A very interesting article today at the New York Times site on researchers working with dogs and MRI machines. As these researchers have been prepping dogs and scanning them, they have come to one stunning (yet already known to us) conclusion:
Now, after training and scanning a dozen dogs, my one inescapable conclusion is this: dogs are people, too.
What does the author mean by this?
By looking directly at their brains and bypassing the constraints of behaviorism, M.R.I.’s can tell us about dogs’ internal states.
And just what have they found? The same receptors for happiness and joy present in humans are also (said in very loose scientific terms) present in dogs. So what makes us happy can also make our dogs happy. Food makes us happy, and, as we all know…food makes our dogs most definitely happy.
What does this leave us with? Well, a dog isn’t simply a dog. A dog is truly one who understands us, because what makes us tick is what also makes a dog tick. So with this in mind, reach out…and give a friendly pat behind the ears today.
Read the article. It’s well worth it. I bet when you put it down you’ll say, “I knew that already.” Experience with our our loving dogs has already taught us this a long time ago.
