Inside Of A Dog Part 13

Psychologists report that those people with the most prodigious memories-able to flawlessly recite a string of hundreds of random numbers read to them once, as well as identifying every moment the reader blinked, swallowed, or scratched his head-are sometimes the most tortured by what they recall. The complement of remembering so thoroughly can be the strange inability to forget anything at all. Every event, every detail, piles on the garbage heaps that are their memories.

The overflowing garbage, collector of the day's past, is more than a little evocative when considering the memory of a dog. For if anything is on the dog's mind, it is that wonderful, odoriferous pile that we teasingly preserve in our kitchens, off-limits to the dog as a special form of torture. In that pile go the leavings of so many dinners, the extra-rank cheese that was discovered in the back of the fridge, clothes that have smelled too much for too long to be worn. Everything goes there but nothing is organized.

Is the dog's memory like this? At some level, it just might be. There is clear evidence that dogs remember. Your dog plainly recognizes you on your return home. Every owner knows that their dog won't forget where that favored toy was left, or what time dinner is supposed to be delivered. He can forge a shortcut en route to the park; remember the good peeing posts and quiet squatting sites; identify dog friends and foes at a glance and a sniff.

However, the reason we even pose the question "Do dogs remember?" is that there is more to our memory than keeping track of valued items, familiar faces, and places we've been. There is a personal thread running through our memories: the felt experience of one's own past, tinged with the antic.i.p.ation of one's own future. So the question becomes whether the dog has a subjective experience of his own memories in the way that we do-whether he thinks about the events of his life reflexively, as his his events in events in his his life. life.

Though usually skeptical and reserved in their p.r.o.nouncements, scientists often implicitly act as though dogs have memories just like ours. Dogs have long been used as models for the study of the human brain. Some of what we know about the diminis.h.i.+ng of memory with age comes from tests on the diminishment of the beagle's memory with age. Dogs have a short-term, "working" memory that is a.s.sumed to function just as the psychology primers teach that human memory works. Which is to say: At any moment, we are more likely to remember just those things that we bring a "spotlight" of attention to. Not everything that is happening will be remembered. Only those things that we repeat and rehea.r.s.e for later recollection will get stored as longer-term memories. And if a lot is happening at once, we're bound to remember only some of it-the first and last things sticking best. The dog's memory works the same way.

There is a limitation to the sameness. Language marks the difference. One reason why as adults we don't have many-arguably any-true memories of life before our third birthdays is that we were not skilled language users at the time, able to frame, ponder, and store away our experiences. It might be the case that while we can have physical, bodily memories of events, people, even thoughts and moods, what we mean by "memories" is something facilitated only by the advent of linguistic competence. If that's the case, then dogs, like infants, don't have that kind of memory.

But dogs certainly remember a large amount: they remember their owners, their homes, the place they walk. They remember innumerable other dogs, they know about rain and snow after experiencing them once; they remember where to find a good smell and where to find a good stick. They know when we can't see what they are doing; they remember what made us mad last time they chewed it up; they know when they are allowed on the bed and when they are forbidden from it. They only know these things because they have learned them-and learning is just memory of a.s.sociations or events over time.

Back, then, to the matter of the autobiographical memory. In many ways, dogs act as if they think about their memories as the personal story of their life. They sometimes act as though they are thinking about their own future. Unless sick or asleep, there was usually nothing that could stop Pump from eating dog biscuits-and yet she often refrained when home alone, opting to wait for my return. Even when accompanied, dogs regularly hide bones and squirrel away other favored treats; a toy may be abandoned outside with seeming insouciance only to be beelined-for the next week. Their actions can often be traced to events of their own past. They remember and avoid ground that was rough underfoot, dogs who turned suddenly gruff, people who acted erratically or cruelly. And they evince familiarity with creatures and objects they encounter repeatedly. Besides their quick recognition of their new owners, young dogs come to know their owners' visitors over time. They play best, and with the least ceremony, with those dogs they have known the longest-as though they are stamped together. These longtime playmates need not use elaborate play signals with each other: they use their own shorthand, signals abbreviated into mere flashes, before fully engaging.

It is somewhat dispiriting to find that our knowledge about a dog's autobiographical sense has not advanced beyond Snoopy's affirmation half a century ago, "Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog." No experimental study has specifically tested the dog's considerations of his own past or future. But a few studies with other animals examine part of what might be considered their autobiographical consciousness. For instance, a test run on the Western scrub-jay, a bird that naturally caches food for later consumption, has shown what in humans would be called willpower. If I'm hankering for chocolate-chip cookies, and someone gives me a bag of chocolate-chip cookies, it is extremely unlikely that I would put them away until the next day. The jays were taught that when given a preferred food-their chocolate-chip cookie equivalent-they would not be given food on the subsequent morning. Despite what we can presume is a strong interest in eating the food straightaway, they saved some and consumed it the next day. And me, without my cookies.

We might ask whether dogs act similarly. If prevented from eating in the mornings, does your dog begin to stash food the night before? If so, that would be suggestive evidence that they can plan for the future. As we know from finding uneaten unidentifiables in refrigerated takeout containers, not all saved food is equally good over time. If your dog buries a bone in the dirt or in the corner of the couch each month for three months, does he remember which is the oldest, the foulest, and which is the freshest? Putting aside any overpowering odors emanating from your couch, it is not likely. If we consider the dog's environment, it is apparent that they simply do not need to use time in this way, as they, unlike scrub-jays, are provided with a regular supply of food. In addition, discriminating food by its expiration date, or saving food for later when you're hungry now, may be a difficult task for an animal descended from opportunistic feeders, who eat as much as they can when food is available, then endure long stretches of fasting when food is not. Some suggest, reasonably, that dogs' bone-burying behavior is tied to an ancestral urge to stash some food aside for the lean times.* Evidence that a dog can distinguish the freshest bone from the one that has rotted-or leaves some aside just to enjoy it later-would bear this out. It is more likely that most of the time dogs are not thinking about time when they are thinking about food. A bone is a bone is a bone, buried or in the mouth.

On the other hand, a dearth of evidence verifying dogs' time-telling with bones does not mean that dogs do not distinguish past from present from future. When encountering a dog who had once-but only once-been aggressive, a dog will first be wary and gradually, with time, grow more emboldened. And dogs certainly antic.i.p.ate what is in their near future: with growing excitement on beginning the walk that leads to the dog food store; or anxiety at the car ride that suggests a visit to the veterinarian.

Some thinkers treat the dog as having no past: as enviably ahistorical, happy because they cannot remember. But it is clear that they are happy even despite remembering. We don't yet know if there is an "I" there behind the dog's eyes-a sense of self, of being a dog. Perhaps there need only be a continuous teller for the autobiography to be written. In that case, they are writing it right now in front of you.

Good dog (About right and wrong)

When Pump was a young dog, a common scene in our household went like this: I turn my back or go into another room. Milliseconds later, Pumpernickel has her nose at the kitchen trash can, peering in for good bits. If I return and catch her in this vulnerable spot, she immediately pulls her nose out of the can, her ears and tail drop, and she wags excitedly, slinking away. Caught.

When researchers asked a sample of dog owners what kinds of things dogs know or understand about our world, the owners most frequently claimed that dogs know when they have done something wrong: that dogs have knowledge of a kind of category of things one must never, ever do. things one must never, ever do. These days that category includes things like tearing into the garbage, devouring footwear, and s.n.a.t.c.hing just-cooked food off the kitchen counter. The punishment in our enlightened age is, one hopes, not terribly severe: a stern word; a frown and a stamped foot. It was not always so: in the Middle Ages and earlier, dogs and other animals were brutally punished for misdeeds, from the "progressive mutilation" of the ears, feet, and on to the tail of a dog in correspondence with the number of people he had bitten, to the capital punishment, after legal trial and conviction, of a dog for homicide;* to earlier, in Rome, the ritual crucifixion of a dog on every anniversary of the evening the Gauls attacked the capital and a dog failed to warn of their approach. These days that category includes things like tearing into the garbage, devouring footwear, and s.n.a.t.c.hing just-cooked food off the kitchen counter. The punishment in our enlightened age is, one hopes, not terribly severe: a stern word; a frown and a stamped foot. It was not always so: in the Middle Ages and earlier, dogs and other animals were brutally punished for misdeeds, from the "progressive mutilation" of the ears, feet, and on to the tail of a dog in correspondence with the number of people he had bitten, to the capital punishment, after legal trial and conviction, of a dog for homicide;* to earlier, in Rome, the ritual crucifixion of a dog on every anniversary of the evening the Gauls attacked the capital and a dog failed to warn of their approach.

The guilty look of a dog responsible for lesser trespa.s.ses is well-known to anyone who has caught a dog in Pump's pose, with her snout deeply plunged in the trash can, or discovered with bits of stuffing in his mouth and surrounded by tufts of what had until recently been the innards of the couch. Ears pulled back and pressed down against the head, tail wagging in quick time and tucked between the legs, and trying to sneak out of the room, the dog gives every appearance of realizing that he's been caught red-pawed.

The empirical question this raises is not whether this guilty look reliably occurs in such settings: it does. Instead, the question is what it is, exactly, about those settings that prompts the look. It may in fact be guilt-or it may be something else: the excitement of sniffing the trash, a reaction to being discovered, or antic.i.p.ation of the unhappy, loud noises her owner tends to make when encountering trash out of its can.

Can dogs know right from wrong? Do they know that this particular action this particular action is clearly, maddeningly, wrong? A few years back, a Doberman employed to guard an expensive teddy bear collection (including Elvis Presley's favorite bear) was discovered in the morning with the devastation of hundreds of maimed, mauled, and beheaded teddies around him. His look, captured in news photos, was not of a dog who thought he had done wrong. is clearly, maddeningly, wrong? A few years back, a Doberman employed to guard an expensive teddy bear collection (including Elvis Presley's favorite bear) was discovered in the morning with the devastation of hundreds of maimed, mauled, and beheaded teddies around him. His look, captured in news photos, was not of a dog who thought he had done wrong.

It would seem to defy reason if the mechanism behind the guilty or the defiant look were the same as ours. After all, right and wrong are concepts that we humans have by virtue of being raised in a culture that has defined such things. Excepting young children and psychotics, every person winds up knowing right from wrong. We grow up in a world of oughts and oughtn'ts, learning some rules for conduct explicitly and others by a kind of observational osmosis.

But consider how we know that other people know right from wrong when they cannot tell us so. A two-year-old sidles up to a table, gropes toward an expensive vase, and knocks it over, shattering it. Does the child know that it is wrong to break things that belong to other people? This might be an occasion on which, given the probable explosive reaction from any adults in the vicinity, she begins to learn. But at age two, she does not yet understand the concepts: she did not maliciously destroy the vase. Instead, she is an ordinary two-year-old who is clumsily trying to master moving her own body. We get an indication of her intent by watching what she did before and after the vase fell. Did she head directly for the vase and act to push it over? Or was she reaching for the vase and was uncoordinated in doing so? After it fell, did she evince surprise? Or did she look, well, satisfied?

Essentially the same method can be applied to dogs by allowing them to break expensive vases and watching how they react. I designed an experiment to determine if those guilty looks come from being guilty or from one of the something-elses. Though my method is experimental, the setting is ordinary, so as to best capture the animals' natural behavior: in the "wild" of their own homes. To qualify for subjecthood, dogs had to have been exposed to an owner's disallowance-for instance, by the owner pointing at an object to be left alone and loudly stating No!-and must know to therefore leave it be. No!-and must know to therefore leave it be.

In the place of expensive vases, I use highly desirable treats-a bit of a biscuit, a cube of cheese-that will not be shattered, but will be expressly forbidden. Given that the claim being tested is that a dog knows that engaging in a behavior that has been disallowed by the owner is wrong, I designed this experiment to provide an opportunity to do that very behavior. In this case, the owner is asked to bring the dog's attention to the treat and then clearly tell the dog not to eat it. The treat is placed in an enticingly available spot. Then the owner leaves the room.

Remaining in the room are the dog, the treat, and a quietly observing video camera. Here's the dog's chance to do the wrong thing. What the dogs do is only the beginning of the data for our experiment. In most cases we a.s.sume that if given the opportunity, the dog's first move is to get the treat. We wait until he does. Then the owner returns. Here is the crucial data: How does the dog behave?

Every psychological and biological experiment is designed to control one or more variables, while leaving the rest of the world unchanged. A variable can be anything: ingestion of a drug, exposure to a sound, presentation with a set of words. The idea is simply that if this variable is important, the subject's behavior will be changed when exposed to it. In my experiment, there are two variables: whether the dog eats the treat (the one owners are most interested in) and whether the owner knows whether the dog has eaten it (the one I guessed the dogs are most interested in). Over a handful of trials, I alternate these variables one at a time. First the opportunity to eat the treat is varied: either removing the treat after the owner leaves, providing the dog the treat, or letting the dog stew over it (and eventually disobey). What we tell the owner of the dog's behavior is also varied: in one trial the dog eats the treat, and the owner is informed on return to the room; in another, the dog is surrept.i.tiously given the treat by the videographer, and the owner is misled into thinking that the dog has obeyed the command not to eat.

All the dogs survive the experiment looking well fed and a little bewildered. In many of the trials, the dogs could be models for the guilty look: they lower their gaze, press their ears back, slump their body, and shyly avert their head. Numerous tails beat a rapid rhythm low between their legs. Some raise a paw in appeas.e.m.e.nt or flick their tongue out nervously. But these guilt-related behaviors did not occur more often in the trials when the dogs had disobeyed than in those when they had obeyed. Instead there were more guilty looks in the trials when the owner scolded the dog, whether the dog had disobeyed or not. Being scolded despite resisting the disallowed treat led to an extra-guilty look.

This indicates that the dog has a.s.sociated the owner, not the act, with an imminent reprimand. What's happening here? The dog is antic.i.p.ating punishment around certain objects or when seeing the subtle cues from the owner that indicate he may be angry. As we know, dogs readily learn to notice a.s.sociations between events. If the appearance of food follows the opening of the large cold box in the kitchen, why, the dog will be alert to the opening of that box. These a.s.sociations can be forged with events of their making as well as those they observe. Much of what is learned is based, deep down, on making a.s.sociations: whining is followed by attention, so the dog learns to whine for attention; scratching at the trash can causes it to tip and spill its contents, so the dog learns to scratch to get what's inside. And making certain kinds of messes is sometimes followed much later by the presence of the owner, which is itself quickly followed by the reddening of the owner's face, loud verbiage coming out of the owner, and punishment by that reddened loud owner. The key here is that the mere appearance of the owner around what looks like evidence of destruction can be enough to convince the dog that punishment is imminent. The owner's arrival is much more closely linked to punishment than the garbage emptying the dog engaged in hours earlier. And if that's the case, most dogs will a.s.sume a submissive posture on seeing their owners-the cla.s.sic guilty look.

In this case, a claim about the dog's knowledge of his misdeed is importantly off the mark. The dog may not think of the behavior as bad. bad. The guilty look is very similar to the look of fear and to submissive behaviors. It is no surprise, then, to find so many dog owners who are frustrated with attempts to punish a dog for bad behavior. What the dog clearly knows is to antic.i.p.ate punishment when the owner appears wearing a look of displeasure. What the dog does not know is that he is guilty. He just knows to look out for you. The guilty look is very similar to the look of fear and to submissive behaviors. It is no surprise, then, to find so many dog owners who are frustrated with attempts to punish a dog for bad behavior. What the dog clearly knows is to antic.i.p.ate punishment when the owner appears wearing a look of displeasure. What the dog does not know is that he is guilty. He just knows to look out for you.

A lack of guilt does not mean dogs do nothing wrong. They not only do plenty of human-defined wrong things, they sometimes seem to flaunt these things: a half-chewed shoe is paraded in front of a busy owner; you are greeted by a dog merrily exhausted from rolling in defecation. The teddy-bear guard dog looked nothing if not proud when photographed surrounded by the teddy-bear remains. Dogs do seem to play with the fact of our knowing and not knowing something-to get attention (which it generally does) and perhaps just for the sake of playing with knowledge. This is not unlike a child testing the limits of his understanding of the physical world by sitting on his high chair, dropping a cup to the floor ... and again ... and again: he is seeing what happens. Dogs do this with different states of attention, knowledge, or alertness of their owners. In this way they come to learn more about what we know, which they can then use to their advantage.

In particular, dogs are quite capable of concealing behavior, acting to deflect attention from their true motives. Given what we know about their understanding of mind, it is entirely within their reach to deceive. And given that it is a rudimentary understanding, their deception is not always very good. This too is childlike, as in the two-year-old child who puts his hands over his eyes to "hide" from a parent: partway to hiding, but not quite getting the essence of "hidden." Dogs show both imaginative insights and inadequacies. They do not work to hide the spoils of an overturned trash can or a messy roll in the gra.s.s. But they do act in ways to conceal their true intent. To stretch forward idly next to a dog playing with a treasured toy-only to get close enough to s.n.a.t.c.h it. To shriek overly dramatically when bitten in play, thereby ending a momentary disadvantage as the playmate stops in shock. These behaviors may begin fortuitously, with accidental actions that turn out to yield happy consequences. Once noticed, they will be produced again and again. It only remains now for an experimenter to provide an opportunity for dogs to intentionally deceive one another-unless they are too clever to let their scheming be revealed.

A dog's age (About emergencies and death)

With age she uses her eyes less; she looks at me less.

With age she would rather stand than walk, lie than stand-and so she lies next to me outside with her head between her legs, nose still alert to the smells on the breeze.

With age she has become more stubborn, insisting on hoisting herself up stairs without help.

With age the difference is amplified between her day mood-reluctant to walk, extra-sniffy-and her evening mood-pulling me out the door, a spring in her step, willing to forsake smells for a jaunty tour around the block.

With age I have been given a gift: the details of Pump's existence have become even more alive. I started seeing the geography of smells she checks up on in the neighborhood; I feel how long are the periods she waits for me; I hear the way she speaks volumes by simply standing; I see her efforts to cooperate when I goad her to trot across the street.

Every dog that you name and bring home will also die. This inescapable, dreadful fact is part of our lot for introducing dogs into our lives. What is less certain is whether our dogs themselves have any inkling of their own mortality. I inspect Pump for any sign that she notices the age of her sniffmates on the sidewalks; notes the disappearance of the old droopy-eared fella with the cloudy eyes from down the block; observes her own slowed and stiff gait, graying fur, and lethargic mood.

It is our grasp of the fragility of our own existence that makes us wary of risky undertakings, cautious for ourselves and those we love. Our mortal knowledge may not be visible in all of our moves, but it s.h.i.+nes through in some: we shrink back from the balcony's edge, from the animal with unknown intent; we buckle up for safety; we look both ways before crossing; we don't jump in the tiger cage; we refrain from the third serving of fried ice cream; we even entertain not swimming after eating. If dogs know about death, it might show in how they act.

I would prefer that dogs not know. On the one hand, when I have been confronted with a dying dog, I wanted to be able to explain to her her situation-as though an explanation would be a comfort. On the other, despite many owners' habit of giving explanations to their dogs for every command or event (come ON, I overhear regularly in the park, I overhear regularly in the park, we've got to go home so Mommy can get to work ... we've got to go home so Mommy can get to work ...), dogs do not seem comforted by explanations. A life untrammeled by knowledge of its end is an enviable life.

There are a few indications that we should not envy them much. One comes from their own balcony aversion: for the most part dogs reflexively withdraw from true danger, be it a high ledge, a rus.h.i.+ng river, or an animal with a predatory gleam in its eye. They act to avoid death.

But so does the lowly paramecium, beating a hasty retreat from predators and toxic substances. Avoidance behavior is instinctual, seen in some form in nearly all organisms. Instincts, from the knee jerk to an eye blink, do not require that the animal understands what it is doing. And we are not ready to grant the paramecium an understanding of death. But that reflex is not trivial: a more sophisticated understanding could be bootstrapped onto it.

And here are two ways dogs differ from the paramecium: First, they are not only avoidant of injury, they act differently once injured. They are aware of when they are damaged. Hurt or dying, dogs often make great efforts to move away from their families, canine or human, to settle down and perhaps die someplace safe.

Second, they are attentive to the dangers that others put themselves in. One need not wait long for a story of a heroic dog to pop up in the local news. A child lost in the mountains is kept alive by the warmth of dogs who stayed with him; a man who falls through the ice of a frozen lake is saved by the dog who came to him at the ice's edge; a dog's barking attracts a boy's parents before he can reach into the hole of a poisonous snake. Heroic dogs tales abound. My friend and colleague Marc Bekoff, a biologist who has studied animals for forty years, writes of a blind Labrador retriever named Norman who was roused to action by the screams of the family's children, caught in the current of a raging river: "Joey had managed to reach the sh.o.r.e, but his sister was struggling, making no headway, and in great distress. Norman jumped straight in and swam after Lisa. When he reached her, she grabbed his tail, and together they headed for safety."

The end result of all the dogs' actions is clear: someone was able to avert death for another day. Given that the dogs needed to overcome their own instinct of self-preservation to preserve another self, the usual interpretation is that the dogs are heroic, not inadvertent, actors. An understanding of the dire straits faced by the various humans might seem the only explanation.

But the trouble with anecdotes is that one does not have the full story of what happened, since the teller, with his own umwelt and particular perception, is necessarily restricted in what he sees. One could reasonably ask whether Norman did not as much intend to save Lisa as, say, follow her brother's instruction to swim out to her; or maybe Lisa herself was able to swim to sh.o.r.e on seeing her faithful companion near; or maybe the current s.h.i.+fted and carried her to sh.o.r.e. There is no videotape to rewind and examine to carefully consider what happened here-or in any of the rescues described. Nor do we know the long-term behavior of the dogs. It is one thing if a dog suddenly barks in order to alert others that a boy is imperiled; it is another if that dog is barking all the time, day and night. An understanding of the dogs' life histories is also important to correctly interpret what happened.

Finally, what of all the cases when a dog didn't didn't save the drowning child or the lost hiker. The newspaper headlines never crow, LOST WOMAN DIES AFTER DOG FAILS TO FIND AND DRAG HER TO SAFETY! If the heroic dogs are taken to represent the species, so should the non-heroes be given consideration. There are certainly more unreported non-heroic acts than there is reported heroism. save the drowning child or the lost hiker. The newspaper headlines never crow, LOST WOMAN DIES AFTER DOG FAILS TO FIND AND DRAG HER TO SAFETY! If the heroic dogs are taken to represent the species, so should the non-heroes be given consideration. There are certainly more unreported non-heroic acts than there is reported heroism.

Both the skeptical and the heroic talk can be displaced by a more powerful explanation, wrought by looking more closely at the dogs' behavior. Scrutiny of these dog stories reveals a recurring element: the dog came toward came toward his owner, or his owner, or stayed close stayed close to the person in distress. The warmth of a dog saves a lost, cold child; a man in a frozen lake can grab on to his dog waiting on the ice. In some cases the dog also created a ruckus: barking, running around, calling attention to himself-and to, say, the venomous snake. to the person in distress. The warmth of a dog saves a lost, cold child; a man in a frozen lake can grab on to his dog waiting on the ice. In some cases the dog also created a ruckus: barking, running around, calling attention to himself-and to, say, the venomous snake.

These elements-proximity to the owner, and attention-getting behavior-are by now familiar to us as characteristic of dogs, and go into their being such fine companions for humans.

And in these cases, they were also essential for the survival of the person whose life was at risk. So are the dogs truly heroes? They are. But did they know what they were doing? There is no evidence that they did. And they don't know they're acting heroically. Dogs certainly have the potential, with training, to be rescuers. Even the untrained dog may come to your aid-but without knowing exactly what to do. Their success is due instead to what they do do know: that something has happened to you, which makes them anxious. If they express that anxiety in a way that attracts other people-people with an understanding of emergencies-to the scene, or allows you leverage out of a hole in the ice, great. know: that something has happened to you, which makes them anxious. If they express that anxiety in a way that attracts other people-people with an understanding of emergencies-to the scene, or allows you leverage out of a hole in the ice, great.

This conclusion is affirmed by one clever experiment performed by psychologists interested in whether dogs show appropriate behavior when there is an emergency. In this test, owners conspired with the researchers to feign emergencies in the presence of their dogs, in order to see how their dogs responded. In one scenario, owners were trained to fake a heart attack, complete with gasping, a clutch of the chest, and a dramatic collapse. In the second scenario, owners yelped as a bookcase (made of particleboard) descended on them and seemed to pin them to the ground. In both cases, the owners' dogs were present, and the dogs had been introduced to a bystander nearby-perhaps a good person to inform if there has been an emergency.