The Bond Between Humans and Dogs

your own schedule. I'm Steven Schragis, and this episode is going to the dogs, or more specifically, human's obsession with dogs and why we consider them part of the family. But if you're a cat person, don't worry. We've got some interesting research for you too. Professor Katherine Sanderson recently gave a one day university lecture titled Dogs and Humans Why has this bond been so long lasting? She's the chair of Psychology at Amherst College and her research has

received grant funding from the National Science Foundation. Catherine is fascinated by the relationship between humans and dogs, and yes, she's got a furry family member at home. I would have to admit that I am a dog person, and my husband and I kind of have a joke about that because for years I've said I'm really not a

dog person, But I love dogs. I currently have one dog, who is the third dog that I've had, and I will say that dogs consistently bring me and my family lots of joy, lots of happiness, and I look forward to sharing lots of scientific information with the listeners. Speaking of scientific information, you opened your lecture with some statistics which I wrote down. Ninety four percent of dog owners

consider their dog part of the family. Okay, forty three percent of dogs sleep in their owners beds, thirty two percent celebrate their dog's birthday. Sixty five percent of dog owners take more pictures of their dog than their significant other. Here's the big one, though, A hundred percent of dogs receive a holiday gift. Can you elaborate on that one

a bit, because that's surprised me. So what's funny to me is the one that surprises me is that ninety four percent of dog owners consider their dog apart of the family. And that surprises me only in that I'm like, who are the six percent of people who do not

consider their dog a part of their family? But I will say that overwhelmingly, what the research shows is that people very much do consider their dog a part of their family and so therefore, when there's a holiday, it makes sense that you are celebrating that dog with a gift as much as you are with your children and your family members. And to me, that really illustrates the extent to which will really do embrace having a dog as part of their family. These statistics made me wonder

how long has the scientific community been studying dogs? Is this like a relatively new field. So it's not a relatively new field in terms of the science, but I think it's very much a new field in terms of

the psychology. So people have certainly examined owning dogs, the benefits of dogs, the sort of evolutionary features of moving from wolves to dogs, and so on within biology, and in particular, what are different features that distinguish dogs, you know now versus historically, or dogs from wolves, or frankly

dogs from other kinds of animals. But I will say that in terms of psychology, this is a relatively new field, and I think it really sort of took off in part because of the growing awareness that dogs weren't just pets, but the dogs also have some real and tangible benefits to happiness and health, which I think we're going to get into a little bit later. Okay, we are going to get into that, but let me just add the non psychology part, the relationship between wolves and dogs and

how that is where it all started. Can you tell us a little bit about that, right, So, that is actually something really interesting, and to be perfectly honest, is within biology really not within psychology. But what the research suggests is that years ago, thirty thousand or so years ago, wolves begged humans for food, so that was a clear benefit to the wolf. However, they also assisted humans with hunting and therefore it became kind of a symbiotic relationship.

It's also clear that wolves and then eventually dogs provided body heat and comfort. We've heard about dogs providing transportations, so dog sleds with lots of different dogs providing an opportunity for humans to not have to walk through snowy ground but in fact to be pulled. So all of that suggest that dogs were beneficial to survival for humans.

And over time there became this domestication and also selective breeding of dogs, which led to this genetic divergence between wolves which stay as wild animals, and dogs which became domesticated. And we really see this divergence happening, and increasingly dogs have changed in terms of their features. We can tell particular distinctions in that dogs, unlike wolves, but also unlike horses and cats and so on, seem to show particular features such as an ability to do what we call

mutual eyegazs, to literally stare into somebody's face. It's basically right above your eyebrows, and it's also right above your dogs the equivalent of eyebrows, and this is a particular muscle that allows us to do eye gaze. So humans have it, babies have it, dogs have it. Wolves do not.

So this suggests that this muscle, in fact, is a key part of allowing the ability to do mutual eyegays, to stare into somebody else's eyes, and this is an example of the kind of differentiation between dogs and humans. What's also particularly interesting here is that this is something that we see as representing intimacy. So we stare into the eyes of somebody who we love, who we care about. Parents stare into the eyes of their babies, We stare

into the eyes of our romantic partners. And this ability to do mutual eye gaze with our dogs is really a clear sign of intimacy and attachment. Now let's move on to this psychology of it all. There are actual health benefits to owning a dog. Why don't you tell us about that. So some of the most clear evidence within the field of health psychology is that, in fact, the presence of dogs reduces stress. And they've studied this

in a lot of different ways. And one of the things that I find most intriguing here is that you see this evidence with even very young children. So children who are in the presence of a dog actually show lower heart rate, reactivity, blood pressure when they're doing something stressful, like, for example, taking a math test. We know that with people who have PTSD, being paired with a service dog also reduces their symptoms, and in fact, this is at

some levels as beneficial as medication. So what we know is that the presence of dogs is really beneficial in terms of reducing levels of physiological arousal in ways that clearly are beneficial in terms of stress. Let me delve into that a little more. I've heard you talk about putting dogs in an MRI machine. Not an easy thing, I bet, but that's an intriguing thing to think about. That image is hard to get out of your head.

So this is really interesting research, and I share your admiration for any researcher who is going to take the time to allow a dog to get comfortable enough to go into an fMRI machine. But what they've done in these studies is they've put dogs in fMRI machines and then they've studied patterns of brain activation in response to different kind of stimuli. And what that research has shown is that dogs actually process words and emotions in the brain in a very similar way to what you see

with humans. And so what this means it is, at some level, dogs are actually having emotional reactions in ways that are very similar to humans. Dogs, for example, can distinguish different kinds of emotional expressions on people's faces, so they can tell the difference between, for example, fear and sadness,

or or happiness and so on. And so this means that the part of the brain that is activated for a dog when seeing particular emotional expressions actually looks very much like what you see in terms of how emotion expressions are processed in humans brains. So dogs can understand us or is that too simplistic a statement? I think on some level, dogs really can understand us, and dogs

can key into probably very very subtle cues. So we've known for a long time, and anyone who's owned a dog would already be aware of this that dogs rely heavily on their sense of smell. So dogs rely on smell to recognize someone in a way that most people, of course do not. So that's an example of how dogs are actually queuing into things on some level better than humans can. So in some senses, dogs may be able to perceive things like stress or anxiet, whether that's

measured in facial expression or scent. It's why researchers have used dogs to sniff out bombs or explosives or drugs in airports, why in some cases researchers and medicine are actually looking at dogs as being able to smell signs of ovarian cancer before these signs are actually evident in screenings that people would actually go through. So on some levels, dogs may actually have better abilities to pick up on subtle things than humans do. What about though, recognizing words

and language. Can you talk to your dog and they understand you, I think at a low level absolutely so. In fact, the example that I always give with students in my intro to psychology class is that we speak to dogs exactly in the same way that we speak to babies. So if you talk to a dog, you'll say do you want to go for a walk, and you won't say do you want to go for a walk, And that's exactly the kind of speech that we use

when we talk to babies. For years, as an undergraduate, I actually did research with language acquisition as an undergraduate at Stanford. This is what my undergraduate honor thesis was on and what that research showed, even way back then was that we use this particular pattern and intonation of speech. At the time that I was in college, it was called Mothery's We actually now call it parent ease within psychology.

But this is exactly how we speak to dogs. That we accentuate with a high pitch, the word that is important, do you want to go for a walk? Do you want to go for a ride in the car? That These are all examples of things that influence how we speak to dogs. Now, it's also clear that dogs can understand that. If we look at what we name dogs, overwhelmingly many of the most popular dog names have this

ability to do that kind of sing songy speech. So lots of dog names end with why so Daisy, Lucy, Molly, Buddy, Charlie, Rocky. I've just given you six three female names, three male names that are the most popular puppy names. And there's a reason for that that we in fact believe that dogs can understand their names easier when they have this kind of sing songy speech. So dogs can pick up on their names, but dogs can also pick up on other kinds of words that we're using in the environment.

I never heard anything like that that is really interesting about the general area of dog names. Can you get specific? I know you have dogs, How have you named your dogs? What was your thought process? Yeah? So I love that question, and I will say that I have had three dogs. The first one was called Hoby. You can imagine that ended and why. The next one was called Daisy. Our third dog is called Lily. And literally two weeks ago I started fostering a dog and that dog was given

to me with the name. So the dog arrived with the name, and I was told this dog's name is john and I immediately you can probably predict where I'm going. I immediately changed that dog's name to Johnny. So it was not my dog. It was a loner dog, a temporary dog that I was fostering a puppy. But I immediately started calling him Johnny because I wanted him to learn his name, because that actually makes it easier for

him to be responsive to his future owner. So we literally started calling him Johnny, and I am delighted to report that he was adopted and his new owner is going to keep calling him Johnny. After the break, Catherine tells us how your dog may help you live longer, and the difference between dog and cat owners. Owning a dog seems to affect people's life expectancy, how long they're going to live. What's going on there, So this is

one of the most practically important findings. And what the research shows, in fact, is that owning a dog actually decreases somebody's risk of dying in a given year about twenty four percent, and the benefit of dog ownership is actually even greater thirty one percent for people who have already had a heart attack or a stroke, suggesting that for people who are at a more medically fragile point,

the benefits are particularly strong. I will also note that that study I just described is worldwide so this is not a uniquely American finding or Western culture kind of finding. It seems to be that there is a benefit, generally speaking,

from dog ownership. Are there other health benefits? People who own a dog tend to have lower rates of of blood pressure, they tend to have higher overall mood, So it seems to be sort of broadly beneficial, not just in terms of life expectancy, so yes, in terms of life expectancy, but also very clearly there seem to be

benefits in terms of psychological wellbeing as well. And the same thing is true if you own a cat, or a fish or a hamster, right who, With due apologies to the people who own a cat, you know, ferret, turtle, goldfish, whatever, there actually seems to be a unique benefit to dog ownership. So we actually don't see evidence for the unique benefits of any other kind of pet other than dogs. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it means there is

not yet scientific data I can point to that supports that. Catherine, you've described yourself as a dog person, proudly as a dog person, but a lot of our listeners would call themselves cat people. You want to tell us a little about the difference between a cat person and a person and how you contrast them. Sure, a great question, and so I'll say a couple of things about that. And I'll also say, in the interest of full disclosure, I

also have a cat. So in addition to having dogs, I also have a cat and have had a cat for a very long time. Different cats, but currently I have a cat as well. So I'll say a couple of different things. One, what the research shows is that some of the unique benefits of having a dog maybe due to things that we do with dogs that we don't do with cats. So, for example, we walk our dogs.

Most of us do not walk our cats. So when we talk about the benefits of dog ownership as opposed to cat ownership, in all honesty, it may be that dogs are kind of a proxy for exercise. So we have a dog, and therefore we walk it. And so it's really not that the owning the dog is the good thing in terms of health or longevity. It's really that walking is something we are much more likely to do with dogs than cats, and that's where you're getting

the benefit. Relatedly, when you walk with a dog, you get human connect action because overwhelmingly when you're walking with the dog, you meet other people and they say, what's your dog's name, how old is your dog? What kind of dog is that? And so it also may be that dogs are kind of giving us access to some kind of a social network in a way that cats

do not. I've also talked about dogs as giving us unconditional love, and frankly, there are lots of people who would say, my cat does that for me as well. And so people who feel that they have a connection with their cat and their cat is responsive to them, that their cat also recognizes their voice, recognizes their footsteps, and so on. For people who have that sort of a relationship with their cat, you may in fact beginning

similar benefits. Now, when you gave this lecture, the other thing that jumped out to a lot of people was the idea of jealous dogs, which you confirmed dogs can get jealous. There's been research you want to tell us about that I do, and that is a really interesting finding.

But what they did in the study act actually created fake dogs, but realistic looking fake dogs, and they had pet owners pay attention to, hold, talk to, etc. These fake dogs, and that actually seemed to bother their actual dog. This again is an example of something that is exactly what you see in terms of babies, so very young babies. If a mom or a dad is holding another baby, babies will show jealousy. They'll really react to that. And dogs seem to do exactly the same kind of thing.

They come over, they kind of insert themselves between you and the even fake dog. So they are having a very human response to having their attachment figure paying attention to someone else. So dogs again very much like babies in lots of ways. Well, Catherine, as you know, I ran One Day University for fourteen years. You always like to start with a joke, and you usually finished with a joke. When you gave this talk, you finished with a joke, and that might be a good finish to

this podcast. That is a great finish. Well, I'm actually going to end with two jokes. You're gonna get two jokes. So one, when I talk about the science of Happiness, which is my I think most popular talk at One Day University, I always described how dogs give us a particular kind of love, unconditional love, which everybody of course knows. And then I say, my husband and I have been married for what will now be thirty years this August, and I say, we have three kids, we have this

two dogs. We have the following deal. If one of us leaves, the person who leaves takes the three kids, and the other person gets the dogs. And that has kept our relationship very strong. I've ended with that joke for years, but about five years ago a man came up to me, and I remember it vividly. It was in a talk I gave in Dallas, and he said, I have the perfect joke for you to end with. And this is in fact the joke that I now

end with. And here's the joke. Imagine you come home from work one day and you put your wife and your dog in the trunk of a car. Then you drive around for an hour. At the end of that hour, when you open up the trunk, guess who's still happy to see you. And that joke really sort of epitomizes why dogs are so beneficial, because you know what, the dog would be still really happy to see you. Catherine, thank you so much for this. We really appreciate it, and I hope I see you again soon. More dogs

is good for us all. That's the key takeaway. Thanks for joining us here at one day University. Sign up at our website one day you dot com to become a member and access over seven hundred full length video lectures from the world's finest professors. You can also download our app. There you can learn more about today's episode and watch Amherst Professor Katherine Sanderson's lecture on dogs and Humans, as well as her talks on the science of happiness,

understanding intelligence, and more. Join us next time when we talk about wealth in America. We have been struggling as a society to make sense and figure out what to do about wealth inequality since the late nineteenth century. One Day University is a production of iHeart Podcasts and School of Humans. If you're enjoying the show, leave a review in your favorite podcast now. You can also check out other Curiosity podcasts to learn about history, pop culture, true crime,

and more. School of Humans