do dogs have a sense of self?

i suppose i could never really prove anything my dog thinks or feels unless he starts talking, or i become a dog. but i have trouble accepting he only did what i would do because i dont generally lay my head on people and sigh when i have wronged them. []
 
doesnt matter, i still believe my dog knew what he did and was apologizing. whether that gives him a sense of self or not i dont know.

ORIGINAL: labcrab

Yes, except that's not the way this behavior evolved.  There simply was no "accidental" sock+toy event that allowed him to make such an assumption.  I also used a sock as one example.  The deception occurs when he has deliberately stolen a high value item that is guaranteed to be taken away.  This happens rarely as we run a very tight ship!!   When the deception is discovered, he is NOT rewarded - so he can't possibly think that it's "okay" to do this.  I believe he's trying to delay the expected outcome - confiscation of the item.  Is this not deliberate?



Yes, but again - isn't pretend peeing to get what he wants a *deliberate* deception?   

I tend to agree with Anne's very succinct answer!  Their sense of self is anchored on their self - not our self.   Applying a human definition to what their sense of self should be seems misguided, no?

First and foremost, we'll never know if your dog was being deliberately deceptive or not. I agree that it's very clever, but I'm not convinced the dog knew he was deceiving you. Mostly because I don't think pretending is something that requires a sense of self in the scientific sense of the term. Pretending is really just copying or mimicking after all, and that's how most animals learn. Pretending to get something you want is indeed quite clever, but IMO, just an extension of the usual method of learning. I don't think dogs have solid reasons for a lot of what they do. They just know that something works and have no idea why. They don't need to know why. I get a lot of joy out of the superstition I see in dogs. My mum's vallhund is convinced that I can pluck birds out of thin air because one day I picked an injured one up while we were out walking. He didn't see me pick it up, he just knew that I went out of his sight and when I came back, I had a bird. After that, he would stop and look at me every time we got to the spot where I got the bird, as if expecting me to produce another. I'd let him sniff my hands and check out my clothing lest I be hiding it there, but even though he could find no trace of a bird, he wouldn't be quite convinced that I didn't have one somewhere. He's a smart dog, but he's just a dog and not capable of comprehending how something he didn't see happened.

The same can be said for Timber licking his stitches in another room. He thinks he can do it where he can't be seen and then no one will know he's doing it. He didn't lick his stitches in another room to trick his owner, he was just testing to see if it was safe to lick his stitches where his owner couldn't see him. He had no idea how his owner knew he'd been licking his stitches because as far as he was concerned, he couldn't see her so how could she know what he was doing? I often think that dogs think we're just magical.

Defining it in a human way does have limited meaning, but we can't discuss it if we don't define it. Seeing as dogs don't care whether they have a theory of mind or not, but we do, it seems like defining it in a human way is actually very meaningful to us. Defining it in a doggy way would not be meaningful to us or the dogs, because the dogs don't care and it wouldn't make sense to us. Defining something like a sense of self in a human way gives us a tool with which to compare very different species. Meaningless to the species involved, but quite meaningful to us, because it helps us to understand our environment and the creatures in it. Theory of mind was something first defined by psychologists to identify what sets us apart from other animals. Since then, they've discovered that some animals may have a theory of mind as well. It's exciting because it appears we've underestimated our animal neighbours by quite a bit.

a bit off subject...maybe.i believe i've seen my dog in an act of what we humans would call deception. when he was a pup he and our rotty were playing and when my dog berserker (the pup) would have the ball, storm (the rotty) would steal it and run and my dog discovered that if he whined like she had stepped on him she would drop the ball and he could go grab it.
 
  wait, would that be him just repeating an action because he knew he got certain results? but even further, isnt that exactly what we do, only we have fancy words fto identify such things?  we could go in circles on this topic for hours without reaching a definitive answer. stupid humans, created language and literature just to confuse things right.

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Defining it in a human way does have limited meaning, but we can't discuss it if we don't define it.

 
maybe we should just try comprehending infinity while we are at it huh? [sm=eek.gif]

Nice post, corvus.

There is a difference between Repeating Behaviors That Work, which is learning from past experience, and Having A Sense Of Self, which is the perception that you have a self that is separate from everything else around you, or that you have an inside and an outside.

Learning how to lie is evidence of when children develop a sense of self, but in animals this is tricky, as corvus eloquently stated above. Dogs are really good at mimicing human behaviors and picking up on our emotional cues, but does that mean that they know what these behaviors mean?

I think dogs are like Chance The Gardener in the movie Being There. Chance is basically a savant, and winds up becoming a very important adviser to statesmen because he's very proper looking and is good at repeating what people tell him in a cryptic, wise way. All these statesmen wind up thinking he is incredibly deep and very brilliant, but he has no idea what is going on, what these people are saying to him, or where he even is. He just likes the attention, and keeps repeating behaviors that work to keep it coming.

Great comparison fisher. [sm=lol.gif]
I think part of what leads us to project so many human qualities on dogs (other than our being human and empathic) is that they observe & process so many more details than we do... that what is actually a keen awareness of a number of smells, body language positions, sounds, and causalities on the dog's part looks like human intuition or emotion to us because we aren't privy to all that information.

ORIGINAL: gaylemarie

wait, would that be him just repeating an action because he knew he got certain results? but even further, isnt that exactly what we do, only we have fancy words fto identify such things?  we could go in circles on this topic for hours without reaching a definitive answer. stupid humans, created language and literature just to confuse things right.

Yeah, same sort of thing. But it's not quite what we do. A very manipulative person might pretend to be hurt by someone else because they predict that it will make the other person feel sorry for them and go out of their way to make it up to them somehow. Obviously I can't be sure, but I expect that a dog might learn that yelping or whining and looking sad will make their owner capitulate to the dog's every whim, but not understand that their owner behaves that way because they're communicating emotions that their owner is wired to display compassion towards. Some people may not even understand that when they manipulate others! But I think if they thought about it they'd be able to give a reason why it works, whereas I don't think dogs could. So, the key difference is that people know that they're being deceptive and they know why.

I see what you mean about infinity![] Scientists do their best to understand all sorts of crazy things that they have no experience with. It can seem pointless because they'll never know the truth either way, but I think it's useful to try to imagine what things we haven't experienced are like. In the case of animal behaviour, trying to imagine what is going on in our animal friends' heads can help us to better understand them and also ourselves when we see how they are different to us. I know a lot of behaviourists and they are all very compassionate people. I think spending so much of their life trying to comprehend why animals do what they do makes them particularly sensitive.

BTW, what's your background, fisher? You seem to know a lot about this.

BTW, what's your background, fisher? You seem to know a lot about this.

I'm an artist, and I used to have a really really aggressive dog. I started researching all this animal behavior stuff because of her, and I think it's interesting because art is (IMO) all about the existential dilemma, or the pain that comes from having a sense of self in the way humans do.

Like my poor aggressive dog. It was extremely painful for me to have an aggressive dog--I was ashamed and horrified that violence was being associated with me or coming from me. Because I have this awareness of myself as separate from all that surrounds me. But my dog, who had a very short life because she was dangerous, was not unhappy at all. She got lots of love, training and boundaries, understood her role in the family, slept inside, ate two squares and giant fistfulls of meat and cheese (attempting to desensitize her to other dogs and children), and played and had a good time. Her violent behavior assured that she would be kept far far away from everything that made her unhappy, and she was not racked with guilt.

And that innocence just baffles me still.

Her behavior worked, and that was that. She almost killed another dog and did not lose sleep over it, but I sure did. I was really intrigued by her amorality, and the efficient (and sometimes ghastly) way she shaped her surroundings. I think that this was a product of having a very different sense of self than a human. IMO, humans can reflect upon their behavior and what it makes other people think of them as a Self. Humans have that sense of inside and outside and can use inside and outside to judge their behavior and others'. Dogs just seem to do what works, and I want to interpret that as a more direct perception of the self as a part of the surroundings, and not having that sense of separateness that allows a self to decide whether their behavior is okay.

But this is just me musing or guessing. I don't know that much, to answer your question.

I have read in numerous places and heard in documentaries that only primates have a sense of self. 
 
That being said I also know for a fact that dogs do know that they are a separate entity from the rest of the world and from other dogs. This happens like clockwork almost at 3 weeks. It is amazing to watch. Until then the pup seems to think that anything else (which is generally only the mother, littermates and caretaker) are extensions of itself as their paws or tail are. At three weeks they have a sudden epiphany where they realize the difference between themselves and others. I was really shocked (and enthralled) to see this with my first litter of pups. I now take it for granted but it's still great to see.

To extend thought on Timbers moving to another room to lick his stitches.  He may not understand how she knew he was doing that, and he may have thought if he cant see her then she couldnt know what he was doing... but here as in many situations discussed, are you possibly oversimplifying their actions to justify your point?  Im a pretty good arguer, a talent I know[], and when I want I can make anything work out to fit my point.  It goes over quite well sometimes but I do tend to recognize the action in others at times.  Of course all of the debunking statements have their possibilty, but doesnt the alternative as well?  I would just hate to see thier intelligence overly explained with minimalistic things... I guess thats just because I feel differenlty but still...

Just to go a step further Kayla did similar things.  When I told her not to lick herself when she had hot spots she would go to where I couldnt see her and do it.  If I yelled from another room because I could hear her she went further away from me... if I got up and walked by the door quietly and could her hear(spying) then showed myself she immediatly would stop and start licking the floor or something.  She knew I didnt want her licking, so she went where I couldnt see her, when I heard her I think she realized that I still knew so moved away, and when caught in the action she had just been yelled at for she stopped and not only stopped but tried to pretend she was doing something else which IMO was to justify the noise she was still making which would also mean she knew how I knew when she was in the other room too...because I could hear it.

Lucy is a bone hog.  She will slowly sneak up and collect them around the house and lay on them and sleep.  She doesnt want it, but she doesnt want them to have it either.  If one has a bone and she doesnt she will stare for a while and wait... if they dont leave it after a while she will run to the window in the front and bark once, and immediately run back to the place where the other dog was with the bone and take it when they run to see whats going on at the window and go hide it before they get back.  She does this almost every time she is here and it annoys us because that one bark will get Minnie going in the window for a while, and it always works to steal the bone.  Its a plan.  Minnie is always in a frantic search upon returning to find the bone she just had.

Kayla and I had an incredible conenction and I know in my heart that she had a sense of self and more thought than I knew dogs had.  I didnt appoint this to her, it was there and I was constantly amazed by it.  She knew when I smiled it was a good thing.  I could just look over at her and smile and she would wag her tail one or two times, that was all it took.  She just knew by my face what I was thinking even when it was sort of expressionless.

As far as knowing they are separate from other things in the world I almost feel like its an insult to their intelligence to even suggest that they dont.  You dont think a herding dog knows a cow or sheep is that and they are not that animal, that a child is different from them?

Getting into not losing sleep over something is IMO far far beyod a basic sense of self and even a far cry from regular old guilt, annoyance, happiness, etc.. which I also believe they have.  I believe you can live in the moment but still feel those feelings in that moment and even remember them later.  That doesnt mean they lay around and ponder the past and lose sleep over it,  no, thats far beyond a sense of self tho.

Agravation is another.  I know for a fact that a dogs can feel annoyed.  As if you pretend to give them a treat but keep taking it back you will eventually get a sigh and other physical signs of annoyance with whats going on....

When playing with Kayla she would only play bite my hand, very gentle, but if I grabbed my hand and looked hurt (I didnt have to say anything), she would come lay really close and lick that exact spot.  She felt like I thought it was too hard and was saying sorry.  Why would it always be right where she had just been play biting if she didnt have a feeling about why I looked that way.  It was always just a joke and when she did it I would laugh and give her a big hug, but she knew.

I dont think you necessarily have to have an ego (which it seems some dogs do) or to be self conscious in the sense that they feel fat or ugly or something to have many other aspects of self awareness.  
 
I would also like to add I think their levels of intelligence and intellect and self awareness and drive and the list goes on can vary in dogs as much as it can in people.  Some people are violent, unstable, dumb, low IQ, lack somewhat of a sense of self as well... while others are fine tuned in different areas while others are well rounded.  Cant dogs be indiviual in that way also....some dont have it the way others may...

By all means, I don't want to diminish the intelligence of anyone's dogs. Dogs are very smart and particularly good at communicating with people considering they don't have the tools we do for communication. You're quite right in that my debunking theories can't be proved or disproved any more than the original interpretations can. Bottom line is that we'll never really know for sure if dogs have a sense of self or not. As a trained scientist I tend to be conservative about these things until I see some really good evidence. That's not because I think dogs are stupid or emotionally primative or anything like that, just that non-conservative scientists tend to be ripped to shreds by the rest of the scientific community if they aren't careful to acknowledge every possible conservative alternate hypothesis. [] It's been drilled into me to question everything, so that's what I do out of habit. Sorry it if sounds like I'm being obstinate and argumentative. That's not the case at all.

I would just like to say that the sense of self that I'm talking about is a very highly evolved thing. It's more than emotions, more than learning through observation, more than being aware that you exist as an independent being seperate from other individuals that you might see. I totally agree that dogs are aware that they are not cows or other dogs or people, and that they know these things are seperate from themselves. As a highly social pack animal, they would have to know that at least. After all, they know what is family, what is a strange dog and what is potential prey. At the start of this thread I explained what I interpreted the sense of self to be. I said that I thought of it as being the same as a theory of mind. The key thing to understand about the theory of mind is that it explains why people are capable of deliberate deception and manipulation. They can put themselves in the shoes of others and imagine what they see and what they feel as a response to certain stimuli they themselves have had experience with. We often see our dogs apparently engaging in this behaviour, but as I've said before, what looks like deception or clever manipulation may just be dogs showing us just how freaking good they are at interpreting our body language and working out what it means to them. As fisher said, the fact that we see behaviour we recognise in dogs and automatically put a human label and value on it is our own theory of mind at work. We are adept at projecting our feelings onto others, and that's what makes us compassionate, and compassion is what makes us human.

My dog does a lot of the things described in this thread as well. When I tell her no licking me, she licks something else then tries to sneak a lick at me between licks of other things she knows she's allowed to lick. She tries to get another dog interested in a game when she wants that dog's position, then immediately steals the spot once the dog has gone to join in the game. She often tries to act up outside when she thinks I can't see her and then acts sheepish when I appear, shouting and telling her off for what I watched her do from the kitchen window. She does a lot of things that make her a wonderful companion and I often feel like I'm talking to another person rather than to a dog. But she knows me well and she's an expert at what situations elicit which behaviours from me. She's an expert at what situations elicit which behaviours in other dogs she lives with. However, while this proves that she's clever, cluey and very good at cause and effect, it doesn't prove that she understands the mechanisms behind any of the situations or behaviour in other individuals, and THAT is what's important, IMO.

However, I will stress once more that this is my interpretation of a sense of self. I chose this interpretation because it's stimulating and makes for excellent discussion.

No no no, your not being argumentative in the least!  I didnt mean it that way.  I ment that I like your style and recognize it as my own.  Not in the "argument" which may have been the wrong word... but rather "discussion"...  I love to agrue points and facts and discuss things... love it.  Its always been my nature.  I just know that when I think something I can debunk much like you were.
 
I also didnt mean to insinuate that you were not giving them credit for their intellignce but just making that point that maybe some of it was oversimplifying that possibility.
 
I agree we dont know.  I know they learn and adapt incredibly well... but I do think they have compassion.  Compassion to me is love and care for another and thinking about how your actions may make that person feel.  I, in a way, would even go as far as to say that dogs can have compassion for each other and their owners.
 
I heard a story recently... my mom was painting a mural for a lady whos dog died.  They had two dogs that were great friends and one day while playing when no one was home one of their teeth got caught on the others collar... the stuggle to get loose left the other strangled.  The owners got home after what they think to be a few hours and it had by far been too late.  They said the living dog has never been the same.  Mopes around and has extreme sadness.  Now, I know that may counds like a human projecting humanly things onto the dog but isint it possible that it DID effect that dog... make it sad... possible knowing that something went wrong and its friend died and now it cant get over that.  This was a few years ago too... the dog never got over it.
 
Maybe a bad example but at times I do think they have those thoughts.  What about the dogs in the family that become strangely attatched to the kids in a protectve different way... they were not generally taught that... but take on a motherly protective role all on their own.
 
Sorry if my post came off the wrong way![]

Glad I wasn't upsetting anyone, kaykay. [] I didn't think your post came off nasty in the least. I just try to be super polite on forums when there's limited capacity to communicate expression/tone and whatnot.

I do believe that dogs feel sadness when one of their pals dies. I know of a lot of domestic animals that display depression and sadness when they lose a member of their family. They might go off their food and spend a lot of their time looking for the missing member. What you described with the two dogs sounds like a horrible incident. I would interpret it as the dog left being sad that their buddy was gone, but not sure where or why. But that's just me. It's entirely possible that dogs have compassion. I was talking to a breeder just yesterday who recently lost her breeding female to gastric torsion. When she came out into the yard, the female was dead and the breeding male was standing over her, keeping the 2 younger dogs away. What does it mean? Maybe he sensed his girl was in trouble and needed protection. Maybe he just wanted to be with her when she died. Maybe he didn't know why she wouldn't get up and was just trying to work it out. Who knows? But it seems likely to me that he sensed her distress and responded by coming to stand over her.

The key thing to understand about the theory of mind is that it explains why people are capable of deliberate deception and manipulation. They can put themselves in the shoes of others and imagine what they see and what they feel as a response to certain stimuli they themselves have had experience with. We often see our dogs apparently engaging in this behaviour, but as I've said before, what looks like deception or clever manipulation may just be dogs showing us just how freaking good they are at interpreting our body language and working out what it means to them.

 
I think ALL highly social species are capable of doing this-- imaging how others would feel and react, and capable of using deception. Not just primates. It's essential for operating in complex social societies. I think the only difference between humans and other animals is our ability to use spoken language. Which gives us a big leg up on other species-- every dog has to learn most EVERYTHING from scratch; a few things can be passed on by older dogs, but not much. You learned what thousands of other people in the past had learned, via language, piggy-backing on the knowledge accumulated by many generations that went before. You're not smarter than your dog, you're just better educated.