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Comment by VladRussian2 | Hacker News Reader

>if you take them back to the past before TV/Computers, people back then won't recognize them as dogs, because of the looks or size. They would have to hear it back and behave like a dog to classify it as such. if all they had was a picture, they mgiht very well refuse and reject say pugs as dogs.

my dog without using TV or computer (at least to my knowledge as i don't know what he is up to when we are not at home) easily recognizes other dogs of all the different breeds and sizes from the distance like across the street, etc...

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I've found that to be amazing. Given the differences between a Great Dane and a Chihuahua¹, how do dogs identify them as being another dog at a distance? They're vastly different sizes, they have different ear shapes, nose/face shapes, tail shapes, gait, and coat.

¹ There's argument that they're now different species, since they can no longer successfully interbreed -- for purely mechanical reasons.

Given the differences between a Great Dane and a Chihuahua¹, how do dogs identify them as being another dog at a distance?

Smell and sound are primary senses for dogs. Sight, not so much.

>Smell and sound

when another dog is inside a car that just stopped at the intersection?

Another issue here is that smell of different dogs is supposed to have at least some variation as well (is this feature variation bigger or smaller than variation in size?), and if one dog is downwind then another is upwind - i.e. while smell obviously plays a major role in dog's sensing of the world we just can't ascribe it all to the smell. In my experience visual recognition plays major part in many cases as well (note: i'm not arguing which dog's sense is strongest, only that there are situations when visual is basically the only one that could have brought the information)

To be fair this is usually based on scent.

Do you have a dog?

From my experience, it's based on body language. So: not the superficial appearance of the dog, but its movement and 'greeting' signals.

And, of course, cats move in a very different way to dogs!

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