Ivan the puppy gets fitted with an electronic vest as part of his evaluation at Guiding Eyes for the Blind. (Credit: David Grimm)

About four years ago, I was scanning the scientific literature when a study title caught my eye: Advancing Genetic Selection and Behavioral Genomics of Working Dogs Through Collaborative Science. That might seem like a mouthful, but it was the “working dogs” part that intrigued me. I’ve thought often about working dogs–animals that guide the blind, soothe kids with autism, and sniff out bombs. I had even written about military working dogs in my book, Citizen Canine. But I never thought about the science behind them.

So I dug further into the study, and what I read surprised me. Despite decades of breeding and hundreds of working dog schools around the world, more than half of all working dogs fail to graduate. Some are felled for behavioral reasons like a lack of impulse control, others for health reasons like hip and elbow dysplasia. And that means that these organizations can spend years and tens of thousands of dollars to train a dog, only to have it end up as a family pet (not that there’s anything wrong with that!).

Science could help. The article I read spoke about “estimated breeding values”–statistical calculations that have long been used by the livestock industry to improve milk and meat production. Such values, when applied to dogs, could help working dog organizations improve the health and trainability of their canines–indeed, schools have already notched some successes with them. Other groups are taking a different tack: employing “cognitive test batteries”–a series of rigorous mental tasks that could help working dog organizations figure out which dogs are most likely to graduate, and which jobs they’ll be best suited for.

As I reported this story, I got to visit Canine Companions in Santa Rosa, CA, one of the world’s largest working dog schools, and Guiding Eyes for the Blind in Patterson, New York, one of the biggest guide dog schools in the U.S. I saw puppies in training, adult dogs that performed some remarkable tasks, and scientists applying cutting edge research into the raising and training of these animals. A lot of this work is still in its early stages, but it has the potential to revolutionize the working dog pipeline, and to help more of these talented canines get into the hands of the people who need them most.

You can read my story here (pdf), listen to me talk about it here, and read my account of being a guide dog guinea pig here.

Like any good liquid, Spud conforms to the shape of a box. (Credit: David Grimm)

If you’ve ever seen a cat ooze under a door or spill into a vase, you’ll understand why some people consider cats liquids. But what do cats consider themselves?

When an animal thinks about its own proportions–how tall it is, or how wide–it’s called “body size awareness”. We humans take this for granted, but even we’re not born with the ability. Children develop it around the same time they start referring to themselves in conversation, suggesting a link to self-awareness.

Scientists know that dogs possess body size awareness. A recent study found that our canine friends will hesitate when confronted with an opening that feels too small for them. Cats do too, according to a new study, but only in certain circumstances.

Researchers in Budapest visited felines in their homes (because cats are notoriously difficult to study in the lab), and placed a large piece of cardboard at the bottom of the stairs. Cats sat on one side and their owners (armed with toys or treats) sat on the other. The scientists then confronted the felines with a series of holes in the cardboard of narrowing height or width.

As the height of the aperture shrunk, the cats began to hesitate, a sign of body awareness. But they didn’t hesitate at all as the width shrunk, even when it became a slot barely half the width of their bodies. “They don’t use body awareness in this case—they’re basically like liquids,” says the study’s author, Péter Pongrácz.

So what does all of this mean for owners? Don’t assume that your cats can’t squeeze through that narrow door opening–or that slightly cracked window. I’m shutting mine now.

A curious goat I photographed at FBN

When I write about cognition and domestication, I’m almost always writing about cats and dogs. But this year I had a unique opportunity to write about farm animals. In the fall, I visited the  Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN) in Dummerstorf, Germany–one of the world’s leading centers for investigating the minds of cows, pigs, and other livestock.

On my second day there, I had a remarkable encounter with a goat. As I write in my new feature for Science:

You’d never mistake a goat for a dog, but on an unseasonably warm afternoon in early September, I almost do. I’m in a red-brick barn in northern Germany, trying to keep my sanity amid some of the most unholy noises I’ve ever heard. Sixty Nigerian dwarf goats are taking turns crashing their horns against wooden stalls while unleashing a cacophony of bleats, groans, and retching wails that make it nearly impossible to hold a conversation. Then, amid the chaos, something remarkable happens. One of the animals raises her head over her enclosure and gazes pensively at me, her widely spaced eyes and odd, rectangular pupils seeking to make contact—and perhaps even connection.

That goat (pictured above) really did remind me of a dog. And it’s not just me. Over the past few years, scientists at FBN and elsewhere have shown that goats rival dogs in many tests of social smarts. They can distinguish between pictures of happy and angry people, suggesting they are tuned into our emotional states; they can locate food behind an obstacle more quickly if they watched humans move the food there first, a rare example of cross-species learning; and, in a stunning finding, goats seem to understand what we mean when we point at something, a complex reading of our social cues that eludes even chimpanzees.

It’s not just goats. I saw piglets that seem to show empathy when their comrades were trapped in a box. Cows that make friends–and enemies. (They can also be potty trained, as I’ve written about before). And other goats that showed signs of altruism.

Together, the work is challenging long-held stereotypes that farm animals are dumb, not just among scientists but also the general public. And that in turn could change how we house and treat these creatures. As Jan Langbein, an applied ethologist at FBN told me, “If we don’t understand how these animals think, then we won’t understand what they need. And if we don’t understand what they need, we can’t design better environments for them.

P.S. This story also got me my first cover for Science, after nearly 20 years at the publication! You can see it here.

Jezebel has something to say. (Credit: David Grimm)

Cats, dogs, and babies have something in common–and it’s not just the mess they make. They all seem to elicit “baby talk” from us: short, repetitive phrases spoken with drawn-out syllables and a high pitch. If you’re a pet owner, you’re likely guilty of it–probably several times a day.

Scientists knew that dogs react to this “caregiver speech”, as it’s known. Or, as it’s known specifically for dogs, “dog-directed speech”. They’re far more likely to swivel their necks towards us or cock their heads. But no one had done a similar study on cats–until now.

As I write in Science, researchers have now tested whether our feline friends respond to “cat-directed speech”. They do, it turns out, though their reactions are more subtle than those of dogs. Their ears twitch towards us, or they momentarily stop bathing themselves. Cats, unlike dogs, also don’t respond to this type of talk from strangers; they only pay attention to their owners. That’s perhaps not a surprise as dogs are more likely to encounter unfamiliar humans, and are more likely to be cooed at by them.

But the work does reinforce the idea that cats, like dogs, are clued into the special bond we have with them: a bond that’s not unlike a mother has with her child. Perhaps that’s why cats also have evolved their own high-pitched sound, one embedded in their purrs that may evoke the attention-getting cries of human infants. We talk to our cats, but they also talk back.

Me and a wolf named Wotan at Wolf Park. (Credit: Wolf Park)

About 10 years ago, I visited one of the most unique sanctuaries in North America. I was reporting for my book, Citizen Canine–specifically a chapter about how the wolf became the dog. Experts agree that gray wolves gave rise to today’s dogs, but just how this happened is a mystery. Equally enigmatic is how much dogs changed over the course of this transformation. Did the ability to obey commands and follow human pointing arise only in dogs, for exampel? Or were flickers of these abilities present in their wolf ancestors? Ditto for the incredible bond between dogs and humans. Were wolves also capable of such attachment?

I had come to Wolf Park to find out just how different these two animals are. The sanctuary, 70 miles northwest of Indiana, is one of the few places in the world you can get up close and personal with wolves. I was lucky enough to spend some time face-to-face with the animals. As I write in my book:

When I enter the park, I’m directed to a safety training seminar. That’s my first clue that I’m not dealing with a domesticated animal. The second is the chain-linked fence topped with razor wire that separates the wolves from everyone else. As I walk along a dirt path that leads from the visitor’s center to the beige bunkhouse where the safety briefing will be held, I catch my first glimpse of a wolf. There, on the other side of the fence, stands a small black female, her eyes glowing yellow, her ears on alert. She’s staring at me, and not in a way that makes me feel comfortable. Despite what I’ve heard about the similarities between wolves and dogs, there’s nothing dog-like about this animal. She’s cold, she’s tense, and she clearly doesn’t want me here. 

All of this, and these animals had been hand-raised by people since they were just two weeks old. Clearly, there is a huge gap between dogs and wolves.

And yet, over the past couple of decades, researchers have shown that wolves are capable of some behaviors scientists once thought were exclusive to dogs. With a lot of training, wolves can follow human pointing. They can even play fetch.

Now, a new study, suggests that wolves are capable of dog-like attachment to humans. When researchers placed hand-raised wolves in a room with a caregiver and a complete stranger–in an experiment known as the Strange Situation Test–and then had these people enter and exit the room at various points, the animals showed more preference for their caregiver: They were more likely to greet this person and make physical contact with them. They even seemed to calm down more when this person entered the room, suggesting that the animals viewed the humans who raised them as a “social buffer”–a source of comfort and support.

Not everyone is convinced by the work. But if true, it suggests that seeds of many of the abilities we once thought were unique to dogs were in fact present in their ancestors. That’s not terribly surprising, as evolution needs something to act on: traits rarely arise out of thin air.

Given all of this, however, it’s unlikely that the wolves that gave rise to dogs were anything like our canine pals. My visit to Wolf Park attests to that. But it does suggest that ancient humans may have gravitated towards the abilities we now favor in dogs–and strengthened them over the course of thousands of years of domestication. And bit by bit, these once-wild animals eventually became the lovable pooches we know today.

(Credit: Hebrew Matio / Wikimedia Commons)

You have a remarkable skill you’re probably not aware of: You can read other people’s minds. No, you’re not a telepath, but you do have a general sense of what someone else is thinking. If someone approaches you with a baseball in their hand for example, you can quickly deduce whether they mean to throw it to you–or bean you with it. You know their intentions, and you know that their thoughts are separate from your own.

This is a skill known as “Theory of Mind”. On it’s most basic level, it’s our ability to tune into the thoughts and intentions of others. Scientists have seen signs of Theory of Mind in non-human primates, birds, and even dogs, though the abilities in these animals don’t seem nearly as complex as they are in humans.

A new study provides a bit more evidence that our canine pals may have a rudimentary theory of mind. When a researcher offered a series of dogs a piece of sausage, but then either “clumsily” dropped the treat or snatched it away purposefully at the last second, the dogs were more likely to walk away in the latter instance. This suggests that dogs understand our intentions, as I write in a new article.

Pups also understand what we mean when we point at something–a skill some have also attributed to Theory of Mind.

Put together, the evidence is growing that our canine pals have some conception of what’s going on in our heads. That’s not terribly surprising–how else could they make sense of all of the seemingly strange and random things we do? After all, when you’ve lived with another species for about 20,000 years, it pays to have some sort of mind meld. No telepathy required.

(Credit: Golden Trvs Gol twister, via Wikimedia Commons)

Point at an object, and, chances are, your dog will look at it. This seemingly simple ability–critical to our relationship with our canine companions–eludes most animals, including our closest relatives, chimpanzees. But it’s been hard to tell whether this skill is genetically hard-wired, or if dogs simply pick it up by hanging around us.

Scientists have now found a way to address the mystery–and it’s adorable. A team lead by Evan MacLean at the University of Arizona has borrowed nearly 400 Labrador and golden retriever puppies to show that the ability to understand finger pointing is indeed genetic. Working with the pups wasn’t easy, as MacLean told me: “It’s a balance between extraordinarily cute and rewarding moments, and frustration that leaves you at the brink of insanity. There is nothing that will not be chewed or peed on, including all of your research equipment, your clothes, and your body.”

But the researchers powered through, and the pups provided important answers. The team is now doing more sophisticated genetic analysis to determine exactly which genes may be responsible. In the meantime, be sure to check out the story for some adorable puppy pics, and a video as well.

Ebisu lived in Japan with her owner, Fumi Higaki. (Credit: Fumi Higaki)

Studies on the feline mind are few and far between (here’s why), so  I always get excited when a new one comes out. And this new one is a lot of fun: an experiment that shows that cats can imitate people.

The find was reported earlier this month in Animal Cognition, and I wrote about it last week for Science. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like a big deal: An owner trained her cat–Ebisu–to repeat her actions (using the “Do as I do” paradigm that has been successful with dogs), and then tested whether the feline could imitate two new behaviors: touching a cardboard box with her paw and rubbing her face against the box when her owner did the same.

The vast majority of the time, the cat copied her owner’s actions. Even though it’s only a one-cat study (what scientists call an “N of 1″), it suggests that not only do cats have the ability to imitate people (a rare find so far in the animal kingdom), but that they can “map” their owner’s body parts onto their own.

I’ve already received a few emails from readers telling me about their own cats doing the same. Got your own story? Drop me a line!

Cats get a bad rap. Many people think they’re dumb because they don’t do tricks like dogs, or that they don’t like people because they seem so independent. Cats themselves haven’t made it easy to overturn these stereotypes, at least from a scientific perspective. As I wrote in Slate a few years ago, cats hate being in a laboratory, and many of the researchers who have tried to study them have given up. “I can assure you that it’s easier to work with fish than cats,” Christian Agrillo, a comparative psychologist at the University of Padova in Italy who has studied counting in a variety of animals, told me a few years ago. “It’s incredible.”

But things are finally starting to change. In the past five years, a number of labs around the globe have begun studying the “social intelligence” of cats, that is how they evolved to communicate and bond with us. And they’re finding that cats rival dogs in many tests of social smarts. But cats still aren’t easy to work with, and it remains to be seen whether scientists will unlock the secrets of the feline mind in the same way they’ve done for dogs.

You can read all about this in my latest feature for Science, including some experiments you can try with you own cat at home. Enjoy!

Credit: Douglas Sprott / Flickr

Dogs have owners; cats have staff. Dogs are man’s best friend; cats are man’s best frenemy. Dogs come when called; cats take a message and get back to you.

As long as we’ve had dogs and cats, we’ve had dogs versus cats. Dogs are obedient, loyal, and love unconditionally. Cats are obstinate, fickle, and love when they feel like it. But are these personality differences rooted in reality—or are they just in our heads?

Science is coming closer to providing an answer.Last month, researchers published the most detailed analysis yet of the cat genome, comparing it to that of the housecat’s immediate ancestor, the Near Eastern wildcat. Among the highlights: several genes linked to fear, memory, and learning that seem to have changed as the cat morphed from feral to friendly. This makes sense, as cats, like other domesticated animals, have had to overcome their fear of humans and adapt to living in our society. We know less about how the dog’s genome changed from that of its ancestor, the gray wolf, but scientists believe it has undergone more—and more intense—genetic changes than that of the cat’s. That’s not a surprise when you consider that cats have only lived with us for about 10,000 years, while dogs have been with us for up to 30,000.

But it’s not just the length of our cohabitation that separates cats and dogs; it’s the evolutionary pressure we’ve put on them. Dogs and cats are thought to have entered human society in similar ways. Wolves followed us around as we hunted and gathered, feasting on our trash piles, and—over the course of thousands of years—inching closer and closer to our campsites until one day they were eating out of our hands. Wildcats slunk out of the desert, hunting rodents that had invaded our early farming villages, and stuck around once they realized they could get table scraps and the occasional pet from a friendly human. Both animals, it seems, domesticated themselves. But that’s where the similarities end. Once dogs entered our lives, we immediately saw their utility, breeding them to be better hunters, herders, and guardians; we imposed on them a second, intensive phase of domestication that transformed them into coworkers, companions, and friends. Cats… well, cats we pretty much left alone. That’s why some scientists consider cats only “semi-domesticated”.

These disparities show up in the differences between dogs and cats today. Dogs and humans are separated by more than 100 million years of evolution, yet we are closer to them than any animal on the planet. We communicate with them, play with them in complex ways, and even seem to share similar thought processes. Point at an object, and a dog will look at what you’re pointing at. That’s something our closest relatives, chimpanzees, can’t do, and it suggests that dogs, like humans, possess a “theory of mind”—an ability to sense what others are thinking (in this case, that the human is trying to show them something.) Dogs have also been shown to feel empathy and jealousy, and to possess human-like conceptions of justice and morality. If humans were a radio station, dogs would listen to us all day long. Cats would spend half their time surfing other channels on the dial.

Yet it’s easy to overstate the gulf between cats and dogs. Cats, it turns out, also pass the pointing test. They may also share many of the same complex emotions and thought patterns that dogs do; it’s just that almost no one has been crazy enough to bring them into a laboratory to find out. And as for cats being only semi-domesticated, they’ve evolved from fierce, solitary creatures into “love sponges”, as Ernest Hemingway described them—tame and cuddly enough to have become the world’s most popular pet. Dogs and cats may have their differences, but they’re they only two animals on earth that have been embraced as true members of the human family.

So perhaps it’s time to focus on what cats and dogs have in common rather than on what separates them. Perhaps we need a new saying, one that recognizes that, despite their differences, dogs and cats complete us in the same way. I’m fond of this one, from the French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette: “Our perfect companions,” she wrote, “never have fewer than four feet.”