Do you ever wonder what kind of thought processes might be going on in your dog’s head? Since dogs can’t talk, I think most people assume there’s nothing happening in their brains but a vague state of “Duhh…” interspersed with “Food!” and “Squirrel!”  But I believe dogs are more complicated than we give them credit for.

For instance, about 6 times a day, I’ll call my black lab Sam to go with me to the mailbox, or to go for a walk, or whatever, and he always jumps up and enthusiastically runs to the door with me. But when I call him exactly the same way to give him a bath outside with the hose, he runs and hides. How does he know? I must be unconsciously signaling with my voice that I’ve got the soap ready outside, and he is attuned enough to me that he picks it up immediately.

Dogs pay very close attention to cues from their owners. With just about any other animal, even chimpanzees, if you hide a treat under one of 3 boxes, then point to the box with the treat, they would still choose wrong. But dogs will understand that you are pointing to the treat. To do that, they have to grasp the intention behind the pointing, putting them on a par with 2 year-old human children when it comes to understanding what someone else is thinking.

Border Collies are probably the smartest dogs. In a test, a Border Collie named Rico learned the names of 10 objects, and could fetch the ones requested with a high degree of reliability. And when they placed an unfamiliar object, a stuffed bunny, among the other objects, and told him to “fetch the bunny” he was able to figure out that since he knew the names of all the other objects, the bunny must be what they wanted.

I walk Sam around the neighborhood in the morning and in the evening, and while you would think a dog doesn’t care which direction we go, he shows a marked preference. When we reach an intersection, if we turned right last night, then tonight he will want to go straight or left. If I make him go right, his body language lets me know he’s disappointed. I assume he’s thinking, “Damn! I already smelled the other dog’s pee on those bushes last night. I wanted to smell some different pee!”

Speaking of a dog’s sense of smell, I think if we could experience it for a day, it would blow our minds. It is estimated that a dog can smell things 100,000 times better than we can, and 40% of their brain is dedicated to interpreting smells. They can smell odors up to 40 feet underground, find termites inside wood, and detect human fingerprints up to a week old. They can smell someone’s breath and tell if they have lung cancer, and they somehow know when someone with epilepsy is going to have a seizure before it occurs.

They’re not just dogs, they’re Superdogs!

I’ve got to give Sam a bath today, ‘cause he’s getting a little ripe. He’s lying on the floor looking at me right now.

I wonder if he already knows?