New study into dogs' emotions

muddypaws

I don't think this has been posted on here before, but it makes interesting reading, and hopefully it will give more credence to positive dog training methods.

http://agilitymach.hubpages.com/hub/A-New-Study-May-Forever-Change-the-Way-We-Train-Our-Dogs

aonb

Im surprised that the question of whether a dog experiences the emotion of love was ever in question. Witness the esctasy of the dog when his favourite human returns, witness the contentment of a dog sleeping on a humans lap, witness a dog licking his human, witness the dog who comes to his human when he is in physical need, witness the dog happy to just be in his humans company, witness the trust and love in a dogs eyes, I never needed a scientific study to know my dogs LOVE me 8-) Interesting article though.

muddypaws

aonb wrote: »

Im surprised that the question of whether a dog experiences the emotion of love was ever in question. Witness the esctasy of the dog when his favourite human returns, witness the contentment of a dog sleeping on a humans lap, witness a dog licking his human, witness the dog who comes to his human when he is in physical need, witness the dog happy to just be in his humans company, witness the trust and love in a dogs eyes, I never needed a scientific study to know my dogs LOVE me 8-) Interesting article though.

The benefit of having scientific back up to what we already know, is that it can be used to promote positive dog training methods etc, and try to get people away from punishment methods.

Call Me Jimmy

Very interesting stuff! But I would question in the article saying the lighting up of 'love' areas of the brain 'would mean that dogs have a level of sentience comparable to that of a human child.'

I think that is a bit presumptuous on the part of the scientist.

The Bishop Basher

aonb wrote: »

Im surprised that the question of whether a dog experiences the emotion of love was ever in question. Witness the esctasy of the dog when his favourite human returns, witness the contentment of a dog sleeping on a humans lap, witness a dog licking his human, witness the dog who comes to his human when he is in physical need, witness the dog happy to just be in his humans company, witness the trust and love in a dogs eyes, I never needed a scientific study to know my dogs LOVE me 8-) Interesting article though.

This is anthromorphic in the extreme. There's no question that dogs share a special bond with their owner but love is a complex emotion that humans have difficulty understanding at times. To assume your pet feels the same emotion is just plain weird.

snoman

Swanner wrote: »

This is anthromorphic in the extreme. There's no question that dogs share a special bond with their owner but love is a complex emotion that humans have difficulty understanding at times. To assume your pet feels the same emotion is just plain weird.

I'm assuming that maybe you didn't read the article in full as it makes the assumption of dog love but uses MRI readings to back up the assertion. No anthromorphy there!

The Bishop Basher

snoman wrote: »

I'm assuming that maybe you didn't read the article in full as it makes the assumption of dog love but uses MRI readings to back up the assertion. No anthromorphy there!

Fair enough. I should have read the article before posting. I withdraw my comments but I'm still highly sceptical.

snoman

Swanner wrote: »

Fair enough. I should have read the article before posting. I withdraw my comments but I'm still highly sceptical.

To be quite honest - me too.

iguana

Swanner wrote: »

love is a complex emotion that humans have difficulty understanding at times.

No it's not. Love, like all emotions - human or animal, is quite simply the result of a neurochemical reaction which modern science allows us to see. Love comes about as the result of persistent inducement of the hormone oxytocin which is produced when breastfeeding, during and after sex, from rubbing your dog or, in dogs, being rubbed by your owner, etc.

It can be more complex for humans as we also add stuff like, friendship, trust, shared interest, cultural expectations to the mix and we experience and remember grievances in ways that animals do not but the brass tacks of it is that that what happens in the brain when we and dogs experience love is the same.

Call Me Jimmy wrote: »

Very interesting stuff! But I would question in the article saying the lighting up of 'love' areas of the brain 'would mean that dogs have a level of sentience comparable to that of a human child.'

I think that is a bit presumptuous on the part of the scientist.

Dogs are known to share similar intelligence and cognitive abilities as human toddlers so tbh, I'd see it as presumptuous to assume that we humans are so special that a dog can't experience a similar level of emotion to a creature it has a similar level of intelligence to. In fact it sounds about right.

Dyr

Call me a cynic but when someone releases the findings of their research in an op-ed in the new york times then alarm bells start to ring

muddypaws

Bambi wrote: »

Call me a cynic but when someone releases the findings of their research in an op-ed in the new york times then alarm bells start to ring

If you read the article, it says he released some of his findings.