Psychology of Dogs
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One cannot be a dog lover, without understanding the psychology of dogs. I am a big believer that our four-legged pets understand just what we are thinking, at least for the most part. Understanding the psychology of our pets is just as important, as training and bonding with them. I would go as far as saying it is a necessary ingredient for the peaceful existence of your family.
Theory of dog psychology?
There’s a widely researched and credited theory that dogs are descendants of wolves. And with that animal behaviorists have referenced wolf behavior to dogs.
The truth is: no matter how much we nurture them as our babies, the first and foremost thing to know about dog psychology is that they are ultimately animals, and what reins them is animal instincts. Animal instincts but not so far off from humans. Every dog needs a purpose to live a fulfilling life, the same as humans. A dog’s purpose in life is to obey the commands of its master. Failing to give your dog the leadership they deserve is a major failure.
Pack mentality
Animals want to follow a strong and confident pack leader. For our fur babies, we are their pack leaders. To effectively lead them, we need to show our dogs that we know how to lead them. Nothing gives them more assurance than a firm and confident hand.
It is a no-brainer that dogs are pack animals, and their behavior is instinctive too. The best way to bond with your pet is to be the leader of the pack. For our fur animals, we are the ‘Alphas’. Establishing yourself as the leader of the pack, which your pets can look up to is make or break for good dog training. They look up to us for whom to trust, whether to feel safe in our surroundings etc.
So how do dogs communicate?
This is where it starts to get confusing for most dog owners. We teach our dogs a few words such as sit, fetch, walk, etc and begin to think that they understand what all human words mean.
Intelligent word association
The study of the nonhuman cognitive association is still evolving, but it is well known that dogs learn words through association. Few recent studies illustrate that talented dogs can learn new words after hearing them only four times. Not to underestimate the canine cognitive ability, but on average dogs can associate 150 to 200 words. Dogs can be trained to understand any language through association. This proves further that it’s not the language in itself but the association with words that dogs learn from.
Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning is when an unrelated stimulus is paired with a stimulus that naturally creates a response. This is a renowned theory called Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning, which infers that responses in dogs can be trained based on various stimuli. A perfect example of a response is salvation in dogs, which was proven through experiments that dogs can be trained to salvation, not just at the sight of food but other stimuli too. This sounds advanced but can be leveraged to help our fur babies train better, such as treating separation anxiety (a very common phenomenon in some dog breeds), etc.
Emotional Quotient
Compared to other animals, these fur animals carry more compassion and empathy towards humans, almost selfless — and they are considered to be as intelligent as a 2-year-old human baby.
One classic way of learning for dogs is through understanding the emotions of their pet parents. This for me is the most inspiring and fascinating trait of dog psychology, as for the most part even humans don’t get it.
Emotions are contagious, and dogs are able to sense what others are feeling. When we introduce new family members or friends to our dogs, just watch how they pick on emotions we exhibit through our face, eyes, and body language. Forget the tangibles, they can even make sense of the intangibles such as our energy levels to understand if we are around people we like or dislike. Being the ardent faithful lovers they are, chances are if we like someone, our dogs will also like them and vice versa.
If we catch our dogs staring at our faces often, it’s because they are trying to understand how we are feeling about our environment. They can make sense of our feelings by looking for emotions on our faces. Now, how cool is that!
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