[Opinion from NYT] Dogs are People, Too

[Type Username Here]

FOR the past two years, my colleagues and I have been training dogs to go in an M.R.I. scanner — completely awake and unrestrained. Our goal has been to determine how dogs’ brains work and, even more important, what they think of us humans.

Now, after training and scanning a dozen dogs, my one inescapable conclusion is this: dogs are people, too.

Because dogs can’t speak, scientists have relied on behavioral observations to infer what dogs are thinking. It is a tricky business. You can’t ask a dog why he does something. And you certainly can’t ask him how he feels. The prospect of ferreting out animal emotions scares many scientists. After all, animal research is big business. It has been easy to sidestep the difficult questions about animal sentience and emotions because they have been unanswerable.

Until now.

By looking directly at their brains and bypassing the constraints of behaviorism, M.R.I.’s can tell us about dogs’ internal states. M.R.I.’s are conducted in loud, confined spaces. People don’t like them, and you have to hold absolutely still during the procedure. Conventional veterinary practice says you have to anesthetize animals so they don’t move during a scan. But you can’t study brain function in an anesthetized animal. At least not anything interesting like perception or emotion.

From the beginning, we treated the dogs as persons. We had a consent form, which was modeled after a child’s consent form but signed by the dog’s owner. We emphasized that participation was voluntary, and that the dog had the right to quit the study. We used only positive training methods. No sedation. No restraints. If the dogs didn’t want to be in the M.R.I. scanner, they could leave. Same as any human volunteer.

My dog Callie was the first. Rescued from a shelter, Callie was a skinny black terrier mix, what is called a feist in the southern Appalachians, from where she came. True to her roots, she preferred hunting squirrels and rabbits in the backyard to curling up in my lap. She had a natural inquisitiveness, which probably landed her in the shelter in the first place, but also made training a breeze.

With the help of my friend Mark Spivak, a dog trainer, we started teaching Callie to go into an M.R.I. simulator that I built in my living room. She learned to walk up steps into a tube, place her head in a custom-fitted chin rest, and hold rock-still for periods of up to 30 seconds. Oh, and she had to learn to wear earmuffs to protect her sensitive hearing from the 95 decibels of noise the scanner makes.

After months of training and some trial-and-error at the real M.R.I. scanner, we were rewarded with the first maps of brain activity. For our first tests, we measured Callie’s brain response to two hand signals in the scanner. In later experiments, not yet published, we determined which parts of her brain distinguished the scents of familiar and unfamiliar dogs and humans.

Soon, the local dog community learned of our quest to determine what dogs are thinking. Within a year, we had assembled a team of a dozen dogs who were all “M.R.I.-certified.”

Although we are just beginning to answer basic questions about the canine brain, we cannot ignore the striking similarity between dogs and humans in both the structure and function of a key brain region: the caudate nucleus.

Rich in dopamine receptors, the caudate sits between the brainstem and the cortex. In humans, the caudate plays a key role in the anticipation of things we enjoy, like food, love and money. But can we flip this association around and infer what a person is thinking just by measuring caudate activity? Because of the overwhelming complexity of how different parts of the brain are connected to one another, it is not usually possible to pin a single cognitive function or emotion to a single brain region.

But the caudate may be an exception. Specific parts of the caudate stand out for their consistent activation to many things that humans enjoy. Caudate activation is so consistent that under the right circumstances, it can predict our preferences for food, music and even beauty.

In dogs, we found that activity in the caudate increased in response to hand signals indicating food. The caudate also activated to the smells of familiar humans. And in preliminary tests, it activated to the return of an owner who had momentarily stepped out of view. Do these findings prove that dogs love us? Not quite. But many of the same things that activate the human caudate, which are associated with positive emotions, also activate the dog caudate. Neuroscientists call this a functional homology, and it may be an indication of canine emotions.

The ability to experience positive emotions, like love and attachment, would mean that dogs have a level of sentience comparable to that of a human child. And this ability suggests a rethinking of how we treat dogs.

DOGS have long been considered property. Though the Animal Welfare Act of 1966 and state laws raised the bar for the treatment of animals, they solidified the view that animals are things — objects that can be disposed of as long as reasonable care is taken to minimize their suffering.

But now, by using the M.R.I. to push away the limitations of behaviorism, we can no longer hide from the evidence. Dogs, and probably many other animals (especially our closest primate relatives), seem to have emotions just like us. And this means we must reconsider their treatment as property.

One alternative is a sort of limited personhood for animals that show neurobiological evidence of positive emotions. Many rescue groups already use the label of “guardian” to describe human caregivers, binding the human to his ward with an implicit responsibility to care for her. Failure to act as a good guardian runs the risk of having the dog placed elsewhere. But there are no laws that cover animals as wards, so the patchwork of rescue groups that operate under a guardianship model have little legal foundation to protect the animals’ interest.

If we went a step further and granted dogs rights of personhood, they would be afforded additional protection against exploitation. Puppy mills, laboratory dogs and dog racing would be banned for violating the basic right of self-determination of a person.

I suspect that society is many years away from considering dogs as persons. However, recent rulings by the Supreme Court have included neuroscientific findings that open the door to such a possibility. In two cases, the court ruled that juvenile offenders could not be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. As part of the rulings, the court cited brain-imaging evidence that the human brain was not mature in adolescence. Although this case has nothing to do with dog sentience, the justices opened the door for neuroscience in the courtroom.

Perhaps someday we may see a case arguing for a dog’s rights based on brain-imaging findings.


Gregory Berns is a professor of neuroeconomics at Emory University and the author of “How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sunday/dogs-are-people-too.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0


Thoughts?

 

[Blackking]

I think our mere associate with dogs for thousands of years have advanced the evolution of their brains. Every time we cut down a forest, or kill off a species of fish, or do anything --- it affects the evolution of some species.... so dogs have been down with us very closely for a while and so they probably have adopted some emotions n shyt.

Dogs have jealousy and humor and things that are associated with being around humans. But we have sick humans amongst us - if we are arguing that dogs have all these feelings and decisions making abilities then people who sex dogs can argue that they can love and argue for beastsex rights and marriage, - and because of gay rights they have a case.

 

[Hiphoplives4eva]

more liberal bullshyt research...

 

[The Guru]

These people care more about the rights of dogs than human beings in other countries. FOH. Pigs, cows and sheep are as much "people" as dogs.

 

[Julius Skrrvin]

I dont ever think we should give rights of personhood to dogs but it's high time people acknowledged the relative intelligence of some of the creatures we domesticated.. Like pigs and dogs.

We created them....

 

[Hiphoplives4eva]

And BTW, if dogs are people they should be a able to consent to sexual relations to humans.

I should then assume liberals are defacto beastiality supporters, since its now an action between consenting adults???

 

[Type Username Here]

And BTW, if dogs are people they should be a able to consent to sexual relations to humans.

I should then assume liberals are defacto beastiality supporters, since its now an action between consenting adults???

Listen, I actually agree with you on your opposition to this opinion but this post here is retarded. The article says they are at best at the level of a human child. No country today (to my knowledge) has laws where children (<12 years old) can consent to sex and/or marriage. There is plenty of things to take this opinion at face value, but at least make a correct argument.

 

[Type Username Here]

These people care more about the rights of dogs than human beings in other countries. FOH. Pigs, cows and sheep are as much "people" as dogs.

How do you know this? Isn't it possible to care for multiple things/issues at once?

 

[Type Username Here]

A study about dogs and intelligence and people have homosexuals and gay sex on their minds.

be a closeted homosexual brehs.

 

[Blackking]

A study about dogs and intelligence and people have homosexuals and gay sex on their minds.

be a closeted homosexual brehs.

post BS studies then call everyone a homosexual brehs....

The world is messed up like that..... right now most states in the US are being forced to pass bestiality laws - so it's relevant to the conversation. The point of your article is to "consider dogs as persons"

Also, like I stated our associations are what brought on what we are assuming are real feelings and emotions from domesticated animals....

 

[Depreciating Asset]

"Dogs are people too" is a ridiculous phrase. The NYT head editor should be at the very least reprimanded for letting that hit publication in a serious news outlet. It is disrespectful to actual the millions of real people who are suffering to suggest that dogs should receive the same sympathy or attention. NYT bears too much responsibility as a legitimate news source to propagate this bourgeois bullshyt.

But that rant aside, I can certainly imagine that several animal species have emotions and thoughts that are human-like. Why just limit the conversation/study to dogs? I'd like to know which species have human-like emotions and which ones don't. with the dog love.

 

[Type Username Here]

post BS studies then call everyone a homosexual brehs....

The world is messed up like that..... right now most states in the US are being forced to pass bestiality laws - so it's relevant to the conversation. The point of your article is to "consider dogs as persons"

Also, like I stated our associations are what brought on what we are assuming are real feelings and emotions from domesticated animals....

I posted the study because I think it IS BS. To stimulate a conversation, just like you did in your thread about animals and suicide.

You're the one who came in here to live your repressed homosexual fantasies friend. Please stop. Your original post in this thread was fine up until the point you felt it necessary to peek out of the closet.

 

[No1]

I think we all need to stop assuming OPs necessarily agree with the articles they post. I'd say about 90% of the articles I post are just because a thread title and quick skim caught my attention when I was on Twitter (which is how I read all news). I feel that would probably shift a lot of these things into debates instead of ad hominem attacks. With that said, the article title was obviously meant to get attention.

Fall for article titles breh....

 

[Blackking]

I posted the study because I think it IS BS. To stimulate a conversation, just like you did in your thread about animals and suicide.

You're the one who came in here to live your repressed homosexual fantasies friend. Please stop. Your original post in this thread was fine up until the point you felt it necessary to peek out of the closet.

You're right, I'm a 'closeted homo' because you have a limited understanding of the world and how things are connected.

Regardless, you're not disputing my point, so I could care less what u think. I wasn't coming at u anyway, i was just saying that humans have the main affect on the evolved behaviors of domesticated animals.

 

[Type Username Here]

You're right, I'm a 'closeted homo' because you have a limited understanding of the world and how things are connected.

Regardless, you're not disputing my point, so I could care less what u think. I wasn't coming at u anyway, i was just saying that humans have the main affect on the evolved behaviors of domesticated animals.

Nah man, I wish I could say I was fukking around with you due to this thread, but you have a history of showing up to threads and interjecting your homosexual fantasies, even to the point of describing and making fun of a kid being raped. Going into detail about how he was raped.

This article has NOTHING to do with gay sex and gay marriage, but you and your partner made it for no reason. This implies to me that you got the gay.