Pet owners know how much care and affection they provide to their pets and in turn, they foster the growth of a loyal furry companion. Thus, they understand their dog much better and many of them claim that their pet dogs get attentive when crossing paths with another same breed dog.
We’re about to find out how much they’re true and what they’ve got to support this claim.
Does any dog owner has seen their German shepherd spending a long time with another German shepherd at Dog Park? Or do pugs keep sniffing on other pugs as well?
If you’re thinking about whether a dog knows member of their breed while noticing one, you’re not alone here. For researching the face some studies have been conducted and in a few a dog was provided with a picture of another same breed dog and was observed. Here’s what they found out!
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Signs Through Which A Dog Identifies Same Breed Dog
Currently, 187 breeds of dogs have been recognized through American Kennel Club (AKC). Other than that, another famous organization known by the name World Canine Organization recognizes around 332 dog breeds. The numbers don’t include cross-breeds or mutt meaning that a lot of breeds exist even for counting. Wouldn’t it be nearly impossible for a dog to pick out its own breed?
Humans make use of breed for distinguishing dogs, and the dogs most likely don’t use same reference point. However, the dogs are great and intuitive communicators as well, sometimes. Due to this, assuming that two or more French bulldogs are being able to recognize each other is easy, when in reality they socialize well.
The signs that a dog is recognizing another dog includes, tail wagging, sniffing, keeping up their tail, etc. The signs will however be different for different dogs, so you must carefully observe your puppy and notice these changes if any.
While it seems fun to try to get your Border Collie for befriending another Border Collie that you’ve noticed at dog park, you must not force such interaction.
Body Language for Dog recognizing another dog are sniffing, head titling, ears up, tail going up, alertness, etc. Other signs include your dog becoming very aware and observant with hair standing and whining.
Scientific Reasons Of Dog Recognizing Dogs Of Same Breed
There are several ways through which the dogs can determine that another animal is from their species are sight, hearing, and smell. Furthermore, a lot of dogs also rely on other cognitive processes like categorization for figuring out whether the animal with whom they’re interacting is one of them or not.
A study done by highly-regarded veterinarian, Dr. Autier-Derian, also found that the dogs make use of visual cues for sorting dog faces from other types of animal species.
A few studies used dog’s mother and sibling images, in addition to another purebred same colored dog. Additionally in such studies, a lot of dogs were able to identify other purebreed same breed dog.
It made sense as the dogs were able to identify their mother. How much we’re able to understand from this? Can dogs pick certain characteristics and features of same breed, or is it something different?
How Good Are Dogs At Recognizing The Same Breed Ones?
Measuring intelligence of a certain species is a complicated thing to do, so many animal behavior experts and animal scientists laid their focus on certain indicators, instead of going for certainly written exams and IQ tests. Examples of different intelligence types that researchers tried in study included:
- How good were dogs at getting trained?
- What were their memory capabilities?
- How much were they able to grasp verbal language
- How well they were able to perceive body language and social cues
In general, dogs have often proved themselves as intelligent creatures and have exceeded our expectations. They can get trained in a fairly easy manner and they’re highly perceptive to body language and emotions and they’re also able to learn more than 2000 words. A dog was also able to memorize vocabulary of more than 1000 words.
Recognition can be taken as a vital intelligence aspect that can get studied, and in such measure, dogs show mixed outcomes. According to research, it has been proven that dogs recognize each other in the form of species. Irrespective of their coats, ear shapes, and tails, dogs can tell when they’ve looked at a picture of any other dog.
According to a research, this got proven with the use of 3,000 dog pictures with 3,000 pictures of other animals with trained dogs selecting between 144 pairs of such photos. Use of rewards for selecting pictures of dogs, researchers demonstrated to dogs that they preferred selecting their species. After choosing pictures of dogs consistently they proved that they were able to differentiate well between non-dogs and dogs.
Dogs Recognizing Other Dog Breeds
Thus, it is clear that dogs can easily differentiate between other animals and dogs, but they also went a step further after recognizing the same breed. It is unfortunately where they felt short. There were about 400 to 500 breeds of dogs and no-evidence was there for suggesting that the dogs were not able to tell the differences.
It also makes sense when thinking about it. After all, it was quite hard for humans for stating differences between breeds, mainly when they’re not pure breeds. Crossbreeds and mixed breeds can also have features from multiple breeds.
Also, the new breeds are being discovered or bred all the time, due to which it becomes difficult for pinning down exactly how many breeds exist. Ultimately, chances are quite less of a dog differentiating well between breeds through sight even if humans are not able to.
Dogs considerably vary from breed to breed and it’s amazing to know that a poodle dog can acknowledge that they’re of the same species as St. Bernard and a bulldog.
Dog owners typically inaccurately prescribe their pets with human-like behaviors, rather than going for human explanations, dog owners must think similarly to a dog upon encountering interesting pet behavior. Lots of reasons can be behind your dog getting friendly with another dog, and it’s better to not jump at any self-formed conclusion.
While the conclusion wouldn’t feel satisfying, but it is all that can be said considering the available evidence. However, with limited research only we can suggest that dogs might have higher understanding of their breeds than what’s known.
