Beyond Domestication: The Mystery of Canine Social Intelligence
An Ancient Friendship
The Chauvet Cave in France is a sacred shrine preserving humankind’s oldest known art, dating back at least 32,000 years. Over 400 paintings on its walls depict the rich diversity of the animal kingdom, an ethereal glimpse through the eyes of our ancient ancestors as they contemplated their place in a world filled with so many other forms of life.
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Wolves make an appearance in many of these images. What is most intriguing is that at least one ancient wolf made an appearance in the Chauvet Cave itself, alongside a small child.
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Footprints spanning 150 feet of the cave are those of an 8 to 10-year-old human from around 26,000 years ago. Right beside the clay impressions of these little feet are the pawprints of a large canine, presumably a wolf, calmly matching the child's gait.
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"We chose them, to be sure, but they chose us too, and our shared characteristics may well account for our seemingly unshakable mutual intimacy."
- Mark Derr
Dog lovers have long known that the bond they share with their canines is far more complex than could be easily quantified through a scientific lens, many claiming that the link is even spiritual in nature. Recent studies examining dogs' ability to engage in human social behavior are just scratching the surface of what may be a more coevolutionary connection than previously thought.
Accepted scientific theory has placed the earliest domestication of canines at 15,000 years ago with the emergence of agriculture, when humans began abandoned their nomadic ways for more permanent settlements to cultivate crops. These pawprints challenge this theory, lending to controversial new discussion on the very definition of ‘domestication.’
“The emerging story sees humans and proto-dogs evolving together: We chose them, to be sure, but they chose us too, and our shared characteristics may well account for our seemingly unshakable mutual intimacy,” suggested dog historian Mark Derr. “Dogs and humans are social beings who depend on cooperation for their survival and have an uncanny ability to understand each other in order to work together. Both wolves and humans brought unique, complementary talents to a relationship that was based not on subservience and intimidation but on mutual respect.”
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Tearful Reunions
When Professor Takefumi Kikusui’s standard poodle was nursing a litter of puppies, he noticed the new mom’s eyes were teary. He attributed this to increased levels of oxytocin, the ‘love hormone’ released to stimulate labor, lactation, and bonding. It is also released by other strong emotional triggers, and the animal behavior expert knew that higher levels of oxytocin had already been measured when dogs interact with their owners.
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Kikusui theorized that reuniting a dog with their human after a separation would be emotional enough to release a flood of oxytocin, potentially producing tears. His study at the School of Veterinary Medicine at Azabu University in Japan separated dogs from their owners for several hours before reuniting them, measuring tear production minutes after. The pup’s eyes welled up with tears, just as Kikusui had expected.
"We found that dogs shed tears associated with positive emotions," he said. “We had never heard of the discovery that animals shed tears in joyful situations, such as reuniting with their owners, and we were all excited that this would be a world first.”
"Dogs have become a partner of humans, and we can form bonds," said Kikusui. His study is just one of the latest in decades of research attempting to understand this extraordinary interspecies relationship. The deeper we look into canine social intelligence, the more questions we find.
A Nose for Negative Intentions
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Many dog owners place a high degree on their dog's ability to read other people. They attest that if their canine is wary or acts oddly around someone, that individual cannot be trusted. While placing one’s faith in their dog as a judge of moral character may seem like superstition to some, many dog owners hold fervently to this belief – and research is revealing there is something quite genuine behind it.
Science has suggested that dogs are natural lie detectors, being far more discerning around new people. Trust is earned, not given. Like humans, they understand deceit and will lose trust if they are misled. In one case study, researchers directed the dogs towards a container with food. The dogs happily obliged and were duly rewarded. Then the researcher began directing them to a container without food. By the third round, the dogs no longer followed their cues.
"Dogs make social and emotional evaluations of people regardless of their direct interest.”
- Dr. Kazuo Fujita
To ensure that the dogs didn’t just become bored with the game or lose their focus, they immediately repeated the same process with a different researcher to keep the animals engaged. The dogs responded the same way by initially following commands but eventually ignoring them when they were deceived – demonstrating that while they initially choose to trust someone, they can and will lose that trust with an inconsistent person.
Lead researcher Dr. Akiko Takaoka explained to BBC that initially they were surprised that the dogs lost faith in the reliability of the humans so quickly.
“Dogs have more sophisticated social intelligence than we thought,” says Dr. Takaoka. But what about those that trust their dog to protect them from ill-meaning people?
One of the most compelling studies thus far appeared in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. The research was designed to mirror studies into how young children view the social interactions of adults. This study looked at the responses of dogs as well as capuchin monkeys to determine how these animals would react to witnessing poor behavior in social situations.
The animals were confronted with bad behavior directed towards their human companions. The dogs were presented with a situation in which their owners asked strangers for help, in this case with opening a box or a jar. One stranger would either help or refuse to help, while another stranger was passive and did nothing at all.
After witnessing this interaction play out, the animals were offered food rewards by each of the third-party participants. The dogs flat out refused to take treats from the people who declined to help their owners, preferring to accept food from those that helped or even from those who remained neutral and did nothing.
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“We discovered for the first time that dogs make social and emotional evaluations of people regardless of their direct interest,” researcher and professor of comparative cognition at Kyoto University Dr. Kazuo Fujita said about the findings.
The dogs chose to act outside of their own self interest by refusing food. Their decision was based purely on how their owners were treated.
The capuchin monkeys in this study displayed a similar distaste for the unhelpful participants, though most primates do not express any interest in third-party interactions when there's food involved. “There is no evidence that chimpanzees demonstrate a preference unless there is a direct benefit to them,” Dr. Fujita added.
Re-Thinking Primate Intelligence
The choice to study dogs and monkeys side-by-side is, in itself, important to consider.
Primates are genetically the closest animal to humans. DNA sequencing technology has shown that an astounding 96 percent of primate and human DNA is identical. Being that they are our closest genetic match in the animal kingdom, primate intelligence continues to be the subject of scientific inspiration. We have even established complex communication with primates that far exceeds anything we’ve accomplished with any other species – the actual foundations of inter-species language.
So why study primates alongside canines? Despite being a very different species than us, dogs are actually superior experts on humans. What’s more, when studied side-by-side, overall canine intelligence may even outshine that of our closest cousin, the primate.
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It's proven that dogs can decipher a massive amount of information from their environment, but their true brilliance lies in their excellent learning and problem-solving capabilities. Evolutionary biologist Dr. Tim Standish has researched animal intelligence throughout his career. He argues that it is a common misconception that primates possess superior intelligence than canines. In one very interesting comparison, he cites his personal experience to illustrate the brainpower of his dog versus that of his own pet monkey.
“If humans and monkeys shared a common ancestor, there is little evidence that the common ancestor was overly bright compared with a dog.”
- Dr. Tim Standish
“Dogs give every indication of being able to solve some pretty complex challenges, such as anticipating sequences of commands and solving puzzles in space. In addition, they have the beautiful talent for forming what certainly seem to be genuine relationships with humans and other animals. My pet monkey was indisputably an interesting experience, one I’d do all over again, but I saw no sign of the kind of intelligence dogs routinely exhibit, like learning not to use the house as a toilet,” Dr. Standish told Evolution News.
He explains that intelligence is notoriously difficult to define and quantify, especially in animals. Genetic similarities between humans and primates alone does not mean that primates are automatically the second smartest mammal.​ “If humans and monkeys shared a common ancestor, there is little evidence that the common ancestor was overly bright compared with a dog,” he states.
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Moreover, it is the dog’s uncanny ability to understand and develop meaningful relationships with humans that really sets them apart.
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It is now known that dogs can understand human gestures and facial expressions that even our primate cousins cannot. One of the foremost researchers in the social connection between dogs and humans is Psychologist and Director of the Dog Cognition Center at the University of Portsmouth, Dr. Juliane Kaminski. She has studied this relationship extensively and her findings have shaped our understanding of just how amazing our best friends really are.
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Dr. Kaminski led an experiment that challenged dogs and chimpanzees in their ability to read human signals. In her study, a person pointed to an object beyond their reach, but within the reach of the animal. When the animal followed the human’s signal and retrieved the object, they were quickly rewarded with a tasty treat. Although both chimps and the dogs are very motivated by food rewards, the chimps simply ignored, or perhaps didn’t understand, the human’s gesture. The dogs, however, absolutely nailed this task.
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“Dogs read human gestures and communicative signals in ways other animals can’t,” Dr. Kaminski concludes.
Who is the Master?
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One of the most fascinating aspects about our relationship with dogs is that they are highly capable of communicating with us.
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In a study published in Animal Behavior, researchers looked for patterns in social cognitive skills in dogs, chimpanzees, and human infants. Social cognitive skills describe the characteristics needed to function and interact in any social group. By age 2 ½, humans are already more skilled at social cognitive tasks than any adult primate. Moreover, the test group of over 550 dogs from various breeds, backgrounds, and training levels revealed the dogs exhibited the same social skills as the toddlers. The chimpanzees, however, did not express a level of social cognition anywhere near to that of the dogs or the young kids.
To grasp the significance behind their superior social cognitive skills, it helps to understand that dogs understand our facial expressions. This means they can read our emotions. They recognize happiness, sadness, fear, and anger, and it is very likely that they also pick up on everything else in between. Essentially, this is empathy in its simplest form.
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When we can acknowledge the feelings of those around us in our social group, we are more capable of having meaningful, successful interactions. It is also the basis of being able to accomplish tasks as a cohesive unit. This form of empathy is the foundation of communication – and our dogs are masters at it.
This aptitude in recognizing our human facial expressions is very likely linked to another incredible and endearing finding: they make similar expressions of their own. Canine facial expressions – the most notable of which may be ‘puppy dog eyes’ – is a scientifically measurable phenomena, with real powers of human manipulation.
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In another landmark study led by Dr. Kaminski, she sought to reveal the meaning and application behind common dog facial expressions. Randomly selected dogs were led into a quiet room and placed a few feet away from a new person. This person then completed four actions. First, they faced toward the dog and held a treat in their hand. Then, they faced towards the dog without anything. Next, they turned away from the dog while holding a treat, before finally turning away from the dog once again, empty-handed.
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Using a complex rubric designed to detect the muscle positioning of facial expressions, the researchers carefully studied the dog’s reactions to each one of the different scenarios.
All dog owners are very familiar with the irresistible ‘puppy dog eyes’ look. Few know that it is actually scientifically identified as AU 101. Yes, the dogs in this study used it a lot, but only when they knew the human was looking.
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Dr. Kaminski explains that with this expression, the dogs’ eyes look noticeably larger and the face itself is more puppy or babylike, possibly meant to trigger the natural nurturing instinct in humans. It also has similar characteristics to how humans appear when they are sad themselves, almost a form of mimicry.
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“We believe that this shows that this movement is potentially tapping into a preference that humans have,” says Dr. Kaminski. Other studies on AU 101 – ‘the look’ – have even revealed that using it increases a dog’s chance of being adopted.
The Domestication Conundrum
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As intriguing as this research may be, in many ways it just validates everything dog lovers already knew. One of the more burning question remains: how are dogs so in tune with us?
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Dr. Takaoka, who pioneered the study on these living lie detectors, believes that canine abilities like this are the result of centuries of domestication. “This social intelligence evolved selectively in their long life history with humans,” she says.
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This has been the prevailing thought within the scientific community. Basically, over centuries of domestication, our four-legged family has been studying us this whole time. Meticulously analyzing and memorizing all our odd quirks and habits, trying to make sense of it all with the hope to gain what they need from us. This theory all comes down to survival.
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“We think that we are looking at a special adaptation in dogs to be sensitive to human forms of communication,” Dr. Kaminski states. “There is evidence suggesting that selection pressures during domestication have changed dogs such that they are perfectly adapted to their new niche, the human environment.”
Much like the discovery of the young boy and his potential pet wolf from 26,000 years ago, new studies comparing the behaviors of dogs and wolves have raised a lot of questions about the accepted domestication school of thought.
Pack Sensibility
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Contrary to the argument that the human-dog connection comes from generations living alongside us, research into wolf behavior is uncovering that we may have hit it off from the start.
Dr. Márta Gácsi from Eötvös University in Hungary authored one such study in which both dogs and wolves were asked to follow a human pointing gesture, similar to Dr. Kaminiski’s study of dogs and chimpanzees. Researchers used a group of 4-month-old dog and wolf pups, as well as a group of adult dogs and wolves. While wolf puppies did not perform as well as dog puppies, adult wolves were just as successful as adult dogs in reading the human gestures.
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Studies into the pack life of wolves and dogs have yielded even more incredible discoveries. It appears that lab-raised wolf packs are far more cooperative and tolerant with each other than dogs. The lab-raised dog packs formed more linear dominance hierarchies, with strict demands of obedience placed on their lower ranking members.
Comparative psychologists from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna Friederike Range and Zsófia Virányi raised these packs at the Wolf Science Center in Austria. One of the experiments was a mealtime challenge, in which they paired a high-ranking pack member with a lower ranking one and offered them a bowl of food. While the higher-ranking dog monopolized the food, both wolves ate together regardless of rank.
When the researchers tested the packs’ abilities to work together in solving problems such as opening a box or finding food, they saw the wolves demonstrate far more teamwork.
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“They are very cooperative with each other, and when they have a disagreement or must make a group decision, they have a lot of communication or ‘talk’ first,” Range said. Within the dog packs, however, even the smallest transgression from a subordinate could trigger an aggressive response from a higher-ranking dog.
Possibly the most profound display of canine altruism came from another study that suggested wolves even have a higher sense of fairness and equality than their domesticated counterparts.
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The dog, or wolf, was placed in a cage with a button. The trainers taught the animal to press the button on command, at which point they would be rewarded with a treat. When they placed another fully trained dog or wolf in full view next to the first subject, everyone was happy until one of the two did not get rewarded. Both the dogs and wolves would eventually refuse to play the game altogether if this inequality continued, but the wolves had significantly less tolerance than their long-domesticated relatives.
In these studies, both wild wolves and domesticated dogs repeatedly demonstrate social intelligence. More cooperation among wolf packs can be attributed to the need for survival, but it doesn’t explain the intolerance to inequity. There is this inherent sense of right and wrong – a moral compass we believed was exclusively human – that seems to also be a part of canine DNA.
Paws for Thought
Empathy and fairness are things that we associate with being a more socially and intellectually advanced species. Some assume these are identifying markers of humankind alone. Yet there are countless, astounding accounts of altruism throughout the animal kingdom. Scientists have documented selfless acts and extraordinary cooperation in many other species, especially within the complex social dynamics of a wolf pack.
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Our own dogs offer us an exemplary model of how empathetic and engaged animals can be, but maybe we take too much credit for our hand in establishing those characteristics. It is hard to distinguish how much dogs learned about us just from being in the human environment from how much human behavior they already recognized from their own pack experience. Domestication has undoubtedly shaped the spectrum of dogs we know today, inside and out. At the same time, we often dismiss the possibility that we have been shaped by dogs, too. We may never know the mechanisms behind early domestication and how big a role it has actually played in our bond with the canine species. Did we reach out to those ancient wolves, or did they reach out to us? “The relationship between dogs and humans has been so mutually beneficial and enduring that some scholars have suggested that we – dog and human – influenced each other’s evolution,” says canine scholar Mark Derr.
There is something about the enrichment dogs bring to our lives that hints at something far deeper than just mutual history. It now seems there is fair evidence to suggest we may have had a lot in common since the very beginning. Maybe science will never be able to give us all the answers we want, but perhaps the only answer we need is in the eyes of our dogs.
