Canine Language Capabilities
Most dog owners will agree that their dogs understand familiar words. Say, “Sit” and your dog will collapse upon his haunches. Say “Let’s go for a walk” and he’ll run to the door and grab his leash. Say, “It’s time to eat” and he’ll head for the food bowl. It appears that they understand the words sit, walk, and eat leading us to believe that dogs learn to associate specific words with specific actions or objects.
Our dogs may get what we say, but what we say is only part of the equation. How we say it impacts how much a dog comprehends. Dogs interpret human spoken language as well as human body language in their effort to understand us. There are debates regarding just how much each factor (what we say and how we say it) plays in canine communication.
Some people think how we say something can be more important than what we say. Dogs read more into our tone and body language than our actual words. They focus on us and observe our physical clues to determine what we want them to do or not do. They watch our facial expressions, posture, and body movements. They listen to the tone of our voice. They combine all of these observations to determine our meaning.
If you smile and excitedly say “Let’s go for a walk!”, your dog will likely wag his tail and prance around enthusiastically. If you utter those very same words in a gruff voice with a scowl on your face, he may cower and whine.
Making these observations led many scientists to feel that dogs respond much like human infants in understanding our language. In fact, dogs may have basically the same cognitive ability as a 6-12-month-old human infant. Think about this. Both a dog and a human baby quickly grasp the meaning of “NO!” when grabbing a crumb from the floor and trying to pop it in their mouths. Do they really know the difference between “yes” and “no” or do they respond to our commanding tone of voice and anxious body language?
Could it be a combination of learned vocabulary and observation of body language and tone? With repetition, both dogs and babies will associate certain words with certain objects or actions. That’s why we say, “Sit” over and over while prompting the dog to actually sit. Eventually he associates the word with the action. It’s also why we say “dog” to our baby while pointing to the dog. Eventually the little human understands that this furry creature is called “dog”.
Even though many scientists agree that dogs understand specific words, some believe they don’t comprehend full sentences. They feel that saying “trees, birds, grass, walk” invokes the same meaning as, “let’s go for a walk”. While the dog may not understand every word in the sentence, he gets “walk”. And if you say those words with enthusiasm in a sweet voice, your dog will bolt for the front door! Body language, tone, and words are all involved in effective canine communication.
Despite a limited vocabulary, dogs and babies communicate with us. They may not be verbal creatures, but they manage to “speak” back to us. Even without an extensive vocabulary, they make us understand their whines, cries, and coos especially when combined with their own special body language.
Now let’s focus on what we say. Some scientists believe that dogs understand the actual meaning of many words unrelated to the tone in which they are delivered. Here’s how this theory took root.
Researchers trained dogs to lie in an MRI machine. The scientists monitored the dogs’ brain activity while speaking to them. They learned that dogs process language much like humans do. The left side of the brain processes word meaning while the right side interprets intonation. Dogs, like humans, integrate the function of both sides of the brain to arrive at a clearer meaning.
Some dogs fully activate the brain’s left side learning words regardless of how they are spoken. Case in point—Rico. A border collie named Rico was featured in a 2004 article in Science Magazine because he could “fast map” new words. Rico learned the names of over 200 different items. He could grasp a word’s meaning after hearing it only once, much like young children during their years of language development. Rico also retained the meaning of the words 4 weeks after learning them. This illustrates the dog’s uncanny ability to learn words independent of intonation.
How to show your pup some serious love in their language
Canine companions are some of our dearest loved ones, and dog lovers want to make sure they know it! We all know pups can be incredibly intuitive, but do dogs really know just how much we love them?
The proof is in the science.
Canine cognition is the study of dogs’ brains and has shown that when you and your dog interact, a love hormone is released causing you to feel happier and more bonded as best friends. This hormone is called Oxytocin, and is the same chemical given off when humans stare at their babies!
Oxytocin is released for both you and your dog when you pet them, play with them, or look at each other.
Studies have shown that dogs tend to lock eyes to show affection, so it’s safe to say your dog feels the love when you’re looking longingly at each other.
Since dogs can’t exactly say “I know you love me and I love you too!” there are a few other ways animal lovers can be sure the message is clear.
How do I know if my dog feels loved?
Dogs are comfortable showing love when they feel loved themselves. When you see affectionate behaviors coming from pups, it’s an indicator that they feel safe and loved by their owners and are willing to show that same love back.
Some behaviors are clear indicators of puppy love. Dr. Brian Hare is an expert in canine cognition and says that if your dog stares at you for no reason, your furry friend is really hugging you with their eyes. How cute is that?!
The classic tail wag is always an indicator of a happy pup, but another behavior that shows dogs know you love them is when they press or rub their bodies against your legs, or lay on your feet. This shows that your dog feels a sense of comfort and reassurance knowing you’re right beside them, and they certainly wouldn’t feel that if they didn’t also feel loved.
Herding their humans is another behavior that dogs sometimes exhibit to show family members are part of the ‘pack.’ When a dog is herding, they’re showing affection and care, and a desire to keep their family protected and in close proximity.
Next time you’re trying to get some privacy and Fido won’t leave you alone, remember it’s just because they love you.
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I will do anything I can to avoid admitting I’m sick. I take a double dose of my usual allergy medication when my nose gets stuffy. I blame my building’s dry heating system for my scratchy throat. I chalk up my lethargy and malaise to the fact that I spend roughly 14 hours a day on the internet.
The one symptom I cannot ignore, however, is my dog’s tiny head, resting on my leg during a portion of the day when she’s usually ignoring me. When she knows, I can no longer pretend I don’t.
Midge, my 12-pound rescue pup, isn’t the world’s most affectionate dog. We get along great, but she has her own hobbies: horrifically dismembering her cute little plush toys, chewing through her chew-proof bed. But as soon as even a mild head cold starts to take hold of me, my dog is transformed. She’s no longer her usual self, jabbing a dagger paw into my ribs to prod me into throwing her ball. Instead, she’s Doctor Midge, Medicine Chihuahua, ready to nurse me back to health by cuddling up against me (or on top of me) at all times.
Although I’m of the firm belief that my dog is a unique and special angel, it’s easy to find tales of other pets comforting or guarding their people during times of illness or injury. I was sick last week, and as Midge was glued to my side, friends told me about their own pets attending to them around the clock after everything from surgery to stomach troubles. (For the record, Midge didn’t care when I sliced my hand open while washing dishes last month.)
According to researchers who study canine cognition, it’s usually not just pet owners’ imagination. Pups really do know when their humans are having a rough time, and they use a rich variety of signals to figure it out. Not only can your pet tell when you have the sniffles, but domestic dogs have shown an aptitude for detecting both much more minute mood fluctuations and far more serious physical conditions.
“Dogs are preternaturally sensitive to changes in their people,” says Alexandra Horowitz, the head of the Horowitz Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College. “If a person is infected with a virus or bacteria, they will smell different.” Some illnesses change a person’s odor so profoundly that even other people can notice it, but dogs are able to smell changes in their people that would escape human senses, or that are so early on that the sick person barely feels any different. That’s because dogs have exponentially more powerful senses of smell than humans: They can have as many as 300 million olfactory receptors in their nose, as opposed to a paltry 6 million for the average person.
Researchers have also found that a person’s mood, which can be an indicator of a larger illness, triggers a dog’s sense of smell. Human emotions manifest physically in chemosignals that are emitted by the body, and dogs are adept at deciphering those changes.
Beyond smell, dogs also pull information from a person’s voice in order to sense changes. In 2014, researchers discovered that dogs have an area of the brain, similar to one found in humans, that allows them to decipher emotional cues in the tone of a speaker’s voice, beyond what they’d be able to pick up from familiar words alone. That’s why Midge wags her little tail when I excitedly ask her if she’s my boo boo, even though she doesn’t know what that is. (To be fair, neither do I.) A person’s voice can also carry indicators of depression, lethargy, or other bad feelings.
What’s not understood quite so well is what dogs make of these changes. “We’re sending out lots of cues, of just the sort that dogs are specialized in attuning to,” says Horowitz. “Whether they think that it means ‘sickness’ is not clear.” What we perceive as concern on a dog’s part might be more like increased curiosity or suspicion that something is wrong with us, and sticking close by is a great way to glean more information about the situation.
Also, “concern might be vigilance,” says Horowitz. If your pup is worried about your well-being, he or she might turn into the guard dog you never knew you had. In these situations, a dog insists on being the closest living being to you when you’re sick or tries to prevent others from accessing you while you convalesce. Depending on the size and temperament of the dog, that might make keeping a flu patient hydrated a little tricky, but rest assured, Horowitz says, the pup means well.
Among dogs, chihuahuas aren’t known for having an especially acute sense of smell, but they are said to be particularly protective of their owners. Midge has been known to fight the vacuum for my safety. Even if she is more run-of-the-mill house pet than disease-detecting superdog, it feels nice to have a warm little pup fall asleep on your lap, potentially out of concern for your well-being, when you’re feeling cruddy.
In a certain sense, she is helping. Next time she kicks me in the ribs to expel a toy from my hands, I won’t hold it against her.