Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Foreword
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- 1 Preamble to the Dog's Journey through Time
- 2 Immediate Ancestry
- 3 Evidence of Dog Domestication and Its Timing: Morphological and Contextual Indications
- 4 Domestication of Dogs and Other Organisms
- 5 The Roles of Dogs in Past Human Societies
- 6 Dogs of the Arctic, the Far North
- 7 The Burial of Dogs, and What Dog Burials Mean
- 8 Why the Social Bond between Dogs and People?
- 9 Other Human-like Capabilities of Dogs
- 10 Roles of Dogs in Recent Times
- Epilogue: One Dog's Journey
- Appendix A
- Appendix B
- References
- Index
9 - Other Human-like Capabilities of Dogs
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Foreword
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- 1 Preamble to the Dog's Journey through Time
- 2 Immediate Ancestry
- 3 Evidence of Dog Domestication and Its Timing: Morphological and Contextual Indications
- 4 Domestication of Dogs and Other Organisms
- 5 The Roles of Dogs in Past Human Societies
- 6 Dogs of the Arctic, the Far North
- 7 The Burial of Dogs, and What Dog Burials Mean
- 8 Why the Social Bond between Dogs and People?
- 9 Other Human-like Capabilities of Dogs
- 10 Roles of Dogs in Recent Times
- Epilogue: One Dog's Journey
- Appendix A
- Appendix B
- References
- Index
Summary
IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER, ONE OF SEVERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF dogs that posed an important topic was the development of social skills that are remarkably parallel to those of people. For example, work by Hare & Tomasello (2005), among others, focused on this very characteristic of dogs. This is truly a remarkable feature of the evolution of dogs, but in this chapter the principal concern is some other remarkably human-like characteristics that are found in dogs. These characteristics are not, strictly speaking, social skills themselves, but they do concern the execution of such skills. A good place to begin is with some of the emotional reactions, toward people, that have been attributed to dogs under particular circumstances. At one level, it will come as no surprise to many people to hear that a particular dog seems to like them. Here, though, a much more consequential capability, one that reflects nothing less than life or death importance, is the initial topic.
SEARCH-AND-RESCUE DOGS
As particularly good examples of the close association between people and dogs, dogs are commonly used to search for and rescue people and to assist handicapped people. Dogs that perform these functions are highly selected and extensively trained for a particular task.
(Macpherson & Roberts 2006: 113)Following that passage, I deal here with the first of the examples identified as an example of the close association between people and dogs.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- DogsDomestication and the Development of a Social Bond, pp. 208 - 225Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010