You are absolutely right: your dog is a genius!

Well, maybe dogs can talk? Without a doubt, the authors of The Genius of the Dog assure. And not only among themselves (with the help of various nuances and shades of growling and barking), but also with us. By the way, one study showed that 55% of dog owners, when she barks, according to them, there is a distinct feeling that they “understand what exactly she is telling them.” And they are not mistaken. The conversation between dogs and humans is not at all one-sided and is much more complex than one might think. Dogs have a fairly large variety of vocal sounds with which they can express themselves. But to what extent are we able to understand what exactly they are telling us? The researchers asked a group of people to listen to recordings of dogs barking. Interestingly, most of them, regardless of whether they were the owners of the dog or not, recognized by barking whether the animal was alone or a stranger was approaching it, and whether the barking was associated with a desire to play or attack. So what, – most likely, the skeptical reader will say – this experiment does not confirm the presence of a special mind in its participants: neither in animals, nor in humans. Let’s not argue. But let us inform you that new studies have recently been carried out that show that there are many more subtle differences and shades in the barking of a dog than one might think. It turns out that dogs have very flexible vocal cords, they have an excellent vocal apparatus that can change the sound in a very wide range. They can make a wide variety of sounds, each of which has its own exact meaning, and also, perhaps, they can change their voice in such a way that their relatives will understand them, but for people the content of their voice message will be closed …

Perhaps such conclusions are somewhat hasty, but in any case, when scientists carefully analyzed the spectrograms of a dog’s barking, they became convinced that these graphic images of the signal spectrum can be very different, even if they compare the spectrograms of the same dog. Depending on the circumstances, barking can vary in rhythm, pitch and amplitude. Accordingly, its meanings also differ.

All breeds are equal

Another question that worries almost every dog ​​lover: which breed is the smartest? It should be answered carefully, immediately making an important clarification that excludes the slightest risk of dog discrimination: certain qualities can be developed in each breed. It would be nice to come to a consensus on what can be considered a breed – after all, when trying to give a clear definition, various “problems of a methodological nature” immediately arise: for example, in English-speaking countries alone, breeders’ clubs number from 170 to 210 breeds! One way or another, perhaps it is still possible to single out one (or several) most intelligent breed? Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods are ready to admit that some breeds have their own specific traits – for example, chow chows are inherently naughty, and pit bulls are prone to aggression. Nevertheless, the authors of the book on canine intelligence urge us to fight “the idea of ​​the superiority of one breed over another” and cite with approval the research of Kenth Svartberg (Kenth Svartberg) from Stockholm University and Bjorn Forman (Björn Forman) from the Royal Veterinary University of Denmark. Two Scandinavian scientists observed 15 dogs from 329 breeds and subjected their test subjects to an astonishing number of tests to get the dog’s reactions to a variety of situations, sometimes quite extreme. Let us give an example of such an experiment, allowing ourselves to leave its description without comment: two people, dressed in a ghost costume (white sheets and other accessories), are hiding in the forest. On their heads are plastic buckets with slits for the eyes. When they are about 164 meters from the dog and its owner, they step out so that they are noticed, and begin to approach “in the manner of ghosts.” You can imagine what is going on in the dog’s head at that moment…

And one more question that worries us in connection with our four-legged friends, and it belongs not so much to the field of science as to the field of feelings: can dogs and people love each other even more than we know? How exactly do people like dogs in different countries? And since when? Maybe somewhere they are loved too much, but somewhere not enough? As it turned out, there is both.

Yes, dogs are still eaten in China, but the Chinese are at the forefront of dog lovers. An old legend says that in the 1981th century BC, the Chinese emperor Wu had a dog, Ao, famous for being able to read people’s minds. Later, in the same place in China, a certain breed of huge fighting dogs, comparable in size to a bull, was honored with such reverence that people knelt at the sight of these dogs. In Britain during the reign of Elizabeth I, doctors advised women to hold their small lap dogs to their breasts to relieve stomach pain. Already in our time, in 23, an employee of Brooklyn College (New York) Erika Friedman conducted a study and found that among hospital patients hospitalized with a heart attack, dog owners were 1992% more likely to live for another year than those who don’t have dogs. In XNUMX, a study appeared confirming the positive effect of four-legged healers not only on the blood pressure of the owners, but also on the level of cholesterol in their blood, as well as triglycerides. As a result, the US National Institutes of Health issued the following recommendation: “Future research in the field of human health should take into account the presence or absence of a pet. Studies that do not take into account the presence of an animal with which a person lives together should not be considered reliable.