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Excerpt from The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter Than You Think, by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods. Published by Dutton, a Member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. © 2013 Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods. Excerpted with permission from the publisher. All Rights Reserved.
Mystique is a dog who lives at Lola ya Bonobo, [the wildlife sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo] where Vanessa and I study bonobos. During the day, she is sweet and demure, but at night she becomes a different animal. She guards our house, barking ferociously every time someone comes within earshot. Usually in Congo, a little extra security is appreciated. The only problem is that our house is on the main trail where the night staff walk back and forth after dark. Mystique dutifully barks at all passersby whether she has known them for a day or all her life. Eventually, we just learned to sleep through it. But if there was really a cause for concern, like a strange man with a gun, I wonder if Mystique would bark in a way that would alert me that there was something dangerous and different about the person approaching the house.
Dog vocalizations may not sound very sophisticated. Raymond Coppinger pointed out that most dog vocalizations consist of barking, and that barking seems to occur indiscriminately. Coppinger reported on a dog whose duty was to guard free- ranging livestock. The dog barked continuously for seven hours, even though no other dogs were within miles. If barking is communicative, dogs would not bark when no one could hear them. It seemed to Coppinger that the dog was simply relieving some inner state of arousal. The arousal model is that dogs do not have much control over their barking. They are not taking into account their audience, and their barks carry little information other than the emotional state of the barking dog.
Perhaps barking is another by-product of domestication. Unlike dogs, wolves rarely bark. Barks make up as little as 3 percent of wolf vocalizations. Meanwhile, the experimental foxes in Russia [that have been bred to be docile] bark when they see people, while the control foxes do not. Frequent barking when aroused is probably another consequence of selecting against aggression.
However, more recent research indicates that there might be more to barking than we first thought. Dogs have fairly plastic vocal cords, or a “modifiable vocal tract.” Dogs might be able to subtly alter their voices to produce a wide variety of different sounds that could have different meanings. Dogs might even be altering their voices in ways that are clear to other dogs but not to humans. When scientists have taken spectrograms, or pictures, of dog barks, it turns out that not all barks are the same—even from the same dog. Depending on the context, a dog’s barks can vary in timing, pitch, and amplitude. Perhaps they have different meanings.
I know two Australian dogs, Chocolate and Cina, who love to play fetch on the beach. Each throw sends them plunging through the waves, racing for that magic orb of rubber. When Chocolate retrieves the ball, inevitably Cina wrestles the ball from Chocolate’s mouth, even while Chocolate growls loudly. The girls also eat together, but when Cina tries the same trick with Chocolate’s food, the result is very different. A quiet growl from Chocolate warns Cina away.
It is difficult to see how Cina knows when it is okay to take something from Chocolate’s mouth, since both growls are made when Chocolate is aggravated and unwilling to share. If anything, Chocolate’s growl seems louder and scarier when she is playing than when she is eating.
Experiments have now shown that dogs use different barks and growls to communicate different things. In one experiment, researchers recorded a “food growl” where a dog was growling over food, and a “stranger growl” where a dog was growling at the approach of a stranger. The researchers played these different growls to a dog who was approaching a juicy bone. The dogs were more hesitant to approach if they heard the food growl rather than the stranger growl.
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37 Comments
Add CommentBrian, while your observations and opinions pertaining to vocalizing dogs is interesting, we are far more intrigued by the behavior of those bonobos that you're studying.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisApparently, the author of the above article isn't aware of previous research conducted in Japan, on just this subject.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe closest translation to each bark is "hey."
I trained my hearing dog to shut up after just one bark. I'm deaf, yet can feel the difference between his barks-- wa-HOOOO is his alarm bark at strangers. WA-HOO, if short, can be his excited bark, usually a happy bark.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut we usually communicate visually as a working team.
He is part herding dog, so we've also worked as a team in that way, as well for trained retrieves, guiding, etc.
Number one thought: Barking is bred for humans' benefit, not dogs' benefit. Wolves rarely bark, and usually softly to their pack members.
Herding dogs that bark nonstop, loudly, are actually doing it to drive the flock; the New Zealand Huntaway is bred precisely so it can bark for hours to inform both the shepherd/cowboy and the livestock where it is at all times. Hounds also are bred to bay nonstop for similar reasons.
Most dogs who bark nonstop are either bred for vocal pursuit, or dogs that are still waiting for a response from the pack (I've seen dogs shut up after their owners showed up and okayed things, even if they had been barking for months.)
The more the pack doesn't give that response, the more they bark. Erratic responses can just intensify the barking. By ignoring Mystic's barking, her owners have hindered her main pack communication tool.
If the owners just showed up everytime and told her via body language it's nothing to worry about, thanked her for alerting her, etc. then hushed her, Mystic would bark more briefly (and clearly), and they'd also directly discover by observation what her barks mean.
That the dog is more anxious at night suggests that she smells wildlife moving at night, as well.
Dogs signal what kind of animal not by voice, but by body language, as wolves do while hunting. More attention to her barking and body language at once will help them recognize what she is alarming to, reduce frustration, and make for a happier dog.
People keep dogs as pets rarely pay as much in-depth attention to their communication as people who work with dogs do.
Based on this excerpt, I fear I would not learn anything new about dog communication from this book.
I have known for many years that dogs (and other animals) are far more intelligent than most people think. Of course, as with people, there are more and less intelligent dogs, and some of them are quite stupid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy three dogs and I have, just through impromptu developments of awareness, learned to talk about a variety of subjects - some in rather complex ways. One dog in particular obviously understands the concept of talking, and makes very deliberate efforts to say things using a variety of sounds from barks to modulated whines and pants. This dog understands the word for "Bed", "rug", "house", and commands like "eat your food", "go in your house", etc. He carries his "bed" around with him, and when he has decided where he wants to lie down, spends enough time to get the "bed" (rug, towel, etc.) spread out neatly.
Because I have been increasingly paying attention to what these dogs are doing and thinking, and how they react to one another and to me, I am very aware that their awareness is far more complex than I had suspected. I have developed a much greater respect for their intelligence, and as a result my communication with them has improved greatly. They have a very rich emotional life that they deeply enjoy sharing with me.
Two of them smile, and know what kind of smile is appropriate for different occasions. One in particular is adept at responding with appropriate smiles, and has a real sense of humor. When he misses some treat I have tossed to him, and one of the other dogs gets it, he clearly laughs at himself. He obviously can appreciate the humor of his own mistake.
Many dog partners (owners isn't the right word - you don't refer to "owning" your children) understand these things. I am often amused by how far "science" lags behind reality. It is funny to see over-trained and data-blind scientists diligently studying something that a more intuitively aware person just simply "gets".
Speak for your self not others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree wholeheartedly (although I'm more of a dog hater than lover in my current environment). The article seemed to contrast two conflicting theories: that dogs barked even when there was no audience to express its internal state, or that dogs communicated different messages. Both motivations seem to be involved, as dogs have been bred to provide security services for humans for millennea, but they also bark to communicate various information.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith all my neighbor's many unfortunate dogs kept in small back yards, often chained up with no human contact, they seem to be continuously be barking at something, but I'm not sure I could discern any actual dangerous intruder alert. So, when the dogs bark excessively for no apparent reason (as is often the case), what I say is - "SHADDUP!"
Every dog not in direct human service should belong to a pack on a private estate - anything less is inhuman.
I've have observed a rich range of barks from my recently late GSD. I could tell with a good degree of accuracy what had got her barking neighbor, neighbor's dog, mailman, stranger or friend approaching, or one of those pesky squirrels. All with my back to the window or in another room. Perhaps I'm one of those rare pet owners who pay attention but maybe the ability also varies with the dog. Breeds used as hunters, herders, general working dogs would likely need a higher level of communication with us to do their job.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Every dog not in direct human service should belong to a pack on a private estate - anything less is inhuman." That's unfair to good dog owners. Don't let your current experiences with your neighbors influence your view of all dog owners. The fact is most after many millennium of being with humans, most dogs would rather be with their human pack than with other dogs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have a Blue tick hound and a Pariah Dog, Carolina, mix. The Carolina growls at any movement and in a playfull way at the Blue Tick and barks aggressively at anyone within sight as well as cars, she then flees into the house and takes shelter behind my husband or I, if the threat actually comes into our yard. She has a very sad history and is always nervous; we have to speak gently to her or she becomes frightened and pees herself. The Blue tick has a wide variety of vocalizations and always sounds happy and upbeat when she howls or barks and only does either when she sees other dogs or wildlife, when "talking" to us or the other dog she whines, grumbles or makes "piggy" snorts. I suspect that it is probably not possible for anyone to frighten her, she has never met a cruel person or a vicious dog.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDogs, like wolves are deeply social animals. There is no thing that could happen to a dog, worse than to be left alone. My husband and I work full time, but our dogs have each other and their favorite Kitty to be with untill we get home, so we have never had problems with destructive or loud behavior. And they have a half an acre inside their invisible fence when we are home in the Winter and all day when it's Summer time and the dog door is open, so they are not bored and they have plenty of excercise. Most problem dogs have owners who don't understand that they must be fully engaged in a family. If it's not yours, then it needs to be one of their own, and tying more than one dog up in your yard doesn't count, they need to be able to play together.
anyone who has trained hunting dogs could tell you that dogs not only talk with barking, but with many other vocalizations. a few terms of interest are bawl-mouth, bugle-mouth- chop-mouth. these are different kinds of dogs barks relaying information according to their breed and inclinations. much information can be thus conveyedby the dogs if the HUNTER is intelligent enough to listen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisand by the way, somw one should tell Raymond Coppinger that the dog was simply warning away possible predators. it was his JOB after all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAh - I was just howling at the moon, anyway...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh yes, our Blue tick makes a loud chopping sound when she is crossing back and forth over an interesting scent trail. It's amazing to take her out in the woods when there is snow on the ground. Suddenly, even a dumb nosed human can "see" what she is seeing, We got her as a 4 month old pup, from a Maine bear guide. She was never trained for bear, but she has no trouble finding our local sow.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy son lives on a farm outside Bangalore, with 4-6 dogs usually, which bark in different ways in different circumstances and situations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are snakes in the area, and the dogs bark ferociously in a particular way when they sight a snake. My son seems to be able to recognize the 'snake bark' with a high degree of accuracy - though he is unable to specify exactly what the characteristics of this bark may be.
I believe that our dogs have learned to recognize pretty well what we (humans) wish to communicate to them - but we humans scarcely ever know what our dogs wish to communicate to us.
-- GSC
That's a very interesting thought - I wonder if our inferior hearing plays a role in our inability to decipher or at least identify some nuances in dogs' vocalizations?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurther my last, I think I should modify that a bit:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur dogs generally seem to understand pretty well what we wish to tell/instruct them. We know very little indeed about what they want to tell us: I can imagine them telling each other, "Oh, these humans are just SO dumb! We really need to train them better..."
-- GSC
@ RCWhitmyer, James38, hammerbait, jtdwyer (and others who may believe our animals are far more intelligent than is conventionally understood by us/by science):
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRecently, my son and his wife went on an extended car trip across India, leaving me alone at the farm with the dogs (and some help).
We have a sizable number of free-range poultry, chickens, turkeys, geese and what not - many of which seem to love human company (exactly why they love us, I do not know). They ALL seem to want to spend much of their time at the large verandah of the main house where they know human beings are around.
The dogs have been well-trained NOT to attack or scare the poultry - so they generally leave the poultry alone when they come to the front verandah. Now, dogs and cats can be pretty well 'house-trained' - but NOT so poultry, I'm afraid. So our front verandah is quite often littered with chicken and turkey poop - and I can affirm that this poop is really quite a job to clean up!
So I decided that, while my son and partner were away, I'd train the dogs to keep the poultry off the verandah. So, whenever I saw the poultry gathering at the verandah, I would chase them away, making a great deal of noise, "Hey, Shoo! Shoo! Chase them off! Come on, dogs (names)!" and so on and so forth.
I did this exercise quite regularly, assiduously and vigorously for about a week, till one afternoon I was a bit tired and DIDN'T do it for a while.
I then saw all the dogs first glancing over at the poultry that had congregated by then on the verandah and then STARING accusingly at me: one of them I remember even barked gently at me, telling me, as it were, "Now why aren't you doing your job, hey?"...
(That was the end of my dog-training exercise. I'm afraid).
-- GSC
I have lived with and communed with dogs all of my log life and I can say that some dogs have no brains attached to their barking and others literally communicate different messages with each different need.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis becomes especially obvious when you have a dog that normally doesn't bark without a good reason. My Shih Tzu male is one such dog.
He is a very quiet dog but when he detects anomalies, he lets me know and his level of concern definitely changes the cadence, pitch, pattern and duration.
His notification/early warning bark is always a pattern of 5 "woo's". Woo woo woo woo woo. With the last woo being at a lower pitch than the first four. Usually 3 or 4 sets of these with a couple of wind down "bifs" at the end.
Then listen and decide to go again or not. Typically not.
This can come from seeing someone loitering outside on the street or a sound like the neighbor hammering on his fence next door.
Once he's warned me and satisfies himself that this is now normal, he watches silently.
In the case that fear is involved, the pitch and cadence definitely changes radically.
I've also had dogs that bark all night from the sounds of their own parasites so you really have to decide if the bark center is hooked up to the brain center before you worry about decoding the voices.
I lived 3 houses from the corner in a small quaint neighborhood in Louisville. My next-door neighbor's dog always barked at pedestrians. I eventually realized his barks were so unique that I could always tell:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1)If those walking by were on our street or the side street
2)Whether it was one person or several people
3)Whether they had one or more dogs with them.
All of that information was readable in every bark. He never barked for any other reason except to give out his "passerby information".
george carlin answered this question years ago and the answer is "Fuck You! Fuck You! Fuck You! Fuck You!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat was a lot of work for research already conducted over 25 years ago.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://tinyurl.com/aecs96c
Consider this; dogs have figured out and understand about 200+ words in our language; we haven't/can't figure out one "word" in their language? Add that to the fact that we are the only species to foul our own nest/planet and I wouldn't want to take bets on which species is more intelligent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut, judging from this snippet, they could certainly learn one heck of a lot from you. Kudos!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismany years ago a man had a german sheppard and a baby. (don't know where the mother was.) the man went to a small store nearby to get cigarettes and told the dog to watch the baby. on the way back, the dog met him barking, and spattered in blood. assuming the dog killed the baby, he shot the dog. when he got home, he found the baby safe, but a large rattlesnake had been torn to pieces near the baby.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe dog was doing his job, the man wasn't listening.
I am often amused by how far "science" lags behind reality. It is funny to see over-trained and data-blind scientists diligently studying something that a more intuitively aware person just simply "gets".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgreed!!
chop-mouth dogs i hunted with would bark 1-2-3, then start over. always the same when they were on the trail. a very dependable type of communication, because you could tell from tone and distance many things. all you needed was an open mind, and experience.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am often amused by how far "science" lags behind reality. It is funny to see over-trained and data-blind scientists diligently studying something that a more intuitively aware person just simply "gets".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgreed!!
People need to understand that Science does not work like that. Valid knowledge is obtained through the scientific method which requires hypotheses and testing. So what everyone "gets" is a good basis (observation) for an hypothesis but is not knowledge. If you read the piece again you will notice critical points in the process, such as several dogs were tested in the experiments, some dogs reacted one way and others another, and so on. So Science takes much more work that looking at things and saying: "it looks like it is like X or Y", it requires testing, statistics to make sure the differences are unlikely to originate from a random effect and the right controls to make sure you can extract information about the observed differences. That's why it proceeds at a slower pace than people sometimes would expect.
So, what ordinary people get many times is not proven true when analysed through the scientific method, or the explanation for it is not trivial.
(on a note, you could definitely say that testing 3 dogs is a rather small sample and that that study is inherently flawed. I haven't read the work though, so take this with a grain of salt)
Whoof Whoof says my dog...
Anyone who has lived with a beloved dog knows absolutely that different barks mean different things: welcome home, let's play, attention - someone is coming, where's my dinner, leave my stuff alone and last but not least important: please, oh please!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wouldn't discount pheromones as a means of communication. One of my dogs commutes a three hour drive with me, and knows instantly when I'm stressed, say, by a patch of ice or a snow squall I see ahead, even though I've said nothing. I disagree with the person (Gibbs) who thinks we've learned none of their language. I certainly know when one of my dogs (wants to go out, wants me to toss the "magic rubber orb,", get fed, have a bickie....)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd they know when I'm angry, anxious or playful.
I can be sitting on the couch two rooms away and just THINK, "Should I take the dogs for a walk?" THUNK! They jump off the bed and run into the living room all waggy, clearly saying, "Absolutely yes!" I've said nothing. I don't believe it's telepathy.
Driving down the road I tense up when I see a situation ahead (ice, fog, snow, an accident) and mama dog in the back seat is immediately awake and snuffling all over my neck. I can practically hear her saying, "What's wrong? I'm here!"
Again, I suspect pheromones are involved.
They respond positively to, "Do you wanna...?" The answer is always "YES!" Usually it's followed by, "...go for a walk?" or "...play stickies? (a variation on the rubber orb game) but it could be anything. "...carry this live grenade across enemy lines while under fire?" "Yes! I do, I do, I do wanna!!!! OK, maybe mine aren't the brightest bulbs on the tree, but we have no trouble communicating the important stuff.
They know when I'm happy, stressed, angry... I don't think words are a requirement. They do have a vocabulary, though, and I submit to you that we know many of their words. I can differentiate between "BEWARE!" and "Another dog is going by," "Throw the dang ball," "I'm hungry," "Pay attention to me NOW!" They communicate well. They also train us well.
Another dog used to tell us if anything happened while we were away at work. Usually we'd come home to be greeted by the "committee" (A dog and cat) and in the case of our dog, the wee-wee of ecstasy. But occasionally she'd have a long conversation consisting mostly of, "Woo Woooo" and the like. Inevitably we'd find a note on the door, or a Fed Ex package on the stoop. Or a message on our phone saying someone came by but we weren't home. She always "told" us when someone had been there, and we always knew what she was saying.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was surprised by the lack of scientific sophistication in Vanessa Wood's book, so I'm not surprised by the same lack here. Take the matter of the bioacoustics, for example. They give a grotesquely distorted account of how animals' vocalize, whereas one would think that before you write a book like this (or get invited to write an article for Scientific American) you'd do the necessary research. The naivete is disappointing. I thought SA was supposed to have high scientific standards, but apparently not. This is pablum, not science. (Sorry, maybe I'm in a cranky mood this evening.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore importantly, when we will reliably be able to understand what our housemates are saying, and reply to them as understandably.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(Most do a pretty good job of guesswork on both sides, but I'm talking take the guesswork out)
Yes, tell us about the bonobos (and lemurs if you have them). And yes, I'm also convinced my cat makes very distinctly different cat sounds and body language signals with her tail. Animals are highly intelligent with zip for a cerebral cortex. Humans are full of themselves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe for someone who's never had a dog this is interesting. But for dog owners this is banal. Of course dog barks are different. A bark to come, to go out, when it feels forgotten or shut in for too long, let alone when it's doing its job like seeing in people at the gate or meeting a member of the family. There's whining and whimpering mixed up with barks. Is this all so surprising to these researchers? Heavens to betsy!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the suburbs for instance, they might bark because they are depressed from being left alone in a small enclosure for too long and are just looking for some interaction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismmmmmmmmmmm, */ &&, at least they're trying.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisone must
llllllisssssssnn -
Our two Labradors would rather be with us than anywhere else. They are both geniuses at being totally in the way all the time.
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