Does Your Dog Understand You?

Courtesy of CLAS Publications, University of Florida

According to Men's Health magazine, 71% of American men believe their dogs understand them at some telepathic level.¹The Tonight Show's host, Jay Leno, suggested that this was because men and dogs share the same basic interests ("eat, sleep, play ball, and hump"). Recent research suggests psychological similarities between human and dog that might surprise even a comedian.

For years researchers have been looking to chimpanzees to find glimpses of human-like intelligence. The argument, reasonable enough on its face, was that genetic relatedness would predict psychological similarity. But what about Fido?

When stacked up against man's closest relatives, man's best friends perform remarkably well in tasks that gauge a comprehension of human commands and cues. A knack for vocabulary and an intense attentiveness to human action are the kinds of behaviors that look intelligent to people. But this is because they were selected, first ...