Live Chat: The Secrets of Your Dog’s Mind

When it comes to studying the animal mind, dogs have traditionally been ignored. For much of the 20th century, researchers considered them too tainted by domestication and human contact. But over the past 15 years, the field of canine cognition has exploded as scientists have shown that dogs can outsmart chimpanzees in some tests and can even shed light on the evolution of our own intellect. What surprising new things are we learning about the canine mind? Are some breeds smarter than others? And did we really domesticate dogs—or was it the other way around?

Join me for a live chat at 3 p.m. EST on Thursday, 28 February, on this page. With me will be two experts in the field of dog cognition, Brian Hare, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the canine mind and the author of the new book The Genius of Dogs, and Laurie Santos, who has just opened a dog lab at Yale University. You can leave your questions in the comment box below before the chat starts. The full text of the chat will be archived on this page.