INTRODUCTION

Before Bioethicist Peter Singer wrote Animal Liberation in 1975, near the start of the Animal Rights Movement, most people believed

they controlled all animals on the assumption that animals did not suffer or have much intelligence. On the other hand, Jeffrey Kluger, TIME writer and editor who was the author of “Intelligence: Inside the Minds of Animals” in 2010, noted that after The Stuff of Thought was written in 2007 by Psychologist Steven Pinker, along with advancements in animal behavior, the idea of animals having intelligence became more universal (Kluger 10). This progression of thought demonstrates just how rapidly animal intelligence research has evolved, thus creating many controversial arguments.

Continuing on this matter, I will summarize a few experiments regarding dog behavior and their cognitive, social, and emotional

responses. These results suggest dogs have intelligence without degrading wolves, who share a common ancestor with dogs about one hundred thousand years ago, which was explained by animal scientists and authors Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson in their 2011 book Animals Make Us Human Creating the Best Life for Animals (Grandin and Johnson 63). I will focus my discussion highlighting research articles that have been published in the twenty-first century. First off, my review illustrates Alexandra Horowitz’s, professor of canine cognition, psychology, and creative nonfiction writing at Barnard College, Columbia University, research study “Smelling Themselves: Dogs Investigate Their Own Odours Longer When Modified in an ‘Olfactory Mirror’ Test” in 2017 that discusses different behaviors demonstrated by dogs in reaction to various scents. This is often referred to as theory-of-mind, which is scientifically believed to be correlated with cognitive intelligence (Horowitz). The next section will introduce Krisztina Soproni, et al., researchers who study ethology, dogs, and animal cognition, science, and behavior, as well as their 2001 research article “Comprehension of Human Communicative Signs in Pet Dogs (Canis Familiaris).” Their experiment highlights how a dog’s social intelligence is not only based on their ability to understand human communication through gestures, but also their immediate response depending on the cues given (Soproni et al.). Finally, I will explain the 2012 research study “Auditory Contagious Yawning in Domestic Dogs (Canis Familiaris): First Evidence for Social Modulation” published by researchers Karine Silva, et al. who focus their studies on behavioral and biomedical sciences, animal-assisted therapies, human-animal bonds, empathy, and psychology. This section  reveals that dogs are able to recognize yawns and are empathically affected by them. This further demonstrates dogs are emotionally intelligent since they show affection (Silva et al.). These three different methods all indicate that a dog’s natural ability to exhibit cognitive, social, and emotional intelligence is indeed connected and useful in a dog’s everyday life.

The intent of this review is to provide examples of intelligent dog behavior, indicating that dog intelligence needs to be revised based

on how dogs see the world. Therefore, it is also meant to establish a distinctive relationship between human and animal intelligence and cause people to wonder why animals, such as dogs, are graded on the same spectrum as humans when they have completely different abilities. Including specific instances where dogs successfully accomplish a unique task, is the foundation for perceiving whether dogs truly have intelligence. As stated, Jeffrey Kluger’s 2010 TIME article “Communication: Inside the Minds of Animals” proves that it would be false to believe all species have the exact same intelligence because their physical characteristics and abilities differ from one another (Kluger 72). For instance, Julia Esponosa, researcher of canine cognition, cognitive development, and animal behavior, explains that dogs have an extremely strong olfactory system and can distinguish between even the faintest scents whereas humans are better at understanding visual cues using their trichromatic visual system in her 2019 TEDtalk video (Espinosa 10:45). This difference does not infer one is more intelligent than the other. Instead, it means dogs and humans see the world through different perspectives, demonstrating they are intelligent in their own, unique way. 

In my conclusion, I will reference the crisis of inhumane actions continuing to occur towards animals who demonstrate intelligence in

every thought, behavior, and ability. Animal minds have greatly evolved in order to give them a better chance of surviving and reproducing. Therefore, what gives humans the right to treat animals poorly if they are proven to have huge amounts of intelligence? Overall, the three research studies summarized in this article confirm dogs are highly intelligent animals based on their ability to use abstraction.

 

​

SELF-RECOGNITION

Self-recognition is frequently expressed as an aspect of behavior indicating awareness of oneself in comparison to the world. While the

mirror self-recognition test is often used to prove self-awareness, the study is less suited to dogs since their primary sense is not the same as humans, which is vision. Instead, their strongest sense is smell due to the fact that  “their noses are incredibly sensitive and they are able to detect odors in the environment that [humans] are totally unaware of” (Espinosa 11:15). As a result of the huge “role of olfaction in dogs’ social lives, olfactory stimuli are more ecologically relevant to the species than visual stimuli” (Horowitz 8). Therefore, Author Alexandra Horowitz, professor of canine cognition and psychology at Barnard College, Columbia University, modified the experiment in 2017 in her article “Smelling Themselves: Dogs Investigate Their Own Odours Longer When Modified in an ‘Olfactory Mirror’ Test” by targeting a dog’s olfactory signals instead. Her goal was to study whether dogs have self-awareness by placing a variety of canisters with different urine smells and testing their olfactory response times. Thirty-six dogs took part in the study and were accompanied by their owners. Before the study was conducted, urine samples were taken from each of the dogs as well as an unknown dog who did not participate in the study. The “mark” of the unknown dog’s scent was either added or excluded from the experimental dogs’ urine. Moreover, the dogs smelled four different types of urine: the dog’s own odor, tampered odor, familiar odor, and unfamiliar odor. In order to eliminate the possibility of external factors, the tested dogs were prevented from referring to their owner for advice, thus causing them to instead focus on their natural ability to smell (Horowitz 9).

After conducting the experiment, results showed the dogs were able to distinguish an odor as “themselves” or “not themselves” as well

as familiar or unfamiliar by using their strongest asset, olfactory signals. This is because they “spent significantly more time investigating canisters holding their own odors that had been modified than the one that held their own odor alone. Dogs also spent significantly more time at the canister with an unknown dog's odor than that with their own” (Horowitz 10). These actions agree with the thesis that dogs are able to notice a modified or unknown odor. This behaviour in dogs entails that they are able to recognize a scent as being or from themselves, thus demonstrating dogs are able to successfully pass the olfactory mirror test and exhibit self-recognition (Horowitz 11). Overall, this study is important because dogs are proven to naturally demonstrate abstraction and cognitive intelligence using their olfactory signals since they are able to distinguish themselves from the world.

 

​

COMMUNICATION

Dogs started becoming domesticated about one hundred thousand years ago as they had the pressures of becoming strong guards and

hunters for humans (Grandinand Johnson 64). This selection allowed them to not only become specialized for work, but also “to form an attachment relationship with their humancare giver, that shows dependent behavior in problem-solving situations, and that is able to develop a complex communication system with humans” (Soproni, et al. 122). Because living with families altered a dog’s natural environment, the species became more attentive to social gestures. As a result, in the 2001 article “Comprehension of Human Communicative Signs in Pet Dogs (Canis Familiaris)”, Soproni, et al., researchers who study ethology, dogs, and animal cognition, science, and behavior, conducted an experiment to test whether dogs could interpret human cues such as pointing, gazing, and head nodding and then use these gestures to choose the correct cup that had food hidden underneath. Prior to the actual study, the fourteen experimented dogs went through pre-training with the goal that they would be able to understand food could be hidden underneath a cup and in turn, give the dogs an incentive to choose the correct cup based on communicative signals (Soproni, et al. 123).

These researchers found the dogs consistently chose the baited cup significantly more than chance. The dogs were able to recognize

human signs as forms of communication and as a result, learned to pick the cup humans hinted at in order to get rewarded with the food hidden beneath. This means dogs understand the meaning behind human gestures by realizing humans have information to share that they must see (Kluger 17). These actions are due to domestication, which allowed dogs to evolve and “become selectively sensitive to human communicative gestures as the basis of discriminative learning or as the basis of higher mentalistic processes” (Soproni et al. 125). They first understand how to differentiate themselves from others and that others can see them. Next, dogs adapt to make more meaningful connections and build stronger relationships through collaboration. This allows them to grasp the idea that a person is trying to communicate in some way that might be helpful. Therefore, dogs are able to socially comprehend the complexities of human communication and thus act based on the gestures given (Kluger 17). This study is important to acknowledge since it adds to animal science, specifically the field of dog intelligence, by indicating that dogs exhibit abstraction and are socially intelligent. 

 

​

EMOTION

Recent studies have proved contagious yawning in humans is empathy-related. Since dogs live among humans, this has caused some

scientists to wonder if the same aspect of empathy can be seen when dogs yawn contagiously (Silva et al. 722). As a result, Silva et al., researchers who study behavioral sciences, human-animal bonds, empathy, and psychology, decided to find out and recorded the information in their 2012 article “Auditory Contagious Yawning in Domestic Dogs ( Canis Familiaris): First Evidence for Social Modulation.” Their goal was to test whether dogs understand yawning and if they could produce a similar response since they are already known to have a theory-of-mind and self-recognition, two abilities that are found to contribute to empathy and contagious yawning in humans (Silva et al. 721). There were twenty-nine dogs tested who listened to four different, recorded yawns. Two familiar yawns were of their owner since there was a close connection, while the other two unfamiliar yawns were recorded by the same researcher to limit the possibility of an external factor (Silva et al. 722).

Overall, the results demonstrate that dogs recognize the act of yawning and even yawn more when they see a familiar face yawn

compared to a stranger yawn. They sense that others see them and align themselves in a way to improve their understanding. As a result, they also know their own emotions can affect their future and how their emotional response can help or hurt what they are trying to accomplish. Based on this, dogs are able to recognize human yawns and even yawn more at familiar compared to unfamiliar yawns. This is “consistent with the observation that empathic tendencies are strongest or most likely to arise, as a function of familiarity” (Silva et al. 722). Domestic dogs live in close proximity with humans and therefore are capable of expressing empathy towards them. This has caused them to “represent humans’ actions and to modulate their own behavioral and autonomic responses accordingly, and that this underlies contagious yawning” (Silva et al. 723). As a whole, this recent study has great importance since it proves dogs are emotionally intelligent due to their ability to show abstraction and affection by yawning. 

 

​

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, intelligence is an intricate concept that is related to a species’ ability to have a concept of self and a theory-of-mind,

understand and display complex communicative patterns, and connect emotionally with others. If these abilities prove intelligence in humans and if dogs can accomplish similar tasks, then they too should be considered intelligent. Additionally, the three previous experimental dog behaviors I summarized validate that humans and dogs use different skills to accomplish the same tasks in completely distinctive ways. Thus, humans and dogs need to be graded on different scales, depending on how they see the world through their various senses. Once this is done, dogs would undoubtedly be considered intelligent. Then, if dogs truly are intelligent animals, why do we still euthanize them and use them as “dummies” for drug and cosmetic tests? If a human was put in this position, it would be considered extremely unethical. So, why do dogs, an intelligent species, have to suffer from these inhumane and cruel actions? They formerly came to humans as protectors and we repay them by abusing their freedom. Dogs were once undomesticated wolves, roaming in the wild, but now, Primatologist Allison Jolly explains that dogs, as well as other animals, are confined in cages, awaiting the day they will be put down or tested on in her 1991 literature review “Conscious chimpanzees? A review of recent literature” (Jolly 249). I say this in an attempt to end the torture of intelligent animals. This is a violation of animal ethics due to the fact that dogs are intelligent, just like humans, in their own, unique way. Dogs understand who they are, know how to communicate, and feel emotion. Their minds have evolved due to domestication, just like humans (Grandinand Johnson 64). Not all people will advocate for animal rights when it comes to euthanization and beauty product experiments. Despite this, if our knowledge grew, causing us to now agree dogs are intelligent, humanity is dishonoring their commitment to protect them and violating their ethics.

 

 

 

Works Cited

Espinosa, Julia, TEDxTalks. “The Secret Life of Dogs | Julia Espinosa | TEDxUofT.” YouTube, YouTube, 14 May 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?

v=hsjvIUrxsrc. 

Grandin, Temple, and Catherine Johnson. Animals Make Us Human Creating the Best Life for Animals. Mariner, 2010. 

Horowitz, Alexandra. “Smelling Themselves: Dogs Investigate Their Own Odours Longer When Modified in an ‘Olfactory Mirror’ Test.”

Behavioural Processes, vol. 143, Oct. 2017, pp.17–24. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2017.08.001.

Jolly, Allison. “Conscious chimpanzees? A review of recent literature.” C. A. Ristau (Ed.), Comparative cognition and neuroscience. Lawrence

Erlbaum Associates, Inc, pp. 231–252, 1991.

Kluger, Jeffrey. “Communication: Inside the Minds of Animals.” Time, Time Inc., 5 Aug. 2010, content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,

2008867,00.html.

Kluger, Jeffrey. “Intelligence: Inside the Minds of Animals.” Time, Time Inc., 5 Aug. 2010, content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,

2008867,00.html. 

Silva, Karine, et al. “Auditory Contagious Yawning in Domestic Dogs ( Canis Familiaris): First Evidence for Social Modulation.” Animal

Cognition, vol. 15, no. 4, July 2012, pp. 721–724. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s10071-012-0473-2.

Soproni, Krisztina, et al. “Comprehension of Human Communicative Signs in Pet Dogs (Canis Familiaris).” Journal of  Comparative Psychology,

vol. 115, no. 2, June 2001, p. 122. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1037/0735-7036.115.2.122.

​

​

Link to my Google Doc