The Secret Life of Dogs: Unleashed

A wet, inquisitive nose appears first, followed by the rest of Milo bounding through the door that biological anthropologist Brian Hare has opened to his office. Canine sidekick Milo, very much at home in Hare’s office, stretches out on the floor. He’s there not just for companionship but as a professional muse as well. Hare recently published a study on dog cognition that was lauded in CNN and openly mocked by Susan Orlean (of Orchid Thief fame) in The New Yorker.

Hare’s research method is a dog-friendly variation of the old cup-and-ball game. “It’s kind of stupid,” laughs Hare. “I hide food from dogs, and then I tell them where it is.” Hare aims to find out to what extent dogs, wolves and chimps can follow human thought processes. In his study, Hare places two upside-down canisters in front of his test subjects, then points at the one canister that hides a doggy treat. Most dogs pick up on Hare’s signal and find the food, while the task bewilders wolves. Hare has video clips on his laptop of confused-looking wolves nosing at random canisters, oblivious to the humans pointing out the treats.

And, lest anyone conclude that wolves are unusually stupid, Hare notes that chimpanzees, which perform well in many other cognition experiments, also flunk the food-canister test. Hare’s conclusion? Dogs’ unique ability to read human social cues is a product of domestication.

Although Hare has always loved dogs, it didn’t initially occur to him to study them scientifically. Hare’s “first love,” as he puts it, was chimpanzees. In high school, he volunteered at a zoo in Atlanta. “I was such a dork!” he says of his passion for studying chimp behavior. Hare’s undergraduate studies at Emory University, home of a noted primate center, cemented his interest in chimp cognition and behavior.

Despite his academic focus on chimps, Hare’s best friend has always been his dog. Growing up, his constant companion was a dog named Oreo who followed him around his Atlanta neighborhood and especially loved playing fetch. Hare remembers that when Oreo didn’t see him throw the tennis ball, he could point at the ball and Oreo, jowls stuffed with several more balls, would run in the right direction.

One day, during a meeting with his advisor at Emory, Hare remembers his advisor saying that chimpanzees couldn’t pass a cognition test as outlined above. “My dog can do that!” says Hare; his advisor flatly denied it, saying that dogs were a textbook example of an animal not sophisticated enough to follow human thought processes. Hare’s “cute little undergrad study” that he conducted in his garage using two pet dogs as subjects proved that he wasn’t barking up the wrong tree. One thing led to another, until last year Hare published “The Domestication of Social Cognition in Dogs” in the journal Science.

Newspapers and magazines pricked up their ears at Hare’s research. Hare found his name in stories picked up by CNN, the BBC, and The New Yorker. He’s surprised by the rush of publicity, but he explains it by saying that dog owners just love to read about dogs.

Students aren’t surprised to hear about Hare’s unconventional work outside the classroom. Molly M. Faulkner-Bond ’06, who knew Hare as her TF last semester, says Milo was a constant companion in section. “Brian explained to us that [Milo] was lonely left at home during the day and the neighbors were sick of his barking,” she says. “In section he usually just sat under the table and you forgot he was there.”

But has Hare’s new understanding of doggy thought processes changed his relationship with Milo? Hare and Milo exchange a meaningful gaze. “Nah,” says Hare, smiling a little and looking into Milo’s large brown eyes. “He’s just my buddy.”