I remain skeptical that anything we know of has the ability to grok concepts as we humans do. I just got in from a roll in the snow and tug-of-war in the back yard with my Keeshound puppy, and while I have no doubt that dogs can recognize different categories of sounds, images, gestures, &c, I cannot conclude that that implies that dogs have anything like the sense of consciousness we humans have.

Dogs are better at smelling than us. Fish are better at swimming than us. Computers are better at adding than us. But nothing, nothing, I say, is better at being human than we humans are.

(Not that anyone was saying that, but I love tautologies ;-)

I thought Dances with Wolves was fantastic, even though I have never been a Costner fan. Great movie.

They do recognize. We used to take a video of wolves in the wild and throw it on just to watch our Samoyed's reaction. It was a clip of the wolf and her offspring. Our mutt had been spayed and I am certain that she knew something was amiss, Tiko,her name, would howl and circle the TV and then whine while the pups were whining.And not only once,but every time we did it,about once a week. Entertainment,yes.

Amoeba recognize things. Temperature. NaCl gradients.

Recognizing does not imply forming concepts.

Sorry to be a pain in the neck, but this doesn't hold together, Kate. The terminal sentence of your excerpt says, "These results show that the dogs were able to form a concept i.e. ‘dog’, although the experiment cannot tell us whether they recognized the dog pictures as actual dogs."

I think not. If the recognization of the picture of dog cannot be shown by the experiment to imply the recognition of the concept of actual dog, then the experiment tells us nothing about the ability of dogs to form concepts. Nada. Bupkus.

It has been proven that dogs are the only other life form on Earth that we know of, that employ deductive reasoning. I can explain how if anyone really wants to know.

Also, I bought a video for my cat that was birds and squirrels with sounds and the cat watched the screen intently and attacked it several times during the show.

Lastly, I have observed and loved dogs and cats all my life and I can tell you for certain that they have feelings. I would suspect that most animals do. For that reason alone, we should treat respectfully and with kindness. Even the ones we wind up eating. That may sound oxymoronic, but hey, this is planet earth.

Drop most humans off in the wilderness (sans gear) and they might survive a fortnight, given that they find water and the weather is mild. Let a coyote free in the city and he'll thrive. We humans are waaaaay too smug.
'Dogs' understand the concepts that THEY decide are useful; everything else is a distraction. I've lived with dogs all my life and have a tremendous respect for they're natural abilities and intelligence. The problem with pets is they lack challenges and grow lazy very quickly.
http://www.vidarena.com/grizzly-vs-tiger-video_18252_1_vidRzfYsIC8ufs.html#video1

My Lab Roxie watches more TV than I do. Animal Planet of course is her favorite. She will try to share her toys with the dogs that appear on screen ( I could never let her near an LCD screen) and will bark and growl at the cats, even lions and tigers. She has the music of several commercials memorized as she will run into the living room when she hears them played, all of which have dogs in them. It is quite entertaining at times. I have been privileged enough to have had the company of several dogs in my life, but none like this one.

A thought occurs to me. Sure, we can out kill any other animal...with a gun. How many people do you personally know that can actually make a hunting rifle from scratch? Or a computer? From scratch?
How many people do you personally know that can feed themselves and their family without money to buy food, seed, tools etc? Humbling isn't it?

Of course dogs and cats have feelings. Mammals do. Birds, not so much. Fish? I'm sorry, no. There's a difference between a brain and an enlarged ganglia. And paramecium are right out. Nevertheless, I remain to be convinced that any species other than humans form abstract taxonomical concepts. To me, the sticking point is the word concept.

Y'all may find the following interesting:

Monkeys unable to master grammar crucial to language

www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/01.22/01-monkey.html

Yea Verily I Say: Beware of Anthropomorphization

I think it wise not to confuse 'hard wiring' with inteligence. If you take an egg from a robin's nest and let the baby robin be raised by pigeons the robin when it is of age will build a robin's nest and not a pigeon's nest.

However dogs do have the inate ability to think and communicate in ways that surprise me. I had a small dog that my father taught to beg for food. One day I noticed the dog begging to be let outside. Somehow it figured out that the position of begging meant asking for something it wanted. Right now it needed to go outside and transferred the concept of asking for food to asking to be let outside.

I dog-sat a clever mongrel last year (a daschund-coyote mix, as far as I could tell: tiny legs & feet, camouflage-beige coat, huge teeth); she was very keen on nature programs and would watch them with surprising intensity. She also seemed to enjoy PBR bull-riding.

It's time for me to shut down for today, but before I cash in my chips, I should like to note that in my comments above I have so far failed to mention that I do think that the relationship between H. Sapiens Sapiens and Canis Familiaris is unique in terms of the relationships beween humans and any other species. Monkeys, elephants, dolphins, and cats don't pass that muster.

Many people have written at length exploring the nature and history of the closeness between man and dog. With or without those essays, I must say that I do think that the relationship is remarkable, whether or not it's conceptual.

I spent 7 years working in a wildlife rehab, where we also raised river otters. Whenever we brought one of the otters back from an educational showing, they would make a point of checking the locks on their cage doors- just in case we forgot to close them. On another occasion, one otter actually piled up flat rocks in order to reach an item he wanted that was out of climbing reach.

What I find interesting about articles like these is that they pick away at Ayn Rand's theory of concepts - specifically, that human beings are the only creatures able to form and use them - from a certain direction: it always seems to be "the theory encompasses animals too", and never "Rand read out part of the human race."

Those who think that Rand is some sort of elitist, take note: on the biology side, the criticisms assume that Rand was too inclusive, not the reverse.

My dog interacted with a tv set just once. As a pup (blue heeler/border coliie crss) he was in the house one day, walked over to the entertainment center, hoisted a rear leg and that was it. He'd sooner be outside fetching the frisbee anyway.

I have Brittany spaniels....the old one would sit in front of the TV and bark and growl when Chretien was doing a sound bite or speech and this new one howls like a banshee whenever Dion speaks....D'ya suppose if is less a matter grokking the situation as it is the dogs responding to the horrendous sounds made by the murdering of English vowels and consonants by these two francophonie orators?

I'm with vitruvius on this. Animals can readily select another organism from a background, and they can do it via all their various sensual capacities. I've seen cats/dogs extremely interested in TV animal shows.

So, 'selecting' an animal from a picture is natural; you can't state that such an act is also a conceptual act. The Viewing Dog didn't move on into the abstract concept, ie, the symbolic realm, and declare 'what I see is an example of 'dogness'. Or, 'what I see is an example of the Dog Species'.

The experiment wasn't geared to show conceptualization; just selecting a 'thing' against a background. It would have been more interesting to experiment with various animal pictures (dog, cat, elephant)...But even this experiment would not have been able to show conceptualization. Only humans have that capacity.

As Vitruvius warns, we must be careful of anthropomorphic conclusions.

For what it is worth,

I don't want to argue if it is intelligence or not but I know some animals just like humans are "gifted".

I have had many cats along the years, most of them were "regular" cats that did not do anything special but two were exceptionally "intelligent" or "gifted".

One cat I had a couple years ago - a male bob tail Tabby - understood many words or short prhases; when I would say "front door" he would go to the front door and the same with back door.
Yes he actually understood the difference.

When he came back all wet on rainy days I would tell him "stay" and he would remain still while I wiped his dirty paws.

and there was at least a dozen other things he understood.

He also had a strong reaction to tigers, lions and any kind of cats on tv.

When I was working outside around the house he would follow me like a dog.

I think the owner's own intelligence and attitude towards the pet play a role too.

Kate,

Can I ask why you did not like the movie Dances with Wolves?

"I think I can assure them with some confidence that they recognized the dog pictures as dogs."

Just as our puppy recognises the reflection in the mirror as a dog, looks behind the mirror and accepts that it is her reflection, not some other dog.

I have 2 German Shepherds. The older one doesn't seem to be able to see images on TV. She'll pay attention to the sound once in a while, if it's interesting to her, but that's it. Puppies in distress do it. The other, younger dog definitely watches. Dog Whisperer always gets her attention. Anyone with a dog could tell you, Of course they'd be interested in dogs!

Friend of USA.

I hear you and agree. My last two cats. Fred for 15 years, now in cat heaven. Smart in the extreme ... I won't bore you with details as you know what a gifted cat can do.

My present Cat Lucy, 7 yrs., couldn't carry Fred's brief case.

our dog (RIP Bart) would always notice the presence of another dog in a crowd. is it a concept or just a very distict horizontal shape in a vertical two legged background?

its the same method one uses hunting, detecting horizontal prey in a vertical background/foreground of trees.

incidentally he would also howl at the national anthem at on hockey night in canada, the canajun one not the yanks. I think that is the closest thing to concept ive seen in a dog.

Joe - can your dad teach my dog to STOP begging for food? Nobody taought her - well, except by idiotically indulging her, and she's way to good at it. Could you say no to this face?

http://www.katewerk.com/k9art.html (the Duck Toller)

Whenever we play a short home video on the TV or computer she reacts instantly to the sound of our voices on the clip - she looks at the screen, looks at me, looks back at the screen and seems very puzzles - she knows where that voice is supposed to come from and the computer isn't it. I don't know that this rises to the level of conceptual thinking - but I think you can go pretty far with a combination of good senses and good memory.

We aren't discussing full blown cognition but the ablity of dogs to abstract.
I know this experiment should work.
Train a dog so that when presented with an image of a circle and a square, if he/she picks the square a reward is presented. Eventually the dog will always pick the square as it associates the square with food. (Pavlov anyone?) Does this mean that the dog recognizes the concept of square or circle?
I don't beleive so.
Rather the animal is doing what it evolved to do. Adapt so that its behavior conforms to the reward stimuli.
This directly transfers to the image of dog. The animal gets rewards via the social interaction with other dogs (chance to mate etc). Is it any wonder that they react strongly to the image of a dog? If you want to provide evidence of minor cognition in animals you should not contaminate the experiment like this.
I love dogs and cats BTW.

The test for deductive reasoning was as follows.

Four items such as a ball, a slipper etc. all familiar to the dog were lined up.

When told to go bring a specific item by name to the owner, the dog promptly did so.

Then on of the items was replaced and it was unknown to the dog.

When told (by name) to bring that item to the owner, the dog looked at all items then selected the new unknown item and delivered it.

If that isn't deductive reasoning, I don't know what it. If it isn't A (known) B (known) or C (known), it must be D ... the logical conclusion.

This test was repeated successfully. Dogs can reason.

Oddly enough Leftists haven't evolved to this point yet, they just continue to beg, whine and bark. No logic or reason whatever.

Getting back to the movie, I can honestly say that there are few films I despise as much as Dancing With Wolves. The dishonesty of this movie would be breath taking if I didn't know Hollywood better. There isn't one white person in the film (save Costner) who isn't a murderer, thief or imbecile. As for the Sioux, according to Costner, even their shit smells like a rose. Someone please tell me why they have it in for the poor old Pawnee Indians. I mean, just what did they do to deserve being portrayed as the barberians in Mad Max - Road Warrior. I kept looking for the Pawnee Lord Humongous. The army should have shot Kevin Costner instead of the wolf.

Don't know if it was the fact that our cat, Spike, was an outdoors guy but he was the sharpest cat I have ever seen. The indoor cats of our friends seem dumb and sedentary, maybe no stimulus. Spike was well named and we had him for 17 years. Should have worn a t-shirt with a cigarette pack rolled up in the arm. He would pound on our front wooden screen door to be let in, stalk down the hall, stop, look back at me as if to say, "Come on, you dolt, get the food!". He would follow me around like a little dog. Always walked up to the TV and stared at the birds.

Made all sorts of different sounds that I learned to recognize for things he wanted. He had me trained.

He got cancer this past February and rather than let him suffer the pain I held him in my arms as the vet put him to sleep. He steadily looked at me as the light slowly faded in his eyes. His passing was one of the hardest and most emotional things I have ever experienced. Loved the little guy and still miss him.

You are all missing the point:
Kate's dogs are Kevin Costner fans!

Dave,

I went through the exact same ordeal with my old cat Freddie. That was the toughest moment of my life too. I am getting a lump just telling you this. How they work their way so deeply into the heart is a mystery to me. The passing of humans I know have not affected me nearly as much including my own father's passing.

OK, I'm an occasional show dog breeder and, more relevantly, an artificial intelligence researcher.

'concept' is a loaded word here and unnecessary to explain what dogs do (which is quite sophisticated in its own right).

There is ample evidence from neuroscience that mammal visual systems are ordered in a hierarchy, the lower levels of which function associatively (via pattern matching) rather than cognitively (via concepts). Thus we first very rapidly acquire the outline of objects/animals which might be of life/death importance to us. That happens within milliseconds of the image coming in through the eye to the brain. If we aren't already running for the trees from a potential predator (humans) or chasing prey (my sighthounds) or tracking a falling bird (my spaniels), then our brains move on to extract detailed shape, color and texture from the visual patterns. From that we move to recognizing 3 dimensionality and spatial orientation and only at the end of the process do humans, for a small fraction of items in our visual field, attach words/concepts.

There is no evidence that dogs do that last step. In fact, they lack the forebrain structures used by us to generate and reason with concepts.

What they ARE admirably designed to do is to respond very rapidly to key visual outline cues, and of course to scent, for objects/animals of survival interest or for which they learn to associate importance (i.e. through training). Given the great social complexity of canid pack life, it's not surprising that they can recognize and respond quickly to outline cues for a variety of breeds of dogs/wolves shown in a variety of postures against various backgrounds. Moreover, many dogs become quite adept at generalized learning - i.e. using operant conditioning ('clicker training') after a while they can extend a pattern of desired behavior to new settings.

But that is a far cry from having and using concepts. In AI software, we would model dog vision and response with an artificial neural network rather than with a reasoning program.

People tend to underestimate the intelligence of dogs, because canine intelligence is socially directed. That's why "intelligent" human beings are often easily manipulated by their dogs - the dogs put a lot of effort into figuring out their humans. If a human being wants to go for a drive, the human first figures out how to drive a car. The dog figures out how to motivate the human to "want" to drive the car, with dog, where the dog wants to go.

Perhaps the most fascinating behaviour which dogs+humans exhibit is herding cows and sheep. Humans can't, very well, by themselves, and dogs don't, very much, in their hunting packs, and then not benignly. I still remember as a child seeing farmer and dog come in after a hard day's work with their animals. Obviously both dog and farmer were very much of a mind about things; both were tired and hungry, both had a certain sense of accomplishment about their work.

No doubt - my spaniels with a bird in mouth or my sighthounds at the lure course definitely feel those things.

But IMO it's worth exercising a bit of care when using words like 'intelligence' about dogs. They clearly can learn, remember and strategize in various ways, and sometimes generalize from one situation to a closely related new situation.

All too often, however, I hear dog owners anthropomorphizing dog behavior, imputing motives that just aren't there for dogs - and then acting in counterproductive ways with their beloved animals.

(And yes, my dogs have me well trained, especially my spaniel foundation bitch who has street smarts like crazy. LOL)

I might add that because a dog's world is so much a world of odour, dogs must think that we are pretty clueless. To us, a fire hydrant is a rather ungainly chunk of painted cast iron. To a dog, it is a novel or a docudrama. We just don't get it.

Dogs are stupid animals. They also smell and are a general nuisance to have around. Dog owners generally will dispute this as they have similar traits. Dog owners also like to claim how smart dogs are, you will often find them making the same claims about themselves.

Regards,

Fluffy

Now if we could get leftoids to show cognitive skills...

As to the level of animal thinking vs instinctive behavior, I am not as sceptical at ET & Vit. Studies abound that show that many creatures have a thought process and some level of deductive reasoning (more than some humans as of late). Watch enough Animal Planet or live around critters enough and you realize there is more going on between those floppy ears than you figured. Is the thought process and self awareness the same as humans, probably not but who knows for sure. I remember back in the dim times this first year university professor had us reading some 19th century dude who thought that he was real and everything else was his imagination. Talk about being a mind bender for a bunch of engineering students.

Just to clarify the topic here, in my own mind, I checked the def. of 'conceptualize'. Talk about your nebulous definitions!
Too many folks here have taken the fat, lazy, underworked, domestic pet as their model. Give your head a shake people, look at the urbanized coyote for your example. They're so damn smart and wily, I defy you to catch one, or to prevent one from nailing 'Fluffy', unless you lock Fluffy in the house and NEVER let her out. There's a reason their population is growing, and it ain't due to lack of conceptulization.

"Dogs are stupid animals."

Theyire smart enought to have been a successful species that is older then yours...monkey boy

Signed
"Checkers"

PS most people that say dogs stink are actually just getting the waft from their own bad breath.

Bart (RIP) could rationalize,
asked what was the outer layer of a tree he would say "Bark"
what was the texture "Ruff"
what keeps water out of the doghouse "Ruff"
what do you think of liberals in government , he would roll in cow$hit
and singing the national anthem , well I already mentioned that.

my dog figured out how to open the fridge. And then there's that look, 'hey why are you eating a steak and I only get dry dog food"?

ANIMALS CONCEPTULIZE, never, that would diminish the inllectual superiority of the poor humnas, and we couldn't have that now could wee!!!!!

had a cat that would watch TV, as the race cars came around the track, they were on schedule to come out of the side of the TV, and the cat couldn't figure out why they didn't:-)))))

my jackass russeler, well now, lets see, second day I had him, he walked over to were I had hung his leash and pointed to it with his nose, needed to go for a pee walk. Ever since I'v watched him, and he consistantly figures things out for himself. So I say, don't judge your animals on your own limitations of understanding concepts, it's not fair to rover!!!!!!!

...yeah, but they'd never ever be as smart as a cat.

My German Shepard/Collie was so stund it could drown in a rain storm from looking up with it's mouth open...

I never saw DANCES WITH WOLVES too damn PC too damn liberal just what you can expect from the hollyweird bunch