How Dogs Love Us
In my journey to further understand our furry companions, I recently read “How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain” by Gregory Berns. As the title so aptly describes, this book follows Greg - with his dog Callie - as he strives to map the brain of a dog through MRI imaging.
Dr. Gregory Berns is a distinguished professor of neuroscience at Emory University in Atlanta. He has published several books on neuroscience and human behavior, and his main area of concentration is how brain imaging can teach us about human motivation and decision-making. As Gregory recounts this story, he also intermixes interesting bits of information and anecdotes about what science has taught us about the brains of dogs.
I’m quite interested in what science can teach us - and have a rather large interest in dogs as well -so I found this book quite fascinating and engaging. I would have even liked more relevant information for people hoping to raise and train flourishing dogs. Dr. Berns does a wonderful job at taking complex scientific terms and concepts, and simplifying them so that people unfamiliar with the field can still understand them. To help give you a taste of this book, here are a few parts of the book that I found quite interesting.
-Of the bat, Dr. Greg’s quest to train his dog Callie caught my attention. In order to get the first brain images of an awake dog, he would not only have to train Callie to enter an MRI, but also have her remain completely still throughout the entire MRI brain-imaging sequence. This process is foreign, loud, and chaotic, which created a large training challenge for Dr. Greg. Nonetheless, Greg trained Callie with classic conditioning, perseverance, and adaptive flexibility, and eventually Callie - and another dog - were able to enter and remain in the MRI unpreturbed for the full imaging process. Dr. Bern and Callie’s story highlights the incredible possibilities that can happen through consistent and effective training techniques. While it’s probably true that some dogs can be tougher to train than other dogs, training can have a dramatic impact on a dog’s previous behavior baseline. So stick with the training; it can have a massive impact!
-Secondly, Dr. Greg also points out that much of how we interpret dogs is shaped by how we understand ourselves (anthropomorphism) and how we understand wolves (lupomorphism). Dr. Greg asserts that these conceptualizing biases are can interfere with a good understanding of our dogs. As people, it can even be tough to understand how other people view and interact with the world. So imagine how tough it is to comprehend how different species inhabit reality. It reminds me of an intriguing philosophy book “What Is It Like to Be a Bat”, where American philosopher Thomas Nagel reflects on attempting to understand how another species experiences reality. In this book, Dr. Bern notes a couple biases - if not mistakes - many people make when interpreting dogs. First, we can anthropomorphize dogs, meaning that we assume that dogs view the world the way that people do. We can also lupomorphize dogs, means that we assume that dogs think and behave like wolves do. Dr. Bern believes that both of these are misleading and potentially even harmful, because these give us an image of the mental life of dogs that are sculpted assumptions from data that is accessible, and not necessarily accurate. For Dr. Bern, a more helpful tool is leveraging our ability to preform brain imaging.
-Instead of being subject to these biases, Dr. Greg believes there is a better way to get some insight into what it’s like to be a dog. He believe that brain imaging can give us some enlightening insight through what he refers to as a “functional homology”. Through his study, Dr. Greg recognizes that mammalian brains have similar parts. If we can better understand what is going on in a dog’s brain - such as through brain imaging - we can compare its functioning to how a human brain functions. If we notice any similarities through activated areas in response to particular stimulus, it’s fair to intuit a potential similarity or connection to a human’s experience - say if a particular treat seems to stimulate activity in what is thought of as a please center in a mammalian brain. So we can deduce some functional similarities between how humans experience and interact with the world, with how a dog might do the same. While understanding how a dog experiences being a dog is currently unknowable, we can still seek out analogs.
In summary, I enjoy Dr. Greg’s book, while I would’ve liked to hear more about how a dog’s brain does work, and what it can tell us about how dogs are dogs. Exceptional dog training compels me, and I love to hear stories about the deep relationships beautifully grow between humans and canines. This was a story in that fashion, where we learn about Greg’s heart and journey in this process. However, this book will whet your appetite for practical insights and conclusions about the inner life and brain functioning of a dog.
In the coming months, we’ll be reading and discussing more books about the characteristics of dogs and their worlds with the hope of finding further insight about how to love and raise them. So stay tuned!
Warmly,
Erin and Jay