Human’s best friend! Interaction research with dogs
The number of dogs in Finland is increasing all the time and people have now more pets than perhaps ever before. During the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, Finns have eagerly adopted new hairy members to their families. According to the Finnish Kennel Club, the number of registered pure-bred dogs in 2021 was as high as 52,771; with a rise of up to 17 percent compared to the years before the pandemic.
The real number of dogs is much higher since the register includes pure-bred dogs only. The volume of the puppy boom is illustrated by the fact that the number of dogs registered during the past two years exceeds the number of babies born.
Hence, there are now more dog-owners looking at their own pet and wondering what the dog might be thinking. How does a dog perceive the world, what kind of emotions does it have?
While the field of dog research has expanded considerably since the 1990s, there is plenty to be researched and investigated. A major challenge to research relates to the gap between human and canine cognition.
”Understanding the mind of another species is a process of its own. For us humans, when interacting with a dog, it is very hard to understand the limits of the dog’s comprehension. For example, while pondering of another person’s workings of the mind is natural to us, it is beyond of the capabilities of dogs. A dog is not able to think far to the future, but on the other hand, it can interpret excellently incidents of human behaviour concerning itself—such as going for a walk”, describes Academy Researcher Miiamaaria Kujala from the Department of Psychology, Ģֱ.
Kujala’s research project examines the interaction between humans and dogs; the mechanisms and synchrony thereof as well as the effects of background factors. The project is quite rare in terms of its research setting, as traditionally, human and animal mental patterns have often been studied with incomparable methods. The multidisciplinary approach in Kujala’s research has connections with the fields of psychology, cognitive science, and biology, for example.
Dog – human’s best friend?
Many devoted dog-owners admit that they have sometimes found that dog indeed is human’s best friend.
Indeed, there is research evidence that dogs have positive effects on human health: Stroking a dog lowers blood pressure and stress hormone levels while increasing the levels of hormones attributable to feelings of satisfaction. The ultimate reason for the special friendship between dogs and people may derive from their similar social structure.
A characteristic of dogs, like also of their canine ancestors, wolves, is their social grouping behaviour. Wolves form strong social bindings within their pack and rely on cooperation in hunting, for instance. Dogs may develop similar social and emotional connections with humans. Therefore, a dog can share a similar social environment with us.
But why do we say that just dog is human’s best friend? Shouldn’t a person be another person’s best friend?
According to Kujala, such a perception is probably based on a combination of both similarities and differences between dogs and humans.
”The perception is probably shaped by the very fact that humans have a very broad range of possibilities as regards our social demeanour. If they so wish, people are capable of intrigue, cheating, wickedness, and all sorts of foul play – whereas a dog is not”, Kujala considers.
A dog becomes excited and shares its owner’s moments of joy and sorrow. Kujala wishes, however, that people would also remember the differences between dogs and humans.
A dog has no covert agenda
New pet-owners, especially, often tend to read a dog’s behaviour in the same way as human behaviour. The human mind is prone to see a dog’s gestures, cognition and doings through an anthropomorphist lens, when we have no better knowledge about the workings of the canine mind, Kujala explains.
This may lead to describing a dog as ”kind” or alternatively ”wicked” or ”difficult”. The researcher finds this problematic and unfair to dogs:
”A dog is never wicked on purpose. Wickedness is beyond the repertoire typical of this species; instead, there is always a simpler explanation for a dog’s behaviour.”
A dog is always its own self. It is not hiding any covert agenda or extending its thoughts very far to the future or the past. A dog lives in the present and is always ready for new action.
Thus, a behaviour that is found ”challenging” or ”wicked” can often be explained by fear or pain the dog is feeling, or an urge to satisfy its basic needs. According to Kujala, increasing knowledge about the canine mind begins to show also in the training of dogs.
”Dogs and humans share some mutually equivalent physiological mechanisms, which are just manifested in different ways. For example, the effects of physical activity on people’s well-being have been studied a lot also here at JYU. For a dog, insufficient physical activity may show, for instance, so that the dog finds for itself some other activities at home in order to discharge its energy – like gnawing a chair leg or destroying a sofa”, Kujala explains.
Successful research on the animals’ terms’
Through some turns in her prior path, Kujala ended up studying the interaction between dogs and humans. In the first place, her research at the Brain Research Unit of Helsinki University of Technology were focused on humans. Seizing an interesting opportunity this animal-loving cognitive scientist joined a veterinary research project on canine cognition. The researchers opted for using the same devices and methods that are usually employed in human research.
”At first, I did not believe that the brain response measurements with external sensors placed on the surface of a dog’s head would succeed, because dogs have a thick skull and strong head muscles. I thought that the devices would capture nothing but interfering noise. When the measurements did succeed, anyhow, it was a kind of an eureka moment”, Kujala laughs.
Research activities with dogs succeeded well by means of positive conditioning. When the research setting was made pleasurable for the dogs, the participants could not always even wait for their own turn.
An important ethical premise in these dog studies was that these would be conducted fully on the animals’ terms – and Kujala has followed this same principle also in her later research.
When the research of canine cognition was finished at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Helsinki, Kujala moved through some intermediate stages to the Ģֱ.
Dog research can offer new perspectives also for the interaction between humans
Now Kujala is studying the interaction between dogs and humans in the five-year BEST project funded by the Academy of Finland, which was launched in fall 2021.
In this project, interaction is researched by multidisciplinary methods: looking at behaviour, eye monitoring and heart rate measurements. What kind of effects do human personality, empathy and experience, or dog’s features evidenced by behavioural tests, have on interaction?
In addition to interaction, various substudies of the project focus on e.g. the impact of the character traits of humans and dogs on their co-existence. Previous research and research cooperation with universities abroad help build a large knowledge base, which facilitates the investigation of this basically demanding topic of dog’s cognition and experiences.
”The focus of research in this project is quite different from my earlier research: now the main focus is placed on the interaction between the owner and the pet. The project may provide interesting indications as to what kind of interaction processes take place purely between humans and what kind of processes are extended to interactions between species as well”, Kujala states.
Although the project does not aim at constructing a universal model for the interaction between humans and animals, the research may still bring ideas and comparable data also for the research of interaction between humans and other species of mammals. After this project, we will certainly understand better the interaction between dogs and people.
