Animal Lovers

At the beginning of the year, I asked the undergrads in my Animal Behavior class what they hoped to learn this semester. We discussed that Animal Behavior would cover the hows and whys of the entire animal kingdom, but they returned to their real question: "Sure, the bee waggle dance sounds cool, but does my dog love me?" I'm no stranger to this question, and probably neither are you. When it comes to dog love, two camps emerge: those who pose the question, and those wondering why anyone would bother asking the most obvious question on the planet. "Of course dogs love us!" scream the commenters in any article discussing dog love. Today is Valentine's Day. Hallmark holiday or no, today is the day we exchange heart-shaped objects at an excessive rate and discuss matters of the heart. If there's any day where it's okay to talk about dog love, today is that day. Do dogs love us, and how would we know? Looking at you Dog love is all the rage ...

Have you ever played the cruel but amusing game with your dog where you hide their favorite toy beneath an opaque container? Come on. You can admit it. It’s basically just playing “peekaboo” with your pup. Some dogs instantly catch on and attempt to retrieve their toy while others stare in baffled amazement or give up and walk away. Your pup’s reaction to this simple test may be an indication of their intelligence or their level of dependence on you.  “Object permanence” is a fancy science term describing the ability to understand that an object still exists eve if it can’t be observed (seen, touched, smelled, heard). Studies have proven that dogs are fairly proficient at object permanence. They perform at a lower level than humans, primates, crows and magpies, but a higher level than wolves or cats. So the question is, does object permanence truly measure cognitive ability, or is it just another skill developed in different species as needed for survival? A Hungarian re...