Previous research has found that dogs are capable of matching voices and sounds, canine and human, with visual expressions. When played an audio clip of a woman laughing for example, dogs will mostly look at a photo of a smiling woman when given a variety of facial expressions to look at.

This indicates that domestic dogs interpret faces and vocalisations using more than simple discriminative processes; they obtain emotionally significant semantic content from relevant audio and visual stimuli that may aid communication and social interaction. The ability of dogs to extract and integrate such information from an unfamiliar human stimulus demonstrates cognitive abilities not known to exist beyond humans, what amazing animals!

A canine neuroscientist, Anna Balint from Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest,used 17 dogs trained to accept the wiring to an EEC (electroencephalogram) device to record their brain response to certain stimuli. The dog’s brains fired differently to human and dog vocalisations. But the difference in voltage between the waves triggered by human sounds and dog sounds were stark. They were processing the two types of sound in different ways: exactly how in unknown. Even primates do not demonstrate this ability and connectedness to humans.

Yet dogs are treated badly as livestock and consumed in many Asian and African countries. Various groups of people argue about what is the difference between how western nations treat livestock; is their value and sensitivity much less because their intelligence is deemed less? Because every animal follows a completely different evolutionary trajectory, intelligence ought to be measured in relative instead of absolute terms. Science is proving that farmed animals are a very different type of smart: chickens talk to one another and have 25-30 vocalisations within the growl, scream, tantrum and clucking. Pigs are amongst the fastest learners in nature, some researchers even say greater than dolphins and primates; they can open doors and guide flocks of sheep. Cows have excellent problem-solving skills that involve logic and memory, once they solve a problem, they celebrate by jumping, wagging tails and running. Sheep have gained an unfair reputation as stupid, yet researchers studying their behaviour and intelligence have uncovered considerable social and survival skills which govern their desire to stick together.

Pam Brandis,
Dip. Canine Prac.