We feed them. We let them sleep in our beds. We played with them and even talked to them. And of course, we love them. Any dog owner will tell you that their pet understands the world around them.
And make no mistake: they are right. Scientists have found great ways to know exactly what humans' best friend is capable of.
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In recent years, one of the biggest advances in our human understanding of canine cognition has been the use of MRI machines to scan dog brains.
Dogs, as anyone knows, are highly trainable. This trainable nature makes dogs great candidates for MRI scans. This is not feasible in non-domesticated wild animals.
Ragen McGowan, a scientist at Nestlé Purina, which specializes in canine cognition, takes full advantage of a certain type of MRI machine, the fMRI. He uses it to study these animals. These machines detect changes in blood flow and use this to measure brain activity.
Through ongoing research, McGowan has discovered a great deal about animals' cognition and feelings. In a 2015 study, McGowan found that the presence of a human leads to increased blood flow to a dog's eyes, ears and paws, which means he is agitated.
McGowan also studied what happens to dogs when they are being petted. We've known for some time that for humans, petting a beloved animal can lead to lower rates of stress and anxiety.
Well, it turns out the same is true for dogs. When humans pet shelter dogs for 15 minutes or more, the dog's heart rate slows down and he is generally less anxious.
Another recent study of dog cognition found that our beloved companion animals can sense a difference in our emotional expressions.
Scientists have also discovered that dogs can tell the difference between happy and sad human faces. Dogs also respond differently to these expressions.
Psychologists specializing in animals claim that the intelligence of dogs is equivalent to that of a two-year-old human child. The 2009 study that examined this found that dogs can understand up to 250 words and gestures.
The same study found that dogs can actually count numbers (up to five) and even do simple math.
And have you ever experienced your dog's emotions while petting another animal or paying attention to something else? Do you imagine they feel something like jealousy? Well, there's science to back that up too.
Studies have found that dogs do, in fact, experience jealousy. Not only that, but dogs do their best to figure out how to "deal" with the thing that is getting their parent's attention. If they have to force attention back to them, they will.
A 2012 study examined dogs' behavior toward humans who weren't their owners. Although the study concluded that dogs exhibit empathy-like behavior, scientists who wrote the report decided that it can best be explained as “contagion emotional".
Numerous other studies of dog behavior, emotion, and intelligence have found that dogs "listen" to human interactions to assess who is mean to their owner and who is not, and that dogs follow the gaze of their humans.
These studies may just be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to learning about dogs. And what about the puppies' parents? Well, they can know a lot more than the rest of us just by watching their best canine companions every day.
Studies done on canine cognition illuminate some facts. Humans may know a lot less about dogs' brains than we previously thought.
As time passes, more and more scientists are becoming interested in animal research. With each new study done, we discover more about how our beloved pets think.
