Talking to your dog
Dog lovers the world over talk to their dogs, and now studies have found that they do understand what you say, and if you are sincere.
Dogs love genuine praise, and researchers in Hungary proved this by scanning dog’s brains. When praised sincerely the reward centres lit up, but nothing changed when the praise was given in a neutral tone.
My own brain cells lit up at this revelation. When walking, and throwing balls for my clan, it’s quite often Bodie, my Belgian Malinois, who races ahead and gets the ball. I react with well done, come here and let’s throw it again. He dutifully comes back with the ball and we repeat the exercise. When one of the others manage to outwit him and get the ball, I’m overjoyed and give rapturous praise. They leap in the air and are so proud as they race back to me with their catch. Since reading the article I’ve reacted in the same way to Bodie and now he bounces around with much more exuberance.
Back to the study. A positive tone and meaning the words you say activates the brain reward centre. Scanning the dogs found that, as with humans, the left side processed the meaningful words, while the right side could differentiate between tones. Combining these two elements ignites the reward centre.
Humans might have invented the words, but it seems that processing is not unique to man. Communication is not solely speech, it’s all about body language and it seems our four-legged friends can read us well.
The study used meaningful words such as ‘well done’ and ‘clever’ and tried them against words dogs wouldn’t know such as ‘yet’ and ‘however’ in neutral and praising tones to confirm the understanding.
The researchers noted that domestication could have been a contributing factor in a change of brain function, but concluded that such a change over a short space of time is unlikely and therefore suggest a brain function exists in dogs and humans which links sounds to meanings. Read more about the study here.
It would seem that when dog lovers proclaim that dogs understand, we are right. This could also account for the paw or head that lands on your knee to give comfort in times of need.
I talk to my dogs all the time, and I’m convinced their understanding goes a lot further than this study suggests.
What do you think? Do let me know by leaving a comment.
Happy chatting,
Pippa Pennington