Kudos for a great article. As a dog trainer who knows quite a bit about the nature of the beast (at least I think I do), I agree that dogs are extremely manipulative, but that we do derive great emotional benefits from having them around and caring for them.

Also, since I just posted my own article yesterday on oxytocin as a possible key ingredient in canine evolution ("The 'Love Hormone' – The Key to Canine Evolution?") I’m extremely glad to have found more sources about the effects it might have on the relationship between dogs and humans. This is something I’ve suspected was true for a long time.

However, I hope you don’t mind if I make a few comments on some points that are critical to my way of thinking, by which I mean as someone who’s studied dogs and wolves for some time, and who’s observed their behaviors (dogs at least) very closely and in great detail for many, many years.

First of all, wolves are not naturally vicious, not even while hunting. During the chase phase of the predatory sequence, the pack actually behaves almost as if they’re playing a game. Look at a real, wild pack chasing a deer or elk then look at a group of dogs racing around the dog park and you’ll be unable to detect much of a difference in terms of their emotional states. Neither are vicious; both just seem to be having a really good time. It’s only when the wolf gets close enough to bite its prey that the teeth come out. And that’s really just a battle for survival; the wolf is now in much closer proximity to the prey animal’s potentially lethal horns and hooves. (This is further evidenced by the fact that the smaller and younger the prey animal—particularly in terms of those too young to have yet developed antlers—the less “viciousness” you’ll see in the wolf’s demeanor.)

I understand that the authors are using the word to paint a stark contrast between the (mostly) docile nature of our pet dogs and the harsh reality of the wolf’s existence. As such mine would seem a stylistic not substantive argument, except that it’s the wolf’s nature as a “vicious” group predator that makes dogs so inherently social in the first place. (I go into this in more depth in my recent article on oxytocin as well.)

The only other comment I have is about the common misperception in some scientific circles that dogs have a Theory of Mind. They don’t, at least not as an innate cognitive ability. They can learn certain behaviors that seem to indicate they have a ToM, but that’s a function of their being part of a complex, self-emergent system with humans. They don’t have the cognitive architecture for a ToM on their own. (The reason they seem to have these abilities is that they really DO have an ability to sort of hi-jack our brains, which is part of their "manipulative" nature.)

In one of the examples from the article—the dog who steals food from the counter while the owner isn’t looking—there is a simpler, more parsimonious explanation for the behavior, one that doesn’t require a highly developed neo-cortex, 2nd level cognition, or any level ToM. It isn’t that the dog “knows” his owner can’t SEE him. (Does a spider who hides under a leaf know his prey can’t see HIM?) It’s because the dog has an innate ability to FEEL when the owner’s attention is focused ON him and when it’s focused elsewhere, a feeling that comes directly from the solar-plexus not the neo-cortex. Having this down-and-dirty ability is vitally important to your success if you’re hunting large prey as part of a group.

Anyway, those are my picayune criticisms. As you'll see from my bio, I'm just a dog trainer, not an evolutionary psychologist, so I hope you'll look on my errors in logic with some measure of pity if not kindness.

Thanks again for a great article.

Lee Charles Kelley

Thanks for your kind compliments Lee!

We agree that it is more reasonable to interpret dogs’ behavior as acting “as if” they possess a theory of mind, and we appreciate the opportunity to clarify our stance on this issue. For example, we state “they can make use of their owner’s pointing to discover the location of food or toys,” to suggest that what dogs are doing is not mind-reading or perspective-taking, per se, but a learned response to the presence or absence of a signal, and one that does not necessarily entail reasoning that “seeing is knowing” or that humans are “intentional agents.” Of course, as I’m sure you’re aware, this is still an open debate within comparative psychology, particularly amongst primatologists. Nevertheless, the basic abilities demonstrated by dogs are prerequisites for advanced social cognition, which, in combination with their extended (and, we might argue, extendING) juvenile period (facilitated by oxytocin, which you mention in your post) provide an interesting paradigm for examining the emergent evolution of social cognitive abilities.

I’ve (KBC) written about some of these ideas in relation to primates with my colleague and advisor David F. Bjorklund for a chapter in an upcoming book, Evolutionary Psychology: A Critical Introduction (Swami & Chows, Eds., Wiley-Blackwell Publishing). Brian Hare and Michael Tomasello have done some great work on this as well.

We thoroughly enjoyed your article and are thrilled to see that the tenets of evolutionary developmental psychology are being considered and applied in other fields. Thanks again for giving us the opportunity to clarify a few points.

Kayla & Aaron 

I found a lot of truth from this article in my relationship with my dog. When I got my dog 3 1/2 years ago I gained a new responsibility, not one that every pet can teach you. Unlike other pets, dogs are extremely dependent on their owners and seem to develop a bond with them because of it. Dogs cant even go to the bathroom on their own, much like infants! (well indoor dogs). Training a Puppy is oddily enough, very simliar to caring for an infant. A connection is made when we take care of another living being's needs and then we feel we are in parental roles (despite the species).

As a new parent, when I had my son I kept thinking to myself that it seemed as though my dog had somehow prepared me for the new role and responsiblity. Obviously caring for a dog isnt as demanding, but I do feel it provides a taste for whats to come with parenthood of our own species.

I think there is something to be said about the lack of attention pets recieve when a new baby is brought into the home. Suddenly the bond and unconditionally love disappears. The dog that I could watch in adoration for hours now goes almost completely unnoticed. I thought the bond with my own offspring couldn't possibly be stronger than the bond with my dog, oh so wrong! But there are obviously similarities in the relationships. Why else would a baby replace them?

And had I known that petting or spending time with my dog would cause me to release oxytocin and therefore induce labor, I would have skipped the long walks, spicy foods, and uncomfortable sex to simply play with my dog!!

Thanks KBC,

I'm glad you enjoyed my article.

I've heard of Tomasello. From what I've read of his work, I think he's on the wrong track. He and Josep Call have been quoted as putting cognitive scientists into two camps:

"Boosters interpret behaviour in psychologically rich ways; scoffers prefer psychologically lean interpretations. The ultimate boosters think there are no significant differences between human and nonhuman cognition, while the ultimate scoffers are radical behaviourists, who do not find it useful to talk of cognitive processes at all." (RATIONAL ANIMALS? Susan Hurley and Matthew Nudd, Oxford University Press, USA; 2006)

Tomasello is clearly a booster, in my opinion.

That doesn't mean I'm a scoffer OR a radical behaviorist, or ANY kind of behaviorist. I'm just a dog trainer (and a neo-Freudian one at that), but in this debate I'm more in alignment with Povinelli's work. However, it's my view that both camps are missing something else that may be going on, but that can't be explained via our current scientific paradigms.

Gustavo Aguirre, a professor of genetics and opthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania was quoted by Stephen Budianksy (who I believe first popularized the "dogs as social parasites" argument) in an article for the Atlantic Monthly. Here's what Dr. Aguirre said:

“Most scientists have their scientist hat and their dumb hat. And whenever they start talking about dogs, they put on their dumb hat. They say things that as scientists they have to know can’t possibly be right.”

Dogs ARE smart. In some ways they're one of the most intelligent species on the planet. But it's an intelligence without intellect, if that makes sense. And it's heavily dependent on their ability to hi-jack our brains in some way. So I think maybe there needs to be a new way of looking at cognition itself and redefining some of the basics; we need to start seeing it from a more holistic, self-emergent paradigm, one that includes the possibility that some forms of human AND animal cognition may arise from that huge bundle of nerves within the solar plexus, an idea which I think expands on (and possibly misinterprets) the work of Michael Gershon.

I hope to cover some of this stuff in an upcoming article. I also intend to keep an eye out for future articles by your team.

Thanks again for the feedback,

LCK

Great article. They are deceiving little creatures though. We think they so loving toward us but reality is with "Precious", as soon as you aren't looking she's run off down the street to go visit everybody else in the neighborhood. Where's the loyalty I assigned to her? Just because she's there to greet me when I come home with excitement and joy (there I go again)doesn't mean she's loyal to me. She greets everyone that way!!! But, as her owner and caregiver it's unbearable to think that she doesn't love me and only me!!!

This is off the dog topic but in the same idea of the oxytocin release. Has anyone compared this study to owners of horses. I know you mentioned cats but there is a lot of similarities is horse and dog ownership. Bonding with eye contact, brushing, grooming, petting. Horses that whinny when you come in the barn or when they see you in the pasture. I think is would be interesting to add horses to the study. As a former horse owner, I can say there is a lot of "therapy" that happens around horses and maybe it is the oxytocin release that we feel.

Thanks for a thought provoking article.

Carla Causey

Or, welcome to blogging on PT, eheh.

My first thought was 'babies' in the opening there, what with the quote, but dogs fit perfectly too. Having owning a cat and now dogs, cute, little, fluffy dogs, I admit it's true. I don't think my cat ever got a dosage of 'yoush such a goooodgirl! Yes you are! Yesh you aaarre!' that I regularly inflict on my dogs, though I don't know if I believe that cats don't give a release of... maybe not the same chemical, but I'm sure I felt a lot of love for my cat, just as I do now for the puppies. I hate to think I'd love cats less!

But the big eyes and little faces of dogs are our fault- they looked much wilder till we started breeding them tame, then breeding them cute. A manmade parasite we could never live without!

i thought the comparison to our interactions with cats is very interesting. i'd never thought about the difference between how we treat our kitties and our dogs before. hmm...

Very interesting. I dedicated my new book, The Genius of Instinct, to my two dogs, Shovi and Mazel. The idea came to me when on a Saturday afternoon, I was watching them play lovingly with each other. Now, I realized those dam dogs "manipulated" me into writing what now looks like is going to be a NY Times bestseller. Well, every dog has thier day. Thanks for the insight!

wolves in particular hunt. what is the tick in the brain that makes them want to hunt if they are being handled by their owner so well. like border collies. why would one go to the extreme to taste blood from another animal. oh well they are playing. NO its they are hearding. hearding turned into hunting. what is going in their heads?