Dogs
October 6, 2017
Dogs: it’s amazing the tricks they can learn, the companionship they furnish and protection they afford. Now, thanks to training, the Dog Project at Emory University has taught a dog to lie still in an MRI scanner so its brain could be studied.
What was discovered? Activity in their reward center was isolated in an attempt to know how dogs learn human language. After a year of study, Gregory Berns has been unable to determine “When a dog hears a word, is it just an auditory stimulus or does it go deeper to have some sort of meaning?” What he has discovered is that “Dogs are just as different from each other as humans are.”
Other interesting facts about dogs: they respond to baby talk as pups. It works, keep it up, but not after they are grown. Dogs like music; the research points to their preference for soft rock and reggae!
According to the article, when it comes to social intelligence, dogs perform better than chimps, who are more closely related to humans. And, thanks to genetic testing, research is ongoing on diseases that dogs and humans share.
Service dogs are well known, but are you aware of emotional support animals? I was surprised to find pit bulls assigned that duty, but they seem to perform well. It all amounts to training, and drug dogs, cow dogs, emotional support and guide dogs all depend on intelligence and instinct to make life better for their owners and the community.
Reader Comments(0)