The intelligence of dogs
After a decade studying dogs in their human habitat, Mr. Miklosi
and his colleagues have accumulated a body of evidence
suggesting that dogs have far greater mental capabilities than
scientists had thought. Dogs' smarts, it turns out, come out in
their relationships with people.
The implications of this research are more esoteric than the
average dog owner may appreciate. The research doesn't
exactly mean that dogs and their masters can enjoy Chaucer
together, but it does mean scientists have reason to consider
what dog-human communications may say about
language skills development. Another implication is that dogs
may make better cognitive study subjects than primates, which
have been the focus of the field thus far.
Until recently, domestication was thought to have dulled dogs'
intelligence. Studies in the early 1980s showed that wolves,
from which dogs probably descended, can unlock a gate after
watching a human do it once, while dogs remained stumped
after watching repeatedly. That never sat well with Vilmos
Csanyi, the recently retired head of Mr. Miklosi's department.
Mr. Csanyi, who had dogs of his own, suspected the
dogs were awaiting permission to open the gate, that they
regarded opening the gate as a violation of their master's rules.
In 1997, Csanyi and his colleagues tested 28 dogs of various
ages, breeds, and closeness to their owners, to see if they
could learn to obtain cold cuts on the other side of a fence by
pulling on the handles of dishes while their owners were
present. Dogs with a close relationship to their owners fared
worse than outdoor dogs. But when the dogs' owners
were allowed to give the animals verbal permission, the gap
between the groups vanished.
Since then, Csanyi's team has demonstrated just how much
dogs can accomplish by paying attention to people. In one
classic experiment on dogs' use of human visual cues, food is
hidden in one of several scent-proof containers. The animal is
allowed to choose only one. Beforehand, the experimenter
signals the correct choice by staring, nodding, or pointing at it.
Chimpanzees, humans' closest genetic relatives, have always
done poorly at this test. Dogs solved the problem immediately.
Dogs also excel at imitating people. In one of the laboratories,
graduate student Zsofia Viranyi demonstrates with Todor, an
enthusiastic little mutt. Todor sits attentively as Ms. Viranyi
spins around in a circle and comes to a stop. "Csinal," she
says. ("You do it!") Todor does a little 360 on the tiled floor and
lets out an enthusiastic bark. He easily imitates Viranyi's bow,
lifting of an arm, and other tasks.
The team found that some dogs can even imitate previously
unseen actions performed by a person they haven't had close
contact with. Other dogs learned how to operate a simple ball-
dispensing machine by watching people use it.
"We thought it would be very difficult for dogs to imitate
humans," Csanyi says, Chimps have great difficulty doing so,
even with their larger brains. "But it turns out [dogs] love to do
it. This is not a little thing, because they must pay attention to
the person's actions, remember them, and then apply them to
their own body." Dogs' unusual ability and motivation to
observe, imitate, and
>communicate with people appears to be with them from birth.
Two years ago, Csanyi's graduate students were given either a
puppy or a wolf cub to raise. They fed the animals by hand,
coddling and doting on them. At five weeks, each cub was
placed in a room containing an adult and the student who had
raised the cub. Both sat motionless. But while the wolf
cubs merely sniffed both humans before climbing into the
student's lap to sleep, the puppies yipped at their caregivers,
licking their hands and trying to establish contact. Three
months later, the canines were given the opportunity to try to remove a
piece of meat from under a cage by pulling on a rope
in the presence of their caregiver. Dogs and wolves both
mastered this promptly.
Then the rope was anchored, making it impossible to obtain the
meat. The dogs tried a couple of times, then turned to their
masters for assistance or cues. The wolves ignored their
caregivers, yanking on the rope until exhausted.
> >>
"The wolves ... were only interested in the meat," notes
Miklosi. "The dogs were of course interested in the meat, but
knew that one way to get it might be to figure out what the
human wants them to do." To Csanyi, this proves that dogs
have acquired an innate ability to pay attention to people, and
thus to communicate and work with them. This is a skill that
wolves don't assume even when raised from birth to learn
it.
Dogs are "very motivated to cooperate with and behave like
people," says Csanyi. "That's why dogs can do things no other
animal can do."
This article was written by Colin Woodard
(Christian Science Monitor)
