Yes. The bottom line seems to be a simple equation, Love = Theory of Mind ( Here):
"Thus, to remedy this theoretical oversight and to address the issue of whether dogs simply inherit the cognitive capacity to think about human behaviors in intentional terms without any developmental experiences in interacting socially with human beings—that is to say, whether or not it’s something “innate” to dog psychology resulting from dogs’ brain evolution coinciding significantly with our own—Udell went to an animal shelter and administered two pointing comprehension studies with a range of dogs that were collected from the streets and classified as strays. Obviously, if these strays performed as well on such tasks as the pet dogs from earlier studies, the innateness claim would be justified. But if not, then developmental experiences with humans—and probably very particular types of experience at that—were contributing to their performing above chance in those prior studies.
After a number of training trials to ensure that the subjects understood the basic task demands, the experimenter pointed to one of two cans and then gave the dog the opportunity to respond to this helpful gesture. A “correct” response to the pointing gesture was operationalized as the dog touching or coming within 10cm of the indicated can, and for doing so the animal received a coveted food reinforcer such as a jerky treat. To prevent the dog from simply using its nose to sniff out the reward, both cans were empty—rather, the experimenter simply dropped the food reward on top of the can whenever the subject chose correctly (i.e., selected the pointed-to can).
The most significant findings from Udell’s studies were these. Although the strays performed above chance when the experimenter was kneeling on the floor and the tip of the experimenter’s finger was rigidly held 10 cm from the target can, unlike the domestic dogs in prior studies these strays failed to respond correctly to the pointing gesture when such an obvious physical cue was removed. On pointing trials in which the experimenter’s finger was 50 cm from the closest edge of the target container at full extension and then her arm was retracted back to a neutral position before the subject was allowed to make a choice, the strays’ performance fell to chance levels. This distinction is critical for the debate over whether domestic dogs have some semblance of theory of mind, because in the first instance at least, dogs may be using a simple behavioral heuristic such as “pick-the-box-closest-to-the-hand” that does not require human-like social cognition in which they are inferring cooperative intent.
In a follow-up study, Udell found some evidence that strays who were afforded additional experience with humans in an exposure condition, which involved play, petting and free exploration of the target area, showed better performance on the pointing task, but still they were less impressive in their comprehension of human pointing than the pet dogs in previous studies. Although the authors acknowledge the limitations of this work (it cannot directly address the evolution of domestic dog social behavior), Udell and her colleagues argue that these findings reveal how: Evidence of differences in the behavior of populations within a subspecies of animals is important when attempting to draw comparative conclusions between species and subspecies of animals …"
Love is most important for shelter dogs more than stray's since longing for human compassion is more innate in them.
"I say this having worked at the Broward County Animal Shelter in South Florida the summer after I graduated from high school, where I saw scenes of dogs in distress that haunt me to this day. (Seriously, what kind of person would discard their happy pair of 12-year-old, sweet-faced golden retrievers because their new girlfriend doesn’t “like dogs”?) In fact, embarrassingly, I was fired from that job for spending too much time petting, playing with and otherwise comforting animals that were clearly suffering. True, I should probably have been doing something more productive and useful like cleaning cages or unloading food bags, but I couldn’t help it: the sight of a suffering dog makes me human—oddly, peculiarly, probably more so than the sight of another suffering human being. But I’ll save that curiosity for another post."
I found some solace from my poor employee behavior from this 2006 Physiology & Behavior study by Crista Coppola (coauthored by the autistic animal behavior scientist Temple Grandin). The authors point out that when dogs are housed in an animal shelter, they usually experience a severe form of psychological stress caused by exposure to novel or threatening surroundings, separation from attachment objects, unpredictability of external events, lack or loss of control over the environment, and so on. This stress activates their hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and pumps out explosive levels of cortisol, which is the major hormonal indicator of response to stress. Coppola and her colleagues found that, regardless of breed, age of dog and sex, those shelter dogs that received a pleasant “human interaction session” on Day 2 of their incarceration had significantly lower cortisol levels on Day 9—that is to say, the benefits of this simple pet and play session were found a week later, even without any subsequent interaction with human beings during the intervening days. Honestly, this finding brings tears to my eyes: simple human affection is that long-lasting and important for dogs. And Coppola and her coauthors rightly lament that it’s a pity that the vast majority of dog shelters have not instituted routine human interaction sessions with their new, stressed-out arrivals."
I going to India next month and looking at stray dogs when Max isn't around will be torture. It's one of the hardest thing to deal in life.
"Thus, to remedy this theoretical oversight and to address the issue of whether dogs simply inherit the cognitive capacity to think about human behaviors in intentional terms without any developmental experiences in interacting socially with human beings—that is to say, whether or not it’s something “innate” to dog psychology resulting from dogs’ brain evolution coinciding significantly with our own—Udell went to an animal shelter and administered two pointing comprehension studies with a range of dogs that were collected from the streets and classified as strays. Obviously, if these strays performed as well on such tasks as the pet dogs from earlier studies, the innateness claim would be justified. But if not, then developmental experiences with humans—and probably very particular types of experience at that—were contributing to their performing above chance in those prior studies.
After a number of training trials to ensure that the subjects understood the basic task demands, the experimenter pointed to one of two cans and then gave the dog the opportunity to respond to this helpful gesture. A “correct” response to the pointing gesture was operationalized as the dog touching or coming within 10cm of the indicated can, and for doing so the animal received a coveted food reinforcer such as a jerky treat. To prevent the dog from simply using its nose to sniff out the reward, both cans were empty—rather, the experimenter simply dropped the food reward on top of the can whenever the subject chose correctly (i.e., selected the pointed-to can).
The most significant findings from Udell’s studies were these. Although the strays performed above chance when the experimenter was kneeling on the floor and the tip of the experimenter’s finger was rigidly held 10 cm from the target can, unlike the domestic dogs in prior studies these strays failed to respond correctly to the pointing gesture when such an obvious physical cue was removed. On pointing trials in which the experimenter’s finger was 50 cm from the closest edge of the target container at full extension and then her arm was retracted back to a neutral position before the subject was allowed to make a choice, the strays’ performance fell to chance levels. This distinction is critical for the debate over whether domestic dogs have some semblance of theory of mind, because in the first instance at least, dogs may be using a simple behavioral heuristic such as “pick-the-box-closest-to-the-hand” that does not require human-like social cognition in which they are inferring cooperative intent.
In a follow-up study, Udell found some evidence that strays who were afforded additional experience with humans in an exposure condition, which involved play, petting and free exploration of the target area, showed better performance on the pointing task, but still they were less impressive in their comprehension of human pointing than the pet dogs in previous studies. Although the authors acknowledge the limitations of this work (it cannot directly address the evolution of domestic dog social behavior), Udell and her colleagues argue that these findings reveal how: Evidence of differences in the behavior of populations within a subspecies of animals is important when attempting to draw comparative conclusions between species and subspecies of animals …"
Love is most important for shelter dogs more than stray's since longing for human compassion is more innate in them.
"I say this having worked at the Broward County Animal Shelter in South Florida the summer after I graduated from high school, where I saw scenes of dogs in distress that haunt me to this day. (Seriously, what kind of person would discard their happy pair of 12-year-old, sweet-faced golden retrievers because their new girlfriend doesn’t “like dogs”?) In fact, embarrassingly, I was fired from that job for spending too much time petting, playing with and otherwise comforting animals that were clearly suffering. True, I should probably have been doing something more productive and useful like cleaning cages or unloading food bags, but I couldn’t help it: the sight of a suffering dog makes me human—oddly, peculiarly, probably more so than the sight of another suffering human being. But I’ll save that curiosity for another post."
I found some solace from my poor employee behavior from this 2006 Physiology & Behavior study by Crista Coppola (coauthored by the autistic animal behavior scientist Temple Grandin). The authors point out that when dogs are housed in an animal shelter, they usually experience a severe form of psychological stress caused by exposure to novel or threatening surroundings, separation from attachment objects, unpredictability of external events, lack or loss of control over the environment, and so on. This stress activates their hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and pumps out explosive levels of cortisol, which is the major hormonal indicator of response to stress. Coppola and her colleagues found that, regardless of breed, age of dog and sex, those shelter dogs that received a pleasant “human interaction session” on Day 2 of their incarceration had significantly lower cortisol levels on Day 9—that is to say, the benefits of this simple pet and play session were found a week later, even without any subsequent interaction with human beings during the intervening days. Honestly, this finding brings tears to my eyes: simple human affection is that long-lasting and important for dogs. And Coppola and her coauthors rightly lament that it’s a pity that the vast majority of dog shelters have not instituted routine human interaction sessions with their new, stressed-out arrivals."
I going to India next month and looking at stray dogs when Max isn't around will be torture. It's one of the hardest thing to deal in life.
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