![]() ![]() Unlike dogs, people were not very skilled at discriminating between different dogs. Regardless of whether they owned a dog or not, most people could tell from a bark whether a dog was alone or being approached by a stranger, playing or being aggressive. ![]() How well do people understand what dogs are saying? Researchers played a collection of barks to a group of people. Using a similar test, the dogs also distinguished between the barks of different dogs. They did the same thing when the barks were reversed, showing that dogs could clearly distinguish between the two types of barks. ![]() But when they played the fourth bark, the “stranger bark,” the dogs quickly jumped to attention. When researchers played three “alone barks” to different dogs, these dogs showed less attention to each bark. In another experiment, researchers recorded “alone barks” of dogs when they were alone, and “stranger barks” when a stranger was approaching. The dogs were more hesitant to approach if they heard the food growl rather than the stranger growl. The researchers played these different growls to a dog who was approaching a juicy bone. In one experiment, researchers recorded a “food growl” where a dog was growling over food, and a “stranger growl” where a dog was growling at the approach of a stranger. If anything, Chocolate’s growl seems louder and scarier when she is playing than when she is eating.Įxperiments have now shown that dogs use different barks and growls to communicate different things. It is difficult to see how Cina knows when it is okay to take something from Chocolate’s mouth, since both growls are made when Chocolate is aggravated and unwilling to share. A quiet growl from Chocolate warns Cina away. The girls also eat together, but when Cina tries the same trick with Chocolate’s food, the result is very different. When Chocolate retrieves the ball, inevitably Cina wrestles the ball from Chocolate’s mouth, even while Chocolate growls loudly. Each throw sends them plunging through the waves, racing for that magic orb of rubber. I know two Australian dogs, Chocolate and Cina, who love to play fetch on the beach. Depending on the context, a dog’s barks can vary in timing, pitch, and amplitude. When scientists have taken spectrograms, or pictures, of dog barks, it turns out that not all barks are the same-even from the same dog. Dogs might even be altering their voices in ways that are clear to other dogs but not to humans. Dogs have fairly plastic vocal cords, or a “modifiable vocal tract.” Dogs might be able to subtly alter their voices to produce a wide variety of different sounds that could have different meanings. However, more recent research indicates that there might be more to barking than we first thought. Frequent barking when aroused is probably another consequence of selecting against aggression. ![]() Meanwhile, the experimental foxes in Russia bark when they see people, while the control foxes do not. Barks make up as little as 3 percent of wolf vocalizations. Perhaps barking is another by-product of domestication. They are not taking into account their audience, and their barks carry little information other than the emotional state of the barking dog. The arousal model is that dogs do not have much control over their barking. It seemed to Coppinger that the dog was simply relieving some inner state of arousal. If barking is communicative, dogs would not bark when no one could hear them. The dog barked continuously for seven hours, even though no other dogs were within miles. Coppinger reported on a dog whose duty was to guard free- ranging livestock. Raymond Coppinger pointed out that most dog vocalizations consist of barking, and that barking seems to occur indiscriminately. But if there was really a cause for concern, like a strange man with a gun, I wonder if Mystique would bark in a way that would alert me that there was something dangerous and different about the person approaching the house.ĭog vocalizations may not sound very sophisticated. Eventually, we just learned to sleep through it. Mystique dutifully barks at all passersby whether she has known them for a day or all her life. The only problem is that our house is on the main trail where the night staff walk back and forth after dark. Usually in Congo, a little extra security is appreciated. She guards our house, barking ferociously every time someone comes within earshot. During the day, she is sweet and demure, but at night she becomes a different animal. Mystique is a dog who lives at Lola ya Bonobo, where Vanessa and I study bonobos. Excerpted with permission from the publisher. Published by Dutton, a Member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. Excerpt from The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter Than You Think, by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods. ![]()
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