The Ethical Dog: Scientific American - http://www.scientificamerican.com/article...
Mar 19, 2010
from
Kol Tregaskes,
Bret Taylor,
Brian Sullivan,
Rachel Lea Fox,
Amit Patel,
Mehmet John Doguelli,
rowlikeagirl,
jenniferbhalahansen,
Jenny,
Andrés David Aparicio,
Juan Pablo González,
Kevin (aka ThreadKilla),
and
mardac
liked this
"Every dog owner knows a pooch can learn the house rules—and when she breaks one, her subsequent groveling is usually ingratiating enough to ensure quick forgiveness. But few people have stopped to ask why dogs have such a keen sense of right and wrong. Chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates regularly make the news when researchers, logically looking to our closest relatives for traits similar to our own, uncover evidence of their instinct for fairness. But our work has suggested that wild canine societies may be even better analogues for early hominid groups—and when we study dogs, wolves and coyotes, we discover behaviors that hint at the roots of human morality."
- Shannon Jiménez
We have a mutt rescued from the street when she was a month old. My wife and I half-joked that we needed the teach her dog behavior so I dropped to the floor in four legs :)
The amazing thing is that instinctively we followed all the rules described in the article, reading them I recognize all the things we did and how I picked up her behavior as well. When we rescued another dog, this one eight years old, they played just like we did before.
Thanks for sharing this!
- Andrés David Aparicio