LISA:
Welcome to Brainwaves, a podcast about big ideas produced at the 暗网禁区.
I鈥檓 Lisa Marshall.
On the surface, our relationships with our pets seem simple: we feed them. They love us. Repeat.
But research suggests there鈥檚 a lot more to it than that. This week, we learn about what鈥檚 going on in the minds and brains of animals and get some insight on why dogs, specifically, do what they do.听
Then, we hear from a researcher on the meaning and purpose our pets can bring to our lives.
And we talk with a medical bioethicist about how we say goodbye to our animal friends, and how that鈥檚 changing in a good way.
But first, we sent Cole Hemstreet out to a dog park to ask: what makes your dog so special.
WOMAN 1:
What makes my dog special? She is a very stubborn and sweet dog that has made us learn a lot of patience.
WOMAN 2:听
Well she's a puppy so she has just a lot of the things most puppies do, but she's
very affectionate and she's very strong, very young.听
WOMAN 3:
He's very affectionate and loving and he's just he's a good boy, everyone says so.
MAN 1:听
She's very loyal, and she's a really good friend.听
MAN 2:听
He's actually not my dog, he's my granddog. My son's away, so I've got him for the weekend.听
WOMAN 4:
Oh, he's smart, he's agile, he loves other dogs, and he makes us laugh. That's the biggest thing, he makes us laugh every day from one thing or another.
LISA:
As you heard there, we have strong feelings about our companion animals.听
But how do they feel about us? And each other?听
What about animals in the wild?
What are their emotional lives like?听
Marc Bekoff, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at CU Boulder, has spent decades exploring these questions, observing animals in the wild and at places like the dog park. He recently dropped by our studio to talk about what he鈥檚 found.
LISA:
So, I wanted to start this conversation with a news story from about a year ago off The coast of San Juan Islands there was an orca that had lost her child her baby, and appeared to be carrying the child on her back. And there was a lot of talk about whether she was grieving, whether some of the other members of her pod were grieving, too, and, and if it was almost, sort of, an orca funeral procession. And it really brings up this question that has been a controversial one for a really long time, which is: do animals feel emotions, including really complex emotions, like grief and love and jealousy? So, what does the science say?
BEKOFF:
That's a great example. There's no doubt in my mind that she was grieving. I wrote about it, and just her behavior changed, and there's no reason why orcas and other animals can't grieve just like dogs, cats and chimpanzees and humans. I think also, members of her pod were grieving as well. So, the general question of whether non-human animals feel these quote complex emotions, to me, is a no-brainer. That of course they do, and we can look across mammals. They all share the same neural anatomy, neural physiology, neuro chemicals. So, there's no reason to think that they can't also experience the same spectrum of emotions that humans do.听
LISA:
Can you give me a couple specific examples from science?
叠贰碍翱贵贵:听
Yeah, there's a great study, a neuroimaging, study on dogs. So, there's been a big question about whether dogs experience jealousy. What they found was, they set up a situation with a dog in an MRI where there was food behind them, and they could see the food, and they can see another dog come in. And they then did neuroimaging looking at what parts of the brain light up. And they discovered that the same parts of the dog brain lights up as we see in humans when humans expressed jealousy. So, to me that's if you need proof, if you will, that's proof.听
LISA:
So, you have this new book, relatively new book, 鈥淜9 Confidential: Why Dogs Do What They Do.鈥� I do have a few questions. Maybe you can answer, maybe you can't. But, so, why do they greet each other the way that they greet each other? With the, the snout in the butt greet?听
BEKOFF:
Well sniffing is the way dogs acquire most information about another individual, another dog, a cat or even a human. They are nosed animals, we call them. And I like to say they sniff first and ask questions later. So, they can pick up information about individual identity, they can pick up information about reproductive status of a female. It's likely they can pick up information about whether an animal was stressed. So, you know, it's possible that through the sniffing, they can say, 鈥渙h, Harry is not in a good mood, or maybe Harry ate something for breakfast, and you know sometimes people laugh at that, but having spent like tens of thousands of hours watching dogs and other animals, it's amazing what they can pick up from just very subtle signs.听
LISA:
Can you talk about the 鈥減lay bow?鈥�
BEKOFF:
Yeah, well when dogs play, you know they do what we call a bow. They crouch on their forelimbs, and they put their butts in the air. They may wag their tail, they may bark, and that's a fairly specific signal that says, 鈥淚 want to play with you, and if I play with you, or if you decide to play with me, we will play fairly.鈥� And what we discovered after years of research, is that dogs will punctuate play signals with a play bow. So, for example, if they're playing, and they bite one another too hard, they'll back off do a play bow, and say, 鈥淚'm sorry I bit you hard, I want to play.鈥� Or they might do a play bow, and then launch on another dog and what they've done is, they've sort of prefaced it by saying, 鈥淭his is play, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna test the limits. I'm gonna jump on you, or bite you, or you know, throw you to the ground. But it's all in play.鈥澨�
LISA:
So, in your book you really emphasize positive reinforcement versus, sort of, harsh discipline in training dogs. Can you talk about that why do you take that stance?听
BEKOFF:
You can get a dog or a human to do anything you want if you beat them, and treat them with aversive conditioning or, you know, reinforcement. The data clearly show that positive reinforcement has the best training effects. You don't need to shock them. You don't need to yell at them. You don't need to beat them. And you don't need to put shock collars, or pronged collars on them. There's also a really good data base developing that shows that negative reinforcement has long-term effects. And I've talked people who have not done it on their own, but have rescued dogs who have a history of that. It's a labor of love to get them to trust you.听
LISA:
What can we learn from them?
叠贰碍翱贵贵:听
I like to say that we can learn a lot of things. we can learn how to be choosy about our friends. we can learn loyalty and Trust. Because, when you have a dog, and they trust you they trust you, they put their life in your hands. We can learn the meaning of friendship and I also think we can learn the meaning of fun. That when dogs play, and they're exuberant, or they greeting one another, that's all that's going on.
尝滨厂础:听
Great, thanks so much for joining us.
LISA:
Animals -- and particularly our pets -- give us so much. Our next guest has conducted research for years on our relationships with animals and how they can enrich our lives.听
Brainwaves鈥� Paul Beique talked with CU Boulder sociology professor Leslie Irvine about animal relationships that can be more meaningful than human ones.
PAUL:
Leslie, welcome to Brainwaves.
IRVINE:
Thank you.
PAUL:
You study the interaction between people and animals. What's going on in those relationships, and how do we benefit from having animal friends?听
IRVINE:
I've studied primarily people's relationships with the animals we keep as pets or companions. And we benefit in a number of ways. We believe we receive unconditional love from them. Whether that's actually the case or whether they're cozying up to their food source is another story. But that that that acceptance unconditional acceptance is a huge benefit, and I've found in some of my research, that having the structure in one's life of walking the dog caring for the cat, really creates meaning in one's life.听
PAUL:
You've written a forthcoming article called, 鈥淎 Very Photogenic Cat: Sociological Aspects of Sharing Cat Photos Online.鈥� What is it about cats and cat photos that we find so compelling?
IRVINE:
Yes, I worked on that article with a PhD student, Jessica Austin. And we think that cat鈥檚 faces are so easy to read expressions into. They're almost like blank. And so, we can put any expression we can attribute, any expression to them. And we can use them in humorous situations, we can use them in touching situations, and we can attribute personhood to them, along with emotions.
笔础鲍尝:听
You've also written about the role of animals in the lives of homeless people calling them lifesavers and life changers. How do animals change and save the lives of homeless people?听
IRVINE:
I saw a lot of examples in, in different kinds of situations for instance. I saw people who were addicted heroin, and other drugs, people who we're at risk of going to jail, who had been to jail, and they, at one point, had to choose between a lifestyle of substance abuse and an animal. And in several cases that I saw when they, when they chose for the animal, it really changed their lives. They, as well one woman put it, 鈥淚 gave up the pipe for this dog.鈥澨�
I talked to another woman who gave up a very harsh life on the street, including prostitution, because she was afraid she would get arrested and lose her dog. In several cases I talked to people who use their animals as a suicide barrier, they were saying, 鈥淵ou know, if anything happens to this cat, or this dog there's, there's nothing I have to live for. This is the only source of affection and support I have in my life.鈥�
PAUL:
Did you have pets as a child? And what role do animals play in your life today?听
IRVINE:
Oh, I did have pets as a child, starting very young. I had a wonderful canary named Twitter, and he was so special that he was a guaranteed male canary who laid eggs, and went on to have dogs, a rabbit.听
Today, my husband and I have a dog and two cats, and they really-- I can't imagine walking into a house without animals in it. They really are the spirit of our home. They live in every inch of the house. They're companions. They entertain us. They really do structure our days. They wake us up, and the dog tells us, 鈥淗ey, it's time to go to bed.鈥澨�
And I really just can't imagine life without them.听
PAUL:
If we have animals in our lives, and we go home today what should we be thinking when we look at them that's maybe a little different from the way we normally relate to these animals?
滨搁痴滨狈贰:听
The main thing that I can think of is how are we making their lives better as animals? So, what are we doing to provide enrichment for them whether it's a scratching post or a climbing tree or 听window perch for a cat or more exercise for a dog more time off leash for a dog just reaching out to them to figure out what they need is in terms of their animal needs they give us so much we should be thinking about what we can do for them that's right听
PAUL:
Leslie Irvine, thanks a lot for joining us today on Brainwaves.
IRVINE:
My pleasure.
PAUL:
Leslie Irvine is a professor of sociology at the 暗网禁区.
LISA:
Anyone who has lost a companion animal knows how hard it can be.
And for those who have to play a hand in hastening that death, the experience can be even more heart-rending.
What鈥檚 being done to make this transition easier for people and their pets?
Jessica Pierce is a bioethicist with CU Denver鈥檚 Center for Bioethics and Humanities. Her book, 鈥淭he Last Walk,鈥� gets at these tough questions.
LISA:
Can you give me a little background on sort of, the personal and professional reasons that you wrote this book?
笔滨贰搁颁贰:听
It really stemmed from my experience with a beloved dog named Odie, who was really like my first child. When he was about 12, he started to really decline physically and also mentally. And I realized when I started going through this how ethically complex this whole terrain of end-of-life care for animals is, and there's so much overlap with my own field, which was human medical ethics. And really the bread and butter of, of that field his ethical issues in death and dying.听
LISA:
So, I had Marc Bekoff in here earlier, too for the same episode. And we talked about whether animals can feel complex emotions, like jealousy and grief. Our animals, do they have a sense of what death is?
PIERCE:
My blanket answer is, is probably yes. You know, do animals have a complex sense of their own mortality the way we do? I'm not sure. Do animals experience the death of their friends and family? Yes, there's a lot of evidence in complex, and you know, highly social mammals, such as elephants, chimpanzees, dolphins, whales, also dogs.听
LISA:
As you talked about in your book there's a fine line between euthanizing and animal out of mercy to make them more comfortable, and euthanizing an animal out of almost convenience. How are we doing? Are we euthanizing our pets too soon?听
PIERCE:
I think it's really hard to answer that question in broad strokes, and it all boils down to each individual case. Often yes, I think we are euthanizing animals too soon. You know, just to give one example, you know, I think a very common piece of advice that human caregivers of dogs and cats are given is: when your animal stops eating it's time to euthanize. And there's really no good scientific evidence to kind of support that as a blanket recommendation. And oftentimes, you know, loss of appetite toward the end of life is it's simply part of the process of dying which can be protracted and take place over weeks or even months. You know, on the other side of things I think often people wait too long.听
LISA:
Are there any signs, though, that you're getting close?
笔滨贰搁颁贰:听
If an animal is experiencing a high level of pain that can't be treated, you know. With Odie, he had a lot of trouble with mobility, and it was, you could just tell that it was really scary for him. he would he, he would fall often. He'd be walking along and his rear end would collapse. I could just tell that it was hard on him, and you know that's when we started to, to really think seriously about calling the vet and hastening Odie鈥檚 death.听
And I think that the number one message that, you know, if I could talk to pet owners, I would say you're not alone in feeling like this. This is a really, really difficult decision. if you're making it with your animal鈥檚 best interests in mind, you're doing what you can.
LISA:
What, what's different now, in terms of what's available to a pet owner going through this compared to maybe five or ten years ago?听
PIERCE:
You know, I don't think we're quite at a point where you get time off work. But where I do think there's a greater acceptance of the idea that you might have a funeral or a memorial service for an animal companion. And that, that's not a weird thing to do.
LISA:
In your book, you also talk about things like advance directives and hospice care and pet cemeteries and cremation services, which are all available now.
PIERCE:
Yes, and I think the animal hospice movement is just to pick out one of the things you mentioned, animal hospice is a wonderful thing. And basically, just the idea that an animal can really be supported through aging and through illness in a way that can give them really good quality of life for quite a long time.
LISA:
Yeah, when my dog passed away, I was really beautifully amazed at what was available to us. A service came to the house, this wonderful veterinarian, and she sat with us on the floor, and spent time with my other dog and, and then she took Gussie away. And, and two weeks later I came down and got a beautiful little urn with her ashes in it, and it was remarkable. I couldn't, I didn't even know those kinds of things existed for pets.听
PIERCE:
Yeah, and, and I think that in-home, in-home euthanasia service is one of the most wonderful things that has emerged.听
LISA:
So, last question. Real quick, where would you like to see things improve?
笔滨贰搁颁贰:听
You know, I think I would like to have more people given support through, through the dying process of an animal and better counseling about how to assess quality of life in an animal. I think for me, one of the most important things I would like to see happen is a greater awareness of an attention to pain management in animals, particularly animals who are elderly or ill.听
LISA:
Thank you so much for joining us, Jessica, and I love your book. It's called 鈥淭he Last Walk: Reflections on Our Pets at the End of Their Lives.鈥�
LISA:
Thanks for joining us this week on Brainwaves.听
I鈥檓 Lisa Marshall.
We鈥檒l be back next week with stories about the promise and peril of artificial intelligence.
This episode was produced by Paul Beique, Andrew Sorensen, Cole Hemstreet and me.
If you have a big idea you鈥檇 like us to explore or you want to give us your听