Understanding Dog Psychology

Why Dogs Bark

"Take a tip from a dog: if you stare at something long enough, eventually you will get what you want."

Most of us will have experienced dog psychology. Dogs have a way of getting us humans to do exactly what they want. The most unintelligent dog you know will be able to beg food off you with that certain look in their eyes that you just can't resist.

Having lived together over generations dogs have learned to communicate with humans and let us know what they want. If your dog thinks it's time for a walk in the park, he'll bring you his leash, if he wants to play fetch, he'll bring you his ball to throw. All actions we take for granted but show that the dog is capable of learning complex behaviour.

Although dogs can understand a surprising amount of verbal and body language, dog psychology and the way they process information is quite different from us humans.

They have better ability to see in low light and are able to pin point accurately both sounds and smells and they translate cause and effect in a completely different way.

Associating a stimulus with a response is much more persistent in dogs but humans have the ability to change an undesired response.

Suppose you pick up his leash, he'll think he's going for a walk. Pick up his ball and he'll probably know he's going for a walk and to play fetch. But if you then pick up his food bowl he'll be completely confused and not know what to do first, mind you so would I.

If you follow a certain pattern of events regularly, your dog will learn what's coming next, but he can't understand if this chain of events is broken. Humans can adjust to these changes, dogs don't process the information in the same way.

Dogs can learn commands by listening to the tone of your voice and interpreting hand gestures that accompany these commands. Sit, stay, come, lie down, are obvious examples but dogs can also be taught more complex behaviour as rescue dogs, dogs for the blind and service dogs show.

Although it's possible to teach dogs all kinds of things, sometimes what seems obvious to us, such as not eating a decaying rabbit, you may never be able to teach your dog. They can't relate the cause of the rabbit, to being the effect of the upset stomach that happens at a later time.

Just remember dog psychology and the way they think is different from how we understand life and although we try to see our dog sometimes as human, to them, we are just another dog.