Interesting things I learned about the psychology of dogs.
What's so cool or important about knowing these things?
Well this is subjective of course but I love dogs and I had a pure interest into what makes my dogs do the things that they do. On top of that dogs are actually used for all sorts of different things and help us humans out more than we might know. Our friendly canine is more than just a pet, they help out the police, the military, hospitals, people with disabilities, and so much more! I bet most people don't know this but dogs can actually smell the difference between the breath of a person who has breast cancer and someone who does not. Many natural based doctors are now using dogs in this way because it is more accurate than the machinery that we are currently using and can be a much calmer experience.
This is why it is so important to learn all we can about canines, they are such a huge help to our world as companions to keep us happy, guards to protect us from dangers, and doing incredible work like sniffing out breast cancer or finding drugs.
So lets hop into this!
Interesting thing I learned about the psychology of dogs
- Dogs have dreams: This is something that I have always assumed to be true but as it turns out, it is true! When you see your dog having muscle spasms or making little whimpers in their sleep from a bad dream it's the same as what we as humans do during our rest. I don't know about you but I like the idea that my dogs and I can relate on this. Dogs also go through multiple stages of sleep like we do, how cool!
- Dogs talk: Now I don't think this is much of a surprise to anyone as most dogs seem to communicate to their owners in this way and we can teach them commands using our language. The thing that is so cool about this fact is that the way our dogs bark is an actual language and scientists are working on communicators! I can't wait for the day that this happens. My dogs are already a bunch of goof balls, I can only imagine the weird things that they are going to be saying.
- Dogs are very smart: They have an intelligence level of a two year old and according to the American Psychological Association, dogs can understand more than 150 words. Of course they do have things that separate them from a two year old but that's still pretty cool! According to Stanley Coren dogs can count up to 5 which isn't much less than me to be honest haha I'm very bad at math and the fact that they can count to five is very impressive to me.
- A Dogs tail can tell us a lot: Generally people think that a wagging tail is a good thing and although they're not wrong, this isn't entirely accurate. A right wagging tail means that the dog is relaxed or neutral. A left wagging tail means that the dog is stressed or anxious. If the tail is down low then the dog is in a fearful and submissive state, if the tail is high then it is suggesting dominance, and if the tail is in the middle then the dog is clam.
- Dogs have many human-like emotions: Most commonly a dog shows compassion as they are very loving creatures. Dogs also get very jealous and even grieve when they lose a member of the family. Dogs feel love, affection, shyness, suspicion, joy, anger, fear, disgust, contentment, distress, excitement, arousal, shame, pride, guilt, and more.
Thank you for reading over this article. I hope that the information I shared was as interesting for you as it was for me. There is so much more out there on the internet and they are discovering new tings all of the time. If you would like to read more about this here are the links to the pages I was reading from.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201709/in-the-minds-dogs
https://www.wholisticdogtraining.com/
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/animals-sleep-there-human-connection
