Exactly What’s Going on in Your Dogs Brain?

In a humans day, almost every waking moment is filled with a non-stop deluge of thoughts. In the moment decisions, thoughts of the past, the future, things you want, things you need, pleasant memories, things you would change, daily chores, thoughts that keep popping up without warning… it’s a whirlwind of ever changing ideas, reasoning, complex problem solving, and all along the voice inside your head (your conscious and sub-conscious being) is challenging you to consider if you’re good enough, smart enough, making a right choice, wrong choice, or just procrastinating. The inside of most peoples heads is like a non-stop roller-coaster ride that is resting on top of a steep hill, ready for the high speed drop.

When you take a moment to look at your dog, stare into their devoted and loving eyes… what do you see? Is there anyone in there, or is the space behind their eyes an empty apartment… a star-ship on autopilot. Exactly what is going on in their mind? Do they have a “mind” that is anything like a humans? What is their capability to reason, make decisions? How long is there memory, how far back do they recall, do they have a “voice in their head”, how complex are the thoughts they might have? Today’s Dog Blog will examine what we think we know about the capabilities of a dog’s brain.

Comparing Your Brain to Your Dog’s Brain

Let’s start by stating the obvious, there is no human that has had a deep conversation with a dog to find out what really happens in their head. Aside from the sheer anatomic makeup that we know because, frankly, humans have examined what makes a dog tick… and how they are put together… everything we discuss is, for the most part, theory. Until they make a “Dog to Human Translator” there will always be a shadow of mystery in the actual way a dogs mind works, if different dogs think differently, and how deep their thought process is connected to scent, sight, sound, and experience.

What we do know is that a dogs brain is, for the most part, exactly like a humans with a few exceptions. A human’s brain is normally the size of two clinched fists… a dogs brain is about the size of a normal lemon, so it is proportionately smaller. Your larger brain will likely, almost immediately, agree because the dogs body size is so much smaller. However, even if you consider the size different in our bodies, the dogs brain is still smaller.  If a human adult was the size of an average dog, our brain would be larger in a side by side comparison.

Another huge difference to consider is the sizes of the different “sections” that make up the brain. In humans the “Frontal Lobes” are the larges pieces of the brain. The frontal lobes are key to problem-solving, memory and remembering, language, judgment, impulse control, and much more. In a dog, the front lobes take up much less of the total brain real-estate. In percentages, roughly 33% of a humans brain is frontal lobe, in a dog, that number is only 10%.

Think for a moment about the important parts of what makes a human a human and then take away over 20% of those functions. The smaller frontal lobe capabilities would explain why dogs haven’t developed an actual complex “language”, why they have conceptual issues understanding time lapse (like believing your being gone 5 minutes very similar to you being gone for 5 hours), why they can’t control themselves around an unattended sandwich, or why some dogs eat till they vomit. The lack of frontal lobe activity, along with the lack of thumbs, is why your dog doesn’t unhook themselves from their collar or why they don’t realize that their naked… not that they would care much if they had that realization. It’s not that your dog is dumb, its that the makeup of their brain does not support the needed functions to advance to a human level.

Dogs do have basic abilities in the frontal lobe area, which is why they learn tricks or are able to recognize people and places they’ve been before (although their advance sense of smell helps in this area). As dogs have interacted with humans over the course of history, they have developed the ability to “mimic” or learn basic human routines, it’s why they can be trained to do specific jobs. We’ve all seen videos of dogs doing yoga with their human Mom’s, or dogs that can open the refrigerator and get a beer for their sports loving Papa. We all know a dog that has figured out how to outsmart the pet gate, or knows that when you walk to the back door that chances are high they are going out with you.

The clearest example of the dog/human relationship advancing the canine frontal lobe is in the “recognition” center. How many times have you tossed a ball and they can’t find it… so you point at the ball and say “its over there”, and they head in that direction to find it. Time and recognition have taught the dog that you’re offering them help and a clue, so they feel confident that they should search the area you’ve indicated. This is the same recognition and learning skill that a baby uses and mentally advances using. Think about a Mother pointing and saying “flower”, eventually the baby will recognize the word and object as one thing. Your dog is doing the same, just on a different level of understanding. Studies have shown that dogs actually are much faster to learn and retain more than apes, who are considered the closest living relatives to humans.

Much like humans, as a dog ages their brain undergoes significant changes. It’s just doesn’t happen in the depth or scope of a human brain. A fully developed dog brain will never mature past the point of a human toddler (2 to 4 years old). Consider that when you’re training and/or correcting your dog. Don’t expect them to reason, think, or act, as a human adult would… they simply don’t have that capacity. Dogs learn control, learn commands, learn reasoning, but a great deal of it is to please or mimic their owners.

The smelling factor (olfactory section of the brain) works with the dogs advanced nose to map everything they sniff. It’s cataloged in a “scent library” in the brain and is available for almost instant recall. It’s why your dog can recognize dogs who are his friends, why they seem to intuitively know their way down a path they’ve walked before, and why Police use dogs to help find lost or missing people. Once cataloged, a dog will have near total recall of that smell and what it’s attached to. It’s why a dog will chase a skunk… once… but not normally after the first time. It’s why your fur kids know Grandma once they get close to her, even if they haven’t seen Grandma in years. The dogs nose helps to make up for the frontal lobe deficiency in key areas that dogs need.

How a Dog’s Brain Likely Works

Based on the makeup of the brain, the responses of dogs, and what we know about how a dog is put together, scientists have made the following deductions on how a dog thinks.  Consider that a dog doesn’t have a fluid language, instead the dog language is mostly pitch, tone, and intensity. The tone and sound of a bark can be decoded to mean many things, but there is nothing to drill down to the exact meaning of the bark. In a human brain, the vast majority of us have a non-stop inner monologue that helps us reason, problem solve, gives warnings, helps us to remember, and build a reliable structure in the way we think. The conventional theory is that your dog doesn’t have an “inner monologue” going, or at least there is no talking and reasoning doggy voice in their brain that is guiding them.

A lot of pet parents have a conventional theory that dogs see human words and language as we speak, like a map or dictionary. After all, a dog can learn up to 2000 human words and phrases… so wouldn’t it make sense that they are comparing the words to experiences and responses? With the smaller frontal lobe, its unlikely they are reasoning or connecting words to memories.  Scientists believe that a dogs thought are more “sensory” driven. Sight, smells, sound could help make connections and create some sort of images they seen in their subconscious as they think. It’s hard to grasp what that ability would be like, and what losing inner monologue would be like.

What Does My Dog Thinking About?

Considering they sleep most of the day, a dogs waking hours are likely spent thinking about eating, drinking, using the bathroom, and playing. Watch your dog closely and you’ll realize that they are living in the moment… the individual moment in time in which they are living. If they smell or see food, if they hear a can opener or a microwave… they react. If they see a toy… they decide if they want to play. If nature calls them… they need to relieve that urge. Conversely, if they see their favorite people… they want to interact with them, please them, relate to them, be loved by them. Imagine the freedom you would feel if you didn’t have bills, work, the yard, the family, planning, and responsibility (that is all driven by that voice in your head) pulling at you every waking moment of the day.  When is the last time you allowed yourself to “live in the moment” free of other thoughts?  A dog has no long term reasoning, they don’t worry about a fire in the house… until there is a fire in the house. They don’t worry about the roof over their head… it’s always there. They live in a world where nothing is a big deal… until its a big deal… and then they react (as human toddler would react).

What does a Dog Think About When they are Alone?

Most dog hate to be alone or without the companionship of their families. In fact, being alone often drives a confusion, loneliness, and panic. Some dogs feel as if they have been abandoned and they become inconsolable, destructive, and unintentionally self harming. Luckily, most dogs simply live in the moment and take a nap while you’re gone.  We all believe our dogs are thinking about us the entire time we’re gone. However, there is ZERO evidence to support this theory. Dogs have no concept of time. So, to believe they are pining away for their owners when a minute and an hour are conceptually the same just doesn’t seem to be founded in any logic. Your dog would prefer to have items that smell like their owners to be available to then, as their brain is dominated by sensor responses. Having things that remind them of the people they love helps them to relax.

Studies show that leaving a TV on in the room your dog sleeps in while your gone will provide them several layers of sensory satisfaction. Most dogs enjoy the noise, are attracted to the changing colors and scenes, and recognize the different tones of human voices. Dogs, for the most part, also like music because of the tones and voices.

How Do I Know What my Dog is Thinking About?

The short answer is, you can’t. However, you can start to understand how your dog thinks by watching their body language and reactions to things that happen around and to them. Look for sensory triggers, such as how long they smell something, the position of their ears, the moment of their eyes. They are very apparent in their physicality. If a dog goes into the kitchen and sniffs around their empty dog bowl… they are likely hungry. If a dog sees a child and runs to hide… they likely don’t like that child, or children in general. If a dog stands at the back door… they probably want to go outside for one reason or another. If your dog rubs up against your hand, brings you a ball, jumps up in your lap, or licks your fact… they want to spend some time with you. Dogs love those they love… looks, status, race, or other key triggers that cause people to choose friends and mates do not apply. In a dogs mind, they are in a pack, and their pack is the people they love the most.

Do Dog Recognize themselves in a Mirror?

The jury is still out on this question, but the answer is “likely not”. Dogs simply do not have the cogitative power to distinguish that imagine in the mirror as themselves. When a dog does react to the “other dog in the mirror” chances are that they are reacting to the smells on the mirror that they have left when they rubbed against it, licked it, or put their nose on it. They may also be reacting to the motion of the “dog in the mirror” as part of a sense of sight reflex. This is why some dogs will attempt to find whatever is causing the motion in the mirror by looking behind it, or in other rooms. Keep in mind that there is no inner monologue happening… nobody in their head saying “Hey, I know that guy… and it’s just me.”

So, what did we learn? Dog’s are smart, but not HUMAN type smart. Dogs can learn but they don’t learn and retain like humans. Dogs live life “in the moment” and when they do recall, it’s by connection to a highly advanced array of senses. But… DO DOGS THINK? Not like humans think, not even close. However, dog do love, care, and feel. They do those things at a level most humans lack. To be a dog is to be free of inhibitions and rules that run the human world. To be a dog is to not have a voice in your head guiding, judging, pushing you. To be a dog is to… well… be a dog. We should all be so lucky as to live a day, an hour, or a moment, as free and simple as your dog does.

We hope this blog was educational, informative and somewhat eye opening to our readers. Remember that we have nearly 2 years of Dog Blogs for your review and enjoyment. Feel free to visit our Web Home and search the archives for something that peaks your interest or answers a question you might have. You’ll find our blogs at www.freddiesplaceanimalhospital.com/FreddieSez

We’ll be back next week with another lesson from the world of pets. Until then, remember that DOGgust is nearly over, as we are racing towards Labor Day. Drop by Freddie’s Fun Place daily for a look at all things dog in our “DOGgust” special content… you might learn a thing or two.

Till we meet again, here’s hopes for licks from a fur face, happy times at your place, a moment with your dog and a game of chase, that you wake up every morning from your dogs embrace… and that you always take the time to Pet Friendly, #FreddieSez!

Research From:

www.greatpetcare.com

www.akc.com

www.cuteness.com

www.thewildest.com