do. It is the humans who are unaware of the dogs. And that is where misunderstandings can arise.
Humans are sloppy creatures. Like the proverbial bull in a china shop, we are oblivious to our body language. We bump into objects. We accidentally step on our dogs’ tails. We emit a constant stream of sounds with frequently inconsistent meanings. It is a wonder that dogs can pull anything consistent out of this barrage of signals. And yet they do.
The whole purpose of the Dog Project was to understand the dog-human relationship from the dogs’ perspective, and the most important thing that we learned was that dogs’ brains show evidence of a theory of mind for humans. This means that they not only pay attention to what we do but to what we think, and they change their behavior based on what they think we’re thinking. They are the Zeligs of the animal kingdom.
Zelig was a fictional character created and played by Woody Allen in his 1983 movie of the same name. Zelig had no personality of his own. Instead, he took on the personality and physical form of people around him. Because doctors thought he was crazy, Zelig was institutionalized in a mental hospital, where he took on the form of a psychiatrist. (His real psychiatrist, a woman played by Mia Farrow, falls in love with Zelig and they eventually run off together at the end of the movie.) Apart from being a terrific film, Zelig is a case study in theory of mind. Zelig’s problem was that he had no sense of self. He had a sense of only others. The sense was so strong that he knew what was in other people’s minds, and he became them.
If dogs are like Zelig, then the form they take depends on the people they live with. If they live with calm, consistent humans, they will pick up on those qualities. If they live with people who talk constantly, without saying anything, dogs will quickly learn that there is no useful information in their chatter. With their social cognition skills, dogs do not need an excess of jabbering. Patricia McConnell, the well-known animal behaviorist, has written extensively about the effectiveness of the less-is-more approach to dog communication. The takeaway is that humans should pay more attention to what their body language communicates than what their mouths say.
Dogs’ sensitivity to social signals also puts a new twist on the old notion of human as “pack leader.” While it is easy to confuse being a pack leader with being dominant, that is a mistake that has harmed more dogs than any other piece of advice.
The better analogy for being a pack leader comes from management literature. While there are different styles of leadership, the most important characteristics of a great leader are clarity and consistency. Without those two qualities, people (and dogs) cannot know your intentions. Great leaders are also respected, not because of their position, but because of their inner strength and integrity. Leaders do what they say. Leaders listen to people, and although they may not always agree, they have respect for others. Great leaders help people.
It wasn’t until I started working with Callie in the Dog Project that I realized just how much she could be dialed in to my signals. Like a catcher and pitcher, we became a team. She had always had that ability. I just hadn’t given her any clear direction before.
Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the key to improving dog-human relationships is through social cognition, not behaviorism. Positive reinforcement is a shortcut to train dogs, but it is not necessarily the best way to form a relationship with them. To truly live with dogs, humans need to become “great leaders.” Not dictators who rule by doling out treats and by threatening punishment, but leaders who respect and value their dogs as sentient beings.
Even though I couldn’t have known about the depth of dogs’ social cognition when we started, respect for dogs had been built into the Dog Project. Early on, we had made the presumptive decision to give the dogs the right of self-determination. If they didn’t want to be in the MRI, they could walk out. Same as a human. We created a consent form. Although the dogs did not have the capacity to understand its contents, their human guardians did. The guardians were able to weigh the risks, however minimal, against the benefits and decide whether it was in the dogs’ best interest to participate. The legal model we used for this process was lifted from the manual on human experimentation. We treated the dogs as if they were human children. But nobody had ever done this before. In the eyes of the law, dogs are still considered property.
The brain-imaging results showed that dogs had mental processes substantially similar to our own. And if that is true, shouldn’t they be afforded rights similar to humans? I suspect that society is many years away from considering that proposition. However, recent rulings by the US Supreme Court have included neuroscientific findings that open the door to such a possibility. In 2010, the court ruled that juvenile offenders cannot be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. As part of the ruling, the court cited brain-imaging evidence that the human brain is not mature at age thirteen, supporting the notion that children, even teenagers, are not fully responsible for their actions. Although this case has nothing to do with dog sentience, the court opened the door for neuroscience in the courtroom. Perhaps someday we may see a case arguing for a dog’s rights based on brain-imaging findings.
Many people will find the argument for dogs’ rights troubling. After all, most dogs of the world are cared for by no one. Perhaps a fifth of the world dog population is lucky enough to live in the company of humans, and some fraction of those dogs actually live a comfortable life. Most people just don’t care about dogs.
But if dogs have more capacity for social cognition than we previously thought, then we must reevaluate where they belong on the spectrum of animal consciousness. And this necessitates a reevaluation of their rights. Dolphins, whales, chimpanzees, and elephants, for example, have all been recognized as having substantial cognitive capacities, even self-awareness, and as a result are increasingly being protected from hunting (although many people do not recognize these protections). Throughout human history, there has been an undeniable trend toward granting basic rights of self-determination and liberty to groups of people that were once thought inferior. People of color, women, and gays and lesbians have all benefited from a general recognition of equality.
Will animals be next? Because animals cannot speak, it will take a technological revolution like brain imaging to show that they have many of the same mental processes humans do.
Unfortunately, scientists will continue to resist the obvious. Many scientists rely on animals for experimentation. The animals, of course, have no choice in the matter. It is terminal for them. Even within the small group of scientists who have since begun using MRI to study dogs’ brains, there is still a general disregard for the dogs’ welfare. By buying “purpose-bred” dogs, many of these labs continue to support the disgusting industry of breeding dogs specifically for research. And, to my knowledge, my lab is still the only group that cares enough about its canine volunteers to go through the considerable effort of training them to wear ear protection.
We still need animals for research. But the vast majority of this research is currently for humans’ benefit. We need less of that and more research that directly benefits the animals themselves. Let’s start with dogs.