Animal Cognition

Many dog owners say that it seems like their dogs “just know” when family members usually come home, or even when other routine events are about to take place (such as going out for a walk). Yet, if dogs can’t read clocks or count hours, how is this possible? […]

When you have dogs, it’s easy to see that human faces are important to them. Surely, you’ve probably noticed the countless times in a day that your dog looks at your face: in the park, on the couch, when you are playing together. It’s very likely that dogs are the ultimate “human-stalker”, as they can […]

Many dog owners can attest that their dogs appear to be “in tune” with their emotions, seeming to intuitively “know” when the owners are feeling depressed or irritable. While in the past plenty of people may have been quick to write this off as anthropomorphism, two recently published studies support the conclusion that it’s true: dogs […]

If you have a dog you probably know that dogs yawn now and then. But did you ever notice that they yawn as a response to your yawning? In humans this phenomenon is well known as “contagious yawning”, but recent research indicates that even dogs can “catch” human yawns. In 2008, Joly-Mascheroni et al. conducted […]

MRI machines are extraordinary tools for studying brains, but they aren’t often used on animals unless they are sedated. Why? Because keeping them still often proves to be quite a challenge! Fortunately though, scientists from Emory University were able to train a group of dogs to lie still long enough to successfully perform MRI scans. […]