She may only be eight months old, but I know my dog, Willa, like I know my children – and it’s no surprise to me that a survey has revealed our pets can boost wellbeing more than our partners. In return for a big daily walk and good food, Willa will bark at burglars (probably), and she happily cuddles up to me on the sofa each evening so I can stroke her chocolatey velveteen ears.
I’m pretty good at interpreting her expressive face and deciphering the woofs from the whines, but how do I know if I’m getting it right? There must be so much getting lost in translation, for both of us. Like pretty much every dog owner I know, I find myself perpetually wondering what my dog is really thinking.
Luckily for me, a new book has just been published that pools cutting-edge science about dog behaviour with the real-world expertise of an expert trainer to offer a science-backed, practical guide to understanding your pooch and improving its behaviour.
Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton is a dog-obsessed neuroscientist who researches human and animal learning mechanisms. She met super-trainer Danny Wells when she was looking for advice on dealing with anxiety issues in her dog, Luther. Together, they’ve come as close as you can get to deciphering what’s really going on in your dog’s mind.
‘It’s so easy to humanise your dog’s behaviour,’ says Dr Cohen-Hatton. ‘We want to see them as little people and to believe they think and feel like us, but pushing human emotions on to a dog can lead to frustration in both of you. It means we can get it wrong and respond in a way that confuses or upsets our dogs, making problem behaviours even worse – and then we miss out on their inherent beauty as dogs.’
What your dog is thinking… about you
As my husband and I both work from home, Willa is by our sides all day. We’re devoted to her and we get plenty of love in return. But when our son, Greg, 22, makes a brief appearance, she goes crazy for him. It’s infuriating that we’re the ones putting in all the work, but he’s clearly Willa’s favourite human.
We’d been wondering if she sees our youngest child as a litter-mate, but Dr Cohen-Hatton says it’s all about the intensity of attention that Greg showers on Willa when he’s with her. Researchers at the University of Vienna found that dogs paid most attention to the people who interact most with them. ‘To be your dog’s favourite, you need to be present – really present,’ she says.
So in Willa’s mind, our endless days of gentle kindness are completely eclipsed by Greg’s intense half-hour of boisterous roughhousing, intense cuddling and furious kissing. The once-in-a-blue-moon romps he takes her on are massive bonding highlights for Willa because he uses them as an aerobic challenge, chasing her, hiding, doubling back and throwing balls, so she returns utterly exhausted.
Action plan: According to Dr Cohen-Hatton, if I want to rise up the favourites chart, I need to make my walks more interactive (not a time to catch up on phone calls or listen to a book) and to pepper our day with training exercises. ‘Make the time you spend with your dog count,’ she says. ‘Interact with them and ensure everything of value involves you.’
What your dog is thinking… when you call it back
One of the first lessons you’re told to teach a puppy is to come back to you when you call. If you get the squeaky pitch right and pack your pockets with tempting treats, most dogs are quick to get the message. Willa was brilliant at this when she was a puppy, but now she seems to have acquired selective deafness. No matter how loudly I shout (as my enticing voice morphs into my infuriated voice) and no matter how deliciously tempting the treats I carry (we’ve upgraded from kibble to dried sprats that look delicious enough to grace any dinner table), teenage rebellion appears to have kicked in.
That’s me anthropomorphising the dog because she’s behaving just like the kids did. But Danny tells me there are other dog-related issues going on. For a start, he says, just because Willa has learned a command in one location doesn’t mean those commands will work in another. Worse, by repeatedly trying to call her back, I’m weakening and devaluing the association between that command and the behaviour.
Action plan: Selective deafness is real; in a dog’s world, it’s called ‘auditory exclusion’. Dr Cohen-Hatton explains that when a dog is excited (by the sight of another dog, or the postman, or a pheasant), the stress hormone cortisol is released, which shuts down the part of the brain that’s important for directing attention and also the desire to eat. So you can be whooping my head off and dangling a freshly roasted chicken, but if your dog spots a hare darting through the hedge, instinct (and the natural compulsion to run after it) wins out. The only way out of this is through diligent training, so your dog learns to value you above all possible distractions.
What your dog is thinking… when it’s watching you
Sometimes, you can feel so bonded with your beloved pooch that you can find yourself thinking they know you – almost better than the humans around you. And it turns out this might be true. Not because a dog is expert at analysing the subtleties of body language (which they often are), but because they have a secret weapon of analysis that’s far more sophisticated than any human – their sense of smell.
Dr Cohen-Hatton tells me about a fascinating bit of research that involved ‘harvesting’ sweat samples from people being shown scary or a happy movies and letting dogs sniff them. When they sniffed fear, the dogs showed signs of stress and returned to their owner for comfort, but smelling happy sweat filled them with joy.
Action plan: None needed. When your dog appears to be intently studying your face, they’re concentrating on getting to know you – there’s every chance they’re trying to decipher clues from the ‘chemo signals’ you’re giving off as much as working out whether the socks you’ve put on are the ones you wear with your walking boots.
What your dog is thinking… when you talk
When I sit down with Willa and try to engage her in meaningful conversation (about US politics or tensions in the Middle East, for instance), she’ll stare intently at me and tilt her head in that incredibly appealing way. The head tilt, it turns out, pushes the ear flaps out of the way so dogs can hear better, but from Willa’s intensely focussed expression, I’m convinced she’s really trying to understand what I’m saying.
Sadly, Dr Cohen-Hatton tells me, our words are mostly indecipherable to dogs. Research has shown that dogs have specific areas in their brains for processing voices and they do think of human speech as a meaningful, but their interpretive abilities are limited.
Action plan: ‘A dog’s capacity for understanding our language is nothing more than a series of associations they’ve made,’ she says, explaining that they use voice to read us, but what you say matters far less than how you say it. The more enthusiastic, the better.
What your dog is thinking… when it looks guilty
We’ve all seen the videos on social media where the camera pans around a totally trashed sitting room – sofa disembowelled, plants tipped out, bins upturned and emptied – and settles on a dog cowering in shame. It looks like naughty dogs can feel remorseful about their actions – but the science says otherwise.
‘Your dog might feel a rudimentary type of regret or sadness, but they just don’t have the brain machinery necessary to feel guilty about doing something wrong,’ says Dr Cohen-Hatton.
Danny explains that dogs find ‘dissecting’ toys, furniture and bedding fun and fulfilling if they get the chance, but they don’t have any concept that it might be a bad thing to do.
That guilty posture? It’s a reaction to your angry voice and body language, he says. ‘When scolded, dogs display submissive behaviours, such as avoiding eye contact or lowering their body, and they can quickly learn that this apparent remorsefulness calms you down and stops the scolding.
Action plan: ‘If you need to reprimand your dog, you have less than a second after the event has happened for there to be any meaningful association,’ he explains. ‘Never scold your dog for a retrospective misdemeanour.’
What your dog is thinking… about its dog friends
Many owners assume their dogs need to socialise with other dogs in order for them to be well-rounded and well-adjusted – and we certainly went out of our way to find opportunities for Willa to play with every possible dog we could find.
It turns out that’s humanising again – we’re wired to try hard to ensure our dogs are always happy and having fun because that’s what we want for anyone we love. But unbeknown to us, we’d made a big mistake. Now we have a very strong dog who is so obsessed with playing with other dogs, she can drag me across a road – and she gets stuck in, completely impervious to any growls. The subtleties of doggy ‘getting to know you’ body language, or ‘let’s sniff first’ are completely lost on her.
Action plan: Teach Willa how to socialise. ‘You’re at risk of your dog being seriously hurt in a fight if she doesn’t learn how to properly socialise,’ warns Danny. ‘Play is very important: it’s a great way for dogs to burn off excess energy and refine their motor skills and fitness, but everything in moderation.’ So we’re sent off – tail between our legs – to work on building quality human-dog time with Willa. At least I know for sure that she’ll love me more because of it.
