Nice people thread part 7 - a thread in its prime

lostinrates

BertieUK wrote: »

Dogs are more capable of understanding situations from a human's point of view than has previously been recognised, according to researchers.

Dr Juliane Kaminski, from the University of Portsmouth's psychology department, said the study was "incredible because it implies dogs understand the human can't see them, meaning they might understand the human perspective".

Interesting link to follow

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21411249

In the first rush of animal behavioural scientists to encourag epeople not to anthropomorphise some threw the baby out with the bath water. We are animals and have emotions and feelings and some of us have a sense of empathy! It is not unrealistic to think other animals might have this to a lesser, or indeed greater, extent to us. The simple truth is, we have been unable to quantify or identify much of this yet. From my perspective many domestic animals show greater intelligence at fitting in a human lifestyle and world than we have shown ability to understand theirs. As for perspective and empathy, well, mine do not always get this right (my cats and the kiwi are convinced singing means I am miserable). But they often do. They detest raised voices, and defend who ever they think is a victim of this in the family. And when I cry they comfort me, jumping up on to me, patting me with their paws, (one tries to stroke me a lot, which I think is because she likes being stroked so much, but that's a huge leap) licking my face and hands. And when that fails they bite me

lostinrates

GDB2222 wrote: »

This was about dogs being 4 times more likely to steal food when the lights went out. It is suggested that the dogs know that this means the humans can't see them, so it's safe to steal the food.

I think that there may be a completely different explanation, namely that there is reinforcement to the dogs' behaviour from their owners which inhibits the dogs from stealing the food. When the lights go out, the humans can no longer give that reinforcement, so the dogs are much more likely to steal. Would any dog trainers care to comment?

Nah, mine will wait til my back is turned often to do things they 'know' they are not allowed to do.

I always recommend the bos written by Steven budianski to people, but a very good book called 'in defence of dogs' or something like that came out not that long ago. Much of it wa wvery good.

Note. I am only an amateur dog trainer, but I was something more theoretical and relevant to thios discussion for a while.

LydiaJ

Avatar-dog used to get very distressed if I cried, and come and paw at me and whine.

I don't know why people find it so surprising. Dogs evolved as pack animals, with obvious evolutionary advantages to being aware of how other pack members are feeling and what they know and don't know.

He didn't always get it right, though. He thought I didn't know he'd been on the sofa if I didn't see him there. The fact that it was suspiciously warm and covered in dog hair was a dead give-away, but he didn't realise that.

GDB2222

lostinrates wrote: »

Nah, mine will wait til my back is turned often to do things they 'know' they are not allowed to do.

Maybe we are saying much the same thing? The dog knows that he is not to do something, but the strength of the prohibition varies according to whether or not you are reinforcing it. When your back is turned, you are no longer reinforcing the prohibition.

I've only read a couple of books about animal behaviour, and that was 40 years ago, so what do I know?

BertieUK

Our Alsation x Border Collie Tasha has the inept ability to predict the actions of members of our household and indeed sense emotions of day to day life and immediately detect that 'something is quite irregular and I want to know what you are going to do next' look in her face.

This never fails to amuse us all.:)

Generali

LydiaJ wrote: »

Avatar-dog used to get very distressed if I cried, and come and paw at me and whine.

I don't know why people find it so surprising. Dogs evolved as pack animals, with obvious evolutionary advantages to being aware of how other pack members are feeling and what they know and don't know.

He didn't always get it right, though. He thought I didn't know he'd been on the sofa if I didn't see him there. The fact that it was suspiciously warm and covered in dog hair was a dead give-away, but he didn't realise that.

Maybe not such an advantage to knowing what people's emotions are. Perhaps it's a Pavlovian response.

I suspect some of this is correct and a lot is anthropomorphism.

I don't own a dog although I will one day.

lostinrates

GDB2222 wrote: »

Maybe we are saying much the same thing? The dog knows that he is not to do something, but the strength of the prohibition varies according to whether or not you are reinforcing it. When your back is turned, you are no longer reinforcing the prohibition.

I've only read a couple of books about animal behaviour, and that was 40 years ago, so what do I know?

I give comparatively negative input ( it's not negative reinforcement, but cannot find term in the head library ) . I mainly use positive reinforcement . I do use Some negative things though. I make a noise we call duck noise. Works whatever species of animal. Very occasionally I will slap. This makes me Advil in the eyes of many animal trainers. I never beat, but will physically admonish under particular circumstances, circumstances where usually I admit I have ailed to be effective enough some minutes before. I do not consider this ideal, but consider it less bad than alternatives at that stage. I note that I apply less pressure at this point than an animal of the same species would.

Behavioural science has grown a lt in forty years. There is an awful lot of guff as well as some excellent newer research.

lostinrates

BertieUK wrote: »

Our Alsation x Border Collie Tasha has the inept ability to predict the actions of members of our household and indeed sense emotions of day to day life and immediately detect that 'something is quite irregular and I want to know what you are going to do next' look in her face.

This never fails to amuse us all.:)

Dog dog here love the car and lives indicators the function of which she has ort of figured out. At a junction she doesn't know she will look to see which indicator is on, ( from behind) and then peer down the road in that direction 'hmm, so what's down there then':rotfl:

lostinrates

Generali wrote: »

Maybe not such an advantage to knowing what people's emotions are. Perhaps it's a Pavlovian response.

I suspect some of this is correct and a lot is anthropomorphism.

I don't own a dog although I will one day.

Lydia's thoughts look especially good when vouple with animal lead domestication theories. I like this one particularly for cats. But what's happening with foxes ATM is interesting in perspective with dogs and animal lead theories.

LydiaJ

Generali wrote: »

Maybe not such an advantage to knowing what people's emotions are. Perhaps it's a Pavlovian response.

I suspect some of this is correct and a lot is anthropomorphism.

I don't own a dog although I will one day.

But an ability to belong to a "pack" of humans instead of other dogs/wolves was hugely selected for when dogs became domesticated. [X-posted with lir]

Just like the Kiwi, he didn't always get it right. We had a Bible study group that occasionally met at our house. He would get up and go to the front door every time a new person arrived, sniff them and wag etc to indicate that he was friendly but nevertheless checking out who was coming into the house. Once the discussion started, he would lie down and go to sleep in the room where the meeting was happening - he always preferred to be with the people, but if what we were doing wasn't interesting to him, he was happy to sleep, so no trouble. But the meetings used to end with prayers, which he responded to quite differently from discussion, becoming convinced that something was wrong and getting up and pawing at me in the way he did when I was upset. Presumably he was used to humans making eye contact with each other while talking, and found closed eyes and bowed heads alarming because out of the ordinary.