Dogs rush to help when owners cry, study suggests | Hacker News Reader

Dogs rush to help when owners cry, study suggests

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82 pointsshawndumas65 comments

I often tell people that I love my dog more than any human has ever loved a child, but I don't love this study.

The result is fairly obvious to any dog owner, but the study is representative of the type of "pop" science that appears so often in the news but carries little actual significance. 34 dogs total, 17 in each group (humming vs crying), 9 of which respond to humming and 7 of which respond to crying, albeit the latter much faster than the former. Of those 34 dogs, 16 were therapy dogs. While the time difference is large, more dogs respond to humming than crying.

So we have a very small sample size which is biased towards therapy dogs. It is also very susceptible to p-hacking. Why "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"? Was this the song that produced the largest effect out of 20 different songs? Why do more dogs respond to the humming than crying but the dogs that do respond to crying act so quickly? Were the crying sounds much louder than the humming? Why not crying vs yelling, both of which are likely of similar volume? And so on.

Do you think you experience emotions differently than other human beings? It seems really presumptuous to say you love somthing more than others ever have. Presumptuous and insulting.

Furthermore, i think alot of people would say sacrifice is the greatest display of love, and I would bet a whole lot more parents have sacrificed a whole lot more for their children then anything you have sacrificed for for dog.

I'm sure he takes his dog to "dog care" every day, where it's played with constantly (not caged). He would never leave his dog alone in his 500 square foot apartment all day, barking it's loneliness to the delight of his neighbors.

While such dog care can be very expensive, he sacrifices that money even more gladly than a mother would for her child's care. This is what he implies with his statement, and I see no reason he would lie to us.

You can't analyze a person's behavior, especial their emotional behavior, without including cultural context. Society does not appreciate people leaving toddlers home alone, but they do not care if you do so with a puppy. That alone is enough to make the matter of "dog care" irrelevant in assessing someone's feelings on the matter.

Yes, but the poster loves his dog more than any human has ever loved their child. He does not merely conform to societal norms with such love.

Clearly such an exceptional dog-lover won't conform to your expectations about how that love manifests, either.

Downvoted because this comment seems fairly OT. The post this responds to was clearly not actually making a literal statement about how all parents in the history of humanity bonded with their children. It was a criticism of the methodology of the study.

You know, it's very possible that he says that as hyperbole, statements like that are very often not to be taken literally.

I love animals, especially dogs. They are a gift to humans. I would never sacrifice myself for my dog. I would in a nanosecond for my child.

CNN really doesn't produce infotainment content that passes the acid test of HN guidelines. CNN is far from cerebral these days, and there are a number of factors that have caused them to shift focus. CNN's coverage of the early days of the 2003 Iraq invasion is pretty much the last useful thing they've covered, and certainly they weren't in the business of criticizing it at the time.

When we first brought my daughter home from the hospital we let our old pug smell her. He growled once when she first cried, then tilted his head from the sound.

Later we put her in her first bath - she shrieked! We did this in the middle of our living room in a small plastic tub on the floor. We were sitting on the floor; I sat on my knees. He (Cyrano) sat with us and while she shrieked, he placed one of his paws on one of my legs. He’d never done anything like that in his entire life. It looked so... human. It was so strange a family member took a picture of the event.

I miss that old boy. He was a good dog.

Our newborn daughter cried right after we came home from the hospital, and our dog immediately started barking at mom and dad. Weirdly, the dog has never barked in reaction to the baby ever again since that first time.

My wife and I have a hypothesis that the dog was worried we couldn’t hear the baby, and was reassured when seeing us tend to the baby quickly.

This may be outdated now, but I read a lot of canine behavioral research when I got my (late) dog about 16 years ago. She was a white German Shepherd Dog named Stella, and I miss the hell out of her. One recurring theme was a dog's role in their "pack" (in the case of pets, the humans and other pets they live with).

A dog who understands that their owner is the "alpha" will bark as a warning to them. Example: It was recommended that, if a dog barked at the door when someone knocked/rang owners praised their dog—"Good warning, thank you!" (and maybe a treat)—and then re-engage them quickly with another command ("sit!") if you choose not to investigate. They'd ostensibly come to learn that their single bark was their job.

I did this with Stella, and whenever someone came to the door, she barked once, ran to me, and sat down, because she learned I may or may not answer it, and her job was done. If someone was lurking, she'd bark, run to me, go back to where she saw the person, and if they were still there, this would repeat, regardless of praise. It stood out as unusual, and research suggested that that's what she wanted me to know. "This is different, boss! Come look!"

I used this concept in all her training and interactions; humans were her betters, and I was her alpha. Pack animals (it was said) got anxiety when the pecking order wasn't clear to them. That anxiety causes all sorts of what we call "problem behavior" (barking excessively, chewing/scratching at the door when their human leaves the house, rushing through open doors, etc.).

She was the most loving, fun, hard-working, peaceful, well-behaved dog I ever owned, and I believe it was coming to view our family as (from her canine perspective) her pack that made her training and integration into our lives such a success.

Dominance theory and the alpha pack stuff is very outdated. It sounds like you had a great relationship with your dog though. Giving them a job (warning), redirecting the behavior (barking with sit) so it doesn't carry on.

It may be so—as I suggested. :)

FWIW (anecdata warning) two of my friends have since owned dogs, training them using the same concepts. Perhaps it's a combination of breed (some breeds may retain more of their evolutionary pack awareness than others) and the specific sorts of training exercises (e.g. make them sit and wait when a door is opened, allowing the humans to go first and then say "okay" when the dog can go through), but their dogs are always held up as exemplars of "good dogs" when the topic comes up. No anxiety, no destructive chewing, no excessive barking, o impatience, no bolting…

Every lesson and interaction was predicated on the dog's position in the hierarchy of the human family ("pack"), and the only "tool" used outside of verbal and hand commands was a tasty treat (no clickers, no shock collars, no halters, no spray bottles, no physical discipline, etc.)

Crates were used, but never as a form discipline or "convenience holding". That was their safe place to sleep and eat, and that's it.

I guess what I'm saying is: if the theory is outdated, a lot of the concepts that informed the training regimen that I learned back are effective today.

"They're good dogs, Brent."

Developing our co-evolution with dogs was perhaps the greatest thing humans ever did...we really don't deserve dogs.

I wonder if it was entirely human, or if it was the proto-dogs themselves that self selected - it would have had to been the the animals that were already predisposed to hanging with us that would have been domesticated - I doubt ancient human's would have gone out of their way to capture, pen up, and train them.

The new "Cosmos" series has an episode that touches on the domestication of dogs [1]. It talks about variations in hormone levels of wolves: some naturally feared humans less and were rewarded with scraps of food. And thus formed an early symbiosis with man.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQHBmY6LbiA

It did seem strange my thoughts were being narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson while I typed. That was a fun series.

Shoot, this is how I recapture our dog when he gets loose. Chasing him is no good, he thinks that's a game, so I just collapse on the sidewalk and yell for him to come help. He trots right back over to me.

I wish I had thought of that when I had a dog who liked to run away! Mine really like car rides, and we didn't live in the city so I would just get in my car and slowly ride up behind him with the door open and he would jump in.

I have a greyhound who occasionally likes to go for a run by himself. He doesn't think of it as a game, it seems to me that he's just off to patrol his territory. It's not just his running speed that makes him hard to catch, either. His reflexes are so quick that when I grab for his collar, if he doesn't want me to grab it, I can't. He's like those ninja movies where the fight scenes are sped up.

Last time he went for a run I had to get the car! Found him playing with some kids at the local sports ground - I'm glad greyhounds have such a pleasant nature, and love people so much, because if he'd appeared any more aggressive than a giant and playful puppy, there might have been problems.

I had a mild panic attack during a LSD trip and my dog curled on my side and basically « sucked » my anxiety and made me feel relaxed.

On another day, my wife remembered a sad event in her life and began to cry silently. Our dog woke up and came to sit at her side calmly.

We don’t deserve dogs.

Some time back, my partner had a really sad event in her life, and she sat on the couch crying. We have two dogs, a happy yet dumb-as-a-rock greyhound, and a collie-staffie cross. The collie noticed, jumped up on the couch, and cuddled into her to (try and) make her happy again.

When we lost her pack mate to cancer, a few years ago, she sat on the couch for ten days, didn't eat, just lay with her head between her paws. We were all heartbroken, myself most of all, but she was too sad to help anyone this particular time. After she recovered, she helped me a lot.

We don't deserve dogs, but dogs are awesome and we could learn a lot from them. “Be the person your dog thinks you are!” ― J.W. Stephens

"It is interesting to think that all these anecdotes of dogs rescuing humans, they could be grounded in truth, and this study is a step toward understanding how those kinds of mechanisms work," she said.

I don't understand this comment, does Emily Sanford think all these stories are made up?

The few times I've hurt myself enough to verbally whine both my 15 month old pups have swiftly approached, and they're in a markedly different state to when I call them over to play.

> I don't understand this comment, does Emily Sanford think all these stories are made up?

More likely she's not immediately attributing these stories to "dogs intentionally come to the aid of humans."

People anthropomorphize pets to an enormous extent. One can imagine plenty of other reasons why a dog might e.g. alert the neighbors that their owner is in trouble ("I'm hungry and my owner isn't feeding me" is a very simplistic one off the top of my head).

It's well worth being skeptical about.

Reminds me of this video: "Dogs Tested to See Whether They’d Defend Owner During Home Invasion" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ74oFctP_g

Spoiler alert: dogs are probably not as helpful as their owners think during high stress scenarios.

That video's contrived. Of course your average companion dog or hound / gundog isn't going to really know what to do when an intruder appears.

Try the same experiment with dogs who've been trained for protection. Search YouTube for protection dog.

I don't think it's contrived compared to the expectations that ordinary people have of their dogs. Dog owners likely secretly think that their pooch is going to protect them, even if they're not protection dogs.

I know a ton of people with dogs and have heard every owner say that, and only one or two were serious. The joke is usually that the dogs like people too much and would think the intruder was a new friend. Perhaps it's a regional thing but I don't think most expect protection from their dogs

Agree - the only real protection is as early warning (barking). Then the intruder licking begins.

Dogs act very differently with strangers that the dog sees accepted by the owner then strangers who are unknown. Have you never been growled at by a dog that is tense and bristling? Or had one lunge to bite you?

Yep. I have no doubts than in such a situation my golden retriever would dive behind me...I love that little derpy bundle of love. Not that anyone expects a Golden to be a guard dog.

There's a YouTube video that I can't find where three greyhounds are in a house, when someone kicks the door in. The greyhounds panic and hide behind the furniture while the guy helps himself to the contents.

Definitely not good guard dogs.

Found the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7mspVXGoik

There are two greyhounds, not three.

If I was downvoted for saying that greyhounds aren't good guard dogs, then whoever did that should probably actually meet some greyhounds. The muzzles they wear aren't to stop them biting people, they're to stop them nipping at each other during races, and to protect small dogs and other animals when they're not racing.

They're sight hounds - silent watchers with an unbelievably friendly, trusting, and loving nature, and once they've tired of your attention they will wander away to sleep off the excitement.

Ditto whippets.

You don't need a trained, protection dog. E.g. Labradors are toys, being bred to be playful and loving. A half breed of a pit bull doesn't count much either.

What you need is an aggressive race. Also females tend to be more protective AFAIK.

I had a Rottweiler for example, that I was walking without a leash near my building because to my knowledge she was well behaved, but with no special training other than me talking with her daily. So one day I was attacked by a homeless person and my dog, came from the bush where she was peeing and nearly bit his hand off. Well she was about 50 Kg and size and weight do count.

And another day she stood her ground to a pack of 3 or 4 street dogs. What can I say, was living in a bad neighborhood.

Also in our country we still have many classic shepherds that practice transhumance, with these 2 races of dogs being very popular, called "mioritic shepherd" and "caucasian shepherd", including all kinds of half breeds, and these shepherd dogs can get pretty big and get used for defense against thieves, wolves, you name it.

And they don't need training btw. They aren't kept for emotional support, they are kept to defend the herd and with the harsh conditions involved, they can get really, really aggressive. And actually it's the same story if you go to the country side where people keep dogs to protect the house and livestock. Dogs being entirely utilitarian, they only get food and shelter in exchange, not love, so they know what needs to be done in case of intruders.

My grandparents had a saying — if you want a dog that can protect you, you should never allow other people to feed or pet it.

> Labradors are toys, being bred to be playful and loving. A half breed of a pit bull doesn't count much either.

Interesting that you'd say this -- I think there's always exceptions to these rules, and here's mine:

I had a half-laborador, half-pitbull. Like a lab, she was very aware of people's emotions, and like a pit, she was strong, aggressive, and had a very high pain threshold. (She barely reacted when we pulled porcupine spines out of her nose with pliers.) Unfortunately, this was a problematic mix. If I was the least bit uncomfortable with somebody, even if it was just social anxiety and I wasn't in any danger, she would start growling and try to make them go away. And she viewed every other dog as a mortal threat, to which she would react with murderous fury. I have no doubt that if I had felt physically threatened, she would have done serious and possibly disproportionate damage.

I wasn't able to take her out much.

Of course, there are always exceptions.

What I wanted to say is that you'll have a much higher probability of success with a race that's known to be aggressive, if that's what you want, then with a race that was bred as a companion dog. And half-breeds can be very aggressive or very friendly, but it's essentially a lottery.

A friend of mine has a staffie/bull terrier cross, with who knows what else in her. The dog has the nicest nature I can imagine (that's the staffie), and usually seems like a really affectionate animal with no aggressive traits.

One day, he was out walking her, and three guys came up to him. They stood around my friend in the usual threatening triangle formation, so no matter which way he faced someone was behind him. They started accusing him of stealing from them, and started to get aggressive until one noticed his dog and asked if she attacked. Just a moment later, she launched herself at the three of them - only the tight leash saved them from being bitten. She'd die to protect her family.

Whenever I visit him, she "attacks" me - launches herself at me so I can lavish attention on her for as long as possible. If he ever had to get rid of her, I'd take her in a heartbeat, but depriving her of the kids she loves so much would be one of those heartbreaking moments you'd never want to see.

> you should never allow other people to feed or pet it.

Let children and elderly pet/feed and you suddenly have a well behaved protection dog.

Anecdotally I've read multiple threads where dogs were socially anxious around vacuum cleaners. It seems they weren't sure of the large growly thing's pack position.

Funny enough the resolution is for the alpha to scold the vacuum in front of their dog(s) thus re-establising pack order.

I am very interested in scolding my vacuum in front of my dog tonight to see if he eventually gets used to it.

I've seen what my dog did.

I had a locksmith come to replace the ignition switch on a car, because the key couldn't turn it any more. It took longer than I expected, and finally I decided to use the restroom. Of course, that's when they locksmith finished his work, and came in to tell me he was done.

So my dog sees this guy walk into my house without me there to meet him. The dog, essentially, drew a line in the carpet and said "Don't take a step across that line." It was impressive. I didn't know before that how my dog would react, but she seems pretty... sensitive... to people coming into my house when we aren't at the door.

People aren't as helpful as one would think during high stress scenarios either.

You spend every other day teaching them to be nice to humans, its not surprising they will apply it elsewhere. We don't really want aggressive dogs and so we breed it out of them.

I suspect most dog owners will not be surprised by this.

Well sure. The whole value in these sorts of studies is that pet owners' intuitions are untrustworthy, as they have a very strong inclination to anthropomorphize their pets.

I've heard people object to anthropomorphizing animals before, and it's always seemed like a very odd objection to me. Dogs and cats react very similarly to us when it comes to things like threats or fear or play. That makes sense given that a lot of the evolutionary constraints on any predatory animal are going to be similar. Additionally, dogs absolutely co-evolved with humans, with us adapting to understand and build relationships with them and them evolving to incorporate themselves into our communities.

I'm not saying pets are exactly the same as humans, but I do think that you're going to be hard-pressed to find a better heuristic for dog behavior than thinking about what a non-verbal human would do in their situation.

(I know you didn't make a particularly strong statement here; I'm just responding to other objections I've heard).

Given the results, perhaps the studies show that non-dog-owners have an unreliable viewpoint due to strong impulse to object to anthropomorphization. ;)

The problem is that people don't even consider other mental models. It's easy to say "I can't do that", but that doesn't mean a dog can't do it: it has a dog brain, so it is obviously not limited to feeling what humans would feel in situations.

It's a justifiable heuristic, but it is still a heuristic, and it's we choose because we are very biased toward human conceptualizations. So we shouldn't say it is a good heuristic, and we should be wary when relying on it to make decisions.

How about dogs that know (i.e., predict) when their owners come home?

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/scientific-...

I was a bit sick a few weeks ago and spent some time throwing up in the bathroom (the flu is not fun). My 10-year-old 14-pound jack russell terrier mix stood in the door of the bathroom not facing/watching me but staring outwards. I obviously can't be sure of this, but, I choose to believe that she realized I was not feeling well and was in a vulnerable position and was protecting me. Going to miss that girl someday.

As a child, we had a cat that would do this - any time any of us cried, or even when we were really sad, she would come over and start miaowing and rubbing against us.

Cats do too.

All of my parents' cats have been very attentive to bad states of mind in people. My sister has social anxiety and suffered from depression for a long time. All of their cats both past and present would/will pick up on this, and come to her, to snuggle and purr. As aloof as cats can seem, they do have a drive for companionship, and not just for food or snacks.

A warm, purring cat on your lap can be surprisingly therapeutic.

I've had a cat sleep on my chest, and my son sleep on my chest. They are both very grounding and calming experiences.

I suddenly wonder if imagining a cat sleeping on my chest would help me sleep.

Probably the same effect that a heavy blanket that increase the production of serotonin and has a calming effect.

I was upset about something as a teenager, flopped on the bed, and was surprised to find two paws and a little gray feline face peeking over the bed at me. The cat had come to check on me. And this was a cat who wasn't particularly cuddly or affectionate towards humans.

Yeah, I lived with someone who had a cat that didn't care for me all that much. One day, I was laying in bed crying, and that cat snuggled right up next to me. I couldn't help but smile.

Wolves can help also when encounter a child crying. The sound seems to trigger a cub protection response.

IDK I love my dog but when I fake falling to the floor to see how she reacts she would come running and hump me

Are they really trying here to get igNoble due to essentially wasting research money?

If you want to find "wasted" money, look to the entertainment and sports industries.

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