Analysis Of Hare's The Genius Of Dogs

Before reading Hare’s The Genius of Dogs, I had the misconception that dogs understood the principle of connectivity in the same way as humans. For example, I thought that when I would walk my friend’s dog on his leash, and we would come across a mailbox the dog would know to walk on the same side of it as me. However, for all the walks that I took with the dog I would always have to get him unwrapped from the mailbox until I decided to start pulling on the leash to show him which side to go on. I did not know if this misunderstanding of connectivity was only something that my friend’s dog did not know or if it was something specific to all dogs. After reading Hare’s book, I came to the realization that this problem was something specific to all dogs and that they could not solve this type of problem on their own. Even though dogs may not comprehend how to solve a problem right away they can be slowly conditioned to solve the problem that they face.

When the word “domestication” is used when talking about dogs, most people have the misconception that humans brought dogs into their homes on purpose, and that is was something they did consciously. However, after reading about Hare’s research it is easy to understand that this

A great example is how some dogs learn how to open a gate. They do not go through an extensive thought process to figure out how to open the gate. All the dog does is make multiple attempts at opening it until it succeeds. In Hare’s research, he mentions that the dog does not know about the connectivity between the gate and the fence and therefore he does not understand that he has “to break the connection” by moving the latch (168). However, there are different ways in which the dog could have found out how to open the gate, and that is if he had seen someone else open it before he attempted to do