It is not often I get to bring science fiction into talking about dogs! At first glance the two things mentioned in the title seem to have little connection at all. True, one captain’s dog appeared on screen, and another talked about her dog periodically, but when we think of the Federation boldly going around the galaxy, dogs do not feature all that highly across the franchise. The episode that brought this topic to mind doesn’t actually feature an animal at all.
As close as I could get to a dog in Star Trek uniform with AI!
The Star Trek franchise stretches over many years and different series. What I regard as ‘my generation’ of Star Trek is The Next Generation, as this was the current version in my teenage years (yes, I am definitely ageing myself there). The specific episode that I’m talking about is series two episode nine, titled ‘The Measure of a Man,’ and the plotline revolves around an android member of the crew called Data.
The episode synopsis taken from IMDB is ‘When Data resigns his commission rather than be dismantled for examination by an inadequately skilled scientist, a formal hearing is convened to determine whether Data is considered property without rights or is a sentient being.’
What is Sentience?
The dictionary definition of sentience according to the University of Cambridge is ‘the quality of being able to experience feelings,’ and historically sentience as a concept was reserved for humans. There are accounts of philosophers and scientists such as Descartes stating that non-human animals were not sentient and carried out vivisection and horrendous acts of cruelty, claiming that any sounds of pain the animal might make was just a sign that the machine of the body was functioning correctly.
During the Renaissance, the concept of animal sentience was beginning to be considered among lay people. It was not until the Enlightenment, however, beginning in the 17th century and continuing into the 19th that the philosophers began to catch up to the fact that non-human animals do indeed qualify as sentient beings. This, of course, includes our dogs.
D.M. Broom in the Encyclopaedia of Animal Behaviour states that ‘Sentience means having the capacity to have feelings. This requires a level of awareness and cognitive ability.’ In the Star Trek episode there are three requirements to qualify as a sentient life form: intelligence, self-awareness, and consciousness. The argument used to define Data’s status as a sentient being is that he displays intelligence and self-awareness. Consciousness is a trickier concept – Picard asks in the episode if anyone present can give a way in which to measure consciousness and none of them can give him an answer. The precise nature of consciousness still causes much discussion decades later, and I am going to rely on the textbook definition of Broom rather than the television script.
Scientific research has given us more answers in the years since this episode was filmed, and we have learned a lot more about how brains work, including the canine brain and the presence of canine emotions – their capacity to have feelings.
This is an excerpt from a book I have recently released, Building the Bond, in a chapter that considers the importance of understanding and acknowledging canine emotion and some of the evidence we have that shows how emotional processing occurs in canine brains in the same way as in human brains.
"Historically canine emotions were not regarded as something to pay attention to but, thankfully, we are becoming more informed and continually learning about the importance of empathy and understanding the emotional experience of our companion animals.
Both the work of Jaak Panksepp on the basic emotional circuits of the mammalian brain and the functional MRI scans on awake dogs carried out allowing researchers to see the canine brain in real time as they react to stimuli show us that our dogs experience emotions. Not the full range of emotions we experience as humans, but they do share a good proportion of those we have ourselves.
We know how important acknowledging and understanding emotions is for us in our own lived experience. As sentient beings who live a complex emotional life it is every bit as important for our dogs.
Acknowledging and understanding emotions in our dogs is absolutely central to building and refining the bond we have with our canine companions and being the very best dog people that we can be."
So, we can now tackle the question of whether dogs are sentient.
Are dogs intelligent?
Undoubtedly. It would not be possible to train dogs to carry out the massive range of jobs and tricks that are often done without some form of intelligence. Stanley Coren splits the concept of canine intelligence into three areas.
Instinctive intelligence is the dog’s ability to demonstrate the traits for which their breed has been developed. When thinking about breeds and types of dogs we tend to see that herding dogs are going to herd, whether that’s a herd of sheep or the kids in the back garden. Retrievers are going to carry things in their mouths. Scent hounds will follow their noses. Sight hounds will react to fast moving stimuli. Guardian breeds are going to be more suspicious of strangers. And my favourite – terriers are going to terrier (dig, chase small furries etc). While training can reduce the incidence of some of these behaviours, the genetic potential is always there.
Adaptive intelligence is the ability to learn and to solve problems for themselves. Caregivers often provide puzzles for the dog to solve as part of an enrichment programme including brain work. Adaptive intelligence may also show itself in ways that we humans may find problematic, such as the dog who learns how to open the bin or use the kitchen furniture as a climbing frame to enable them to raid the kitchen counters if everything has not been put away. One of my dogs could open cupboard doors to get to where the (unopened) bags of treats were stored. This may be annoying for us, but it is still a form of intelligence!
Working and obedience intelligence is the ability to learn cues and work alongside humans. This is perhaps the most important intelligence to some people as having a dog who can consistently follow cues makes life together much easier!
With this examination of the different types of intelligence talked about in dogs, there is no doubt that dogs have cognitive abilities.
Are Dogs Self-Aware?
Typically, the definition of self-awareness has been something called the mirror test. A mark is made on the face, and the subject is then shown a mirror. If obvious attention is paid to the mark, such as touching it on the face or trying to remove it, that denotes self-awareness.
This approach is problematic when looking at species who do not use vision as a primary sense in processing their world. Dogs don’t tend to recognise themselves in mirrors, after all. One of my dogs, the first time he saw his reflection in a shiny surface, told it in no uncertain terms to go away (he is not a fan of other dogs) so clearly had no idea it was him.
Dogs process their world through scent, so this is surely the better sense through which to judge canine self-awareness. Dr Marc Bekoff, an ethologist and leading proponent of the arguments for animal emotions and sentience, conducted a series of scent related tests using what he called ‘yellow snow’ – snow that contained urine samples, some of which were from his own dog and some from other dogs. What he found was that, over the 5 winters through which he repeated these tests, his dog would spend much less time investigating his own urine samples compared to those of others. This arguably demonstrates an awareness of which urine was his own, so could we not say that, in such a scent-reliant species, this is a form of self-awareness?
Added to this a study a few years ago evaluated the ability of dogs to recognise that their own bodies were in the way of them being able to complete a task – picking up an object from a mat they stood on and giving it to their handler. In some of the tests, the item was attached to the ground while in others the item was attached to the mat and so the only way the dog would be able to pick it up and complete the task was to move off the mat.
Interestingly, the researchers found that dogs were far more likely to move off of the mat when the item was attached to it than when it was attached to the ground. Doing this showed that the dogs recognised their own bodies were preventing them from being successful, and so shows an awareness of their body as a potential physical obstacle.
So, Are Dogs Sentient Beings?
If the definition of sentience, as Broom puts it, is having cognitive abilities and intelligence and the capacity to have feelings then, as we have seen above, the answer has to be yes.
What does that mean for how we live with our dogs?
It means that we should try to respect them as sentient beings.
Give them choice and agency over their own bodies.
Work in a collaborative way with them, finding the harmonious way to live as a family.
Respect their feelings and emotions and take them into account when handling and training our dogs.
Ensure we work with them in a kind and ethical way.
Living in this way with our dogs will create the most amazing relationship between us, something that, once you have experienced that kind of bond with your dogs, you will never want to lose.
Building the Bond is available HERE in ebook, paperback and hardcover.
© Jay Gurden 2024
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