Have you ever wondered what your dog is thinking?
Virginia Morell has explored the research behind what we know about animal cognition and how we now it. She’s the author of Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of our Fellow Creatures. She’ll be speaking at the Chittenden County Humane Society this week and she spoke with VPR’s Mitch Wertlieb.
Is there scientific evidence that dogs like us?
“I think they really like us and there’s good evidence for that,” Morrell explained, and when she wrote on that topic in her book, she used a study that looked at how dogs watch our faces.
“They sit there and they watch our faces and they study our faces intently. We all know that. Anyone who owns a dog knows that they watch your face and monitor your expressions. And they’ve shown that when we look at one another’s faces, the first place we look is to the left side of the face and that’s because faces are asymmetrical and our emotions first appear on the left side. The smile begins there, the anger, all of our emotions are first shown on the left side of our faces and that’s the side of our face our dogs concentrate on too,” Morrell explained.
Virginia Morell is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine. She’ll be speaking in Burlington at an event for the Chittenden County Humane Society on Wednesday, Nov. 20.
