cheryl
Administrator
Staff member
Canine exceptionalism - aeon
Trainers working with dogs every day have documented extraordinary talents and skills. Will science ever catch up?
I am a dog-training geek. Much of my life revolves around training dogs, taking training classes, and listening to dog-sports webinars. Although my dogs share my house, my hobbies and my couch, as a veterinarian who studies canine behaviour, I’m appalled by how little I or anyone else knows about how dogs perceive the world. The canine brain has begun to interest scientists only in the past few decades. Yet, while academia has been slow to study the science of dogs, dog trainers have been making their own discoveries about canine cognitive abilities.
One of those discoveries is called imitation. It means observing someone else perform a behaviour that’s new to you, and then performing it yourself. Humans are quite talented at imitation. Dogs, on the other hand, are generally perceived as requiring careful instruction (training!) before they can acquire new skills. Yet, as dog trainers push the limits of what they can train dogs to do, some have demonstrated that dogs can indeed learn this way – and that they have other surprising cognitive abilities. Are trainers overinterpreting what they see – is imitation actually beyond the grasp of the average dog? Rigorously designed scientific studies could provide an answer to this question, but researchers aren’t keeping up with the deluge of fascinating findings generated by dog trainers. Trainers aren’t, after all, the usual source of inspiration for studies of canine cognition. But maybe that needs to change.
Trainers working with dogs every day have documented extraordinary talents and skills. Will science ever catch up?
I am a dog-training geek. Much of my life revolves around training dogs, taking training classes, and listening to dog-sports webinars. Although my dogs share my house, my hobbies and my couch, as a veterinarian who studies canine behaviour, I’m appalled by how little I or anyone else knows about how dogs perceive the world. The canine brain has begun to interest scientists only in the past few decades. Yet, while academia has been slow to study the science of dogs, dog trainers have been making their own discoveries about canine cognitive abilities.
One of those discoveries is called imitation. It means observing someone else perform a behaviour that’s new to you, and then performing it yourself. Humans are quite talented at imitation. Dogs, on the other hand, are generally perceived as requiring careful instruction (training!) before they can acquire new skills. Yet, as dog trainers push the limits of what they can train dogs to do, some have demonstrated that dogs can indeed learn this way – and that they have other surprising cognitive abilities. Are trainers overinterpreting what they see – is imitation actually beyond the grasp of the average dog? Rigorously designed scientific studies could provide an answer to this question, but researchers aren’t keeping up with the deluge of fascinating findings generated by dog trainers. Trainers aren’t, after all, the usual source of inspiration for studies of canine cognition. But maybe that needs to change.