page_title: Dog intelligence
section_title: Emotional intelligence
hierarchical_section_title: Dog intelligence / Emotional intelligence
caption_attribution_description: English: Mix-breed dog cautiously staring at a cat hidden under a car. This house dog encountered with a house cat at the park, as they stared at each other for a while, the cat showed itself defensive and hid under a car, whilst the dog was curious and also kind of frightened. Español: Perra mestiza mirando cautelosamente a un gato escondido bajo un automóvil. Esta perra mascota se encontró con un gato en el parque, se miraron con cuidado por un tiempo, el gato se mostró defensivo y se escondió bajo un carro, mientras la perra se veía curiosa y un poco asustada.
context_page_description: Dog intelligence or dog cognition is the process in dogs of acquiring, storing in memory, retrieving, combining, comparing, and using in new situations information and conceptual skills.
  Studies have shown that dogs display many behaviors associated with intelligence. They have advanced memory skills, and are able to read and react appropriately to human body language such as gesturing and pointing, and to understand human voice commands. Dogs demonstrate a theory of mind by engaging in deception.
context_section_description: Studies suggest that dogs feel complex emotions, like jealousy and anticipation. However, behavioral evidence of seemingly human emotions must be interpreted with care. For example, in his 1996 book Good Natured, ethologist Frans de Waal discusses an experiment on guilt and reprimands conducted on a female Siberian Husky. The dog had the habit of shredding newspapers, and when her owner returned home to find the shredded papers and scold her she would act guilty. However, when the owner himself shredded the papers without the dog's knowledge, the dog "acted just as 'guilty' as when she herself had created the mess." De Waal concludes that the dog did not display true guilt as humans understand it, but rather simply the anticipation of reprimand.
  One limitation in the study of emotions in non-human animals, is that they cannot verbalise to express their feelings. However, dogs' emotions can be studied indirectly through cognitive tests, called cognitive bias test, which measure a cognitive bias and allow to make inference about the mood of the animal. Researchers have found that dogs suffering from separation anxiety have a more negative cognitive bias, compared to dogs without separation anxiety.  On the other hand, when dogs' separation anxiety is treated with medications and behaviour therapy, their cognitive bias becomes less negative than before treatment.  Also administration of oxytocin, rather than a placebo, induces a more positive cognitive bias and positive expectation in dogs.  It is therefore suggested that the cognitive bias test can be used to monitor positive emotional states and therefore welfare in dogs. 
  There is evidence that dogs can discriminate the emotional expressions of human faces. In addition, they seem to respond to faces in somewhat the same way as humans. For example, humans tend to gaze at the right side of a person's face, which may be related to the use of right brain hemisphere for facial recognition. Research indicates that dogs also fixate the right side of a human face, but not that of other dogs or other animals. Dogs are the only non-primate species known to do so.
caption: Mix-breed dog showing curiosity and fear while staring at a cat.
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