Your dog is an intelligent creature. If you want to learn more about your dog, all you need to do is observe it.
Understanding your pet’s behavior is one of the essential elements of animal parenting. Although a dog is a man’s best friend, a man should also learn how to be a dog’s best friend in return. You’d like to know how to provide your beloved friend with the best life it could ever have.
Today, we will analyze the presence of critical thinking in dogs. Specifically how critical thinking affects your dog’s behavior.
Start by analyzing your pet’s behavior
While training a dog, it’s essential to remember not to follow strict rules of positive or negative reinforcement. It’s best to listen to your pal closely and observe what they’re trying to convey to you.
By analyzing your dog’s behavior and patterns, you can learn an important lesson yourself. Your dog friend may be good at problem-solving or identifying objects, like favorite toys or owner’s shoes. Both of those abilities are telltale signs of critical thinking.
Pet’s behavior is often a direct product of the owner’s competence. It’s time to learn about your puppy’s social cues and communicate well.
If you observe closely enough, you’ll notice certain communication skills dogs use to speak their mind.
Dogs have shown their ability for critical thinking through head tilting, raising ears, staring, alertness, problem-solving and more.
‘Listen’ to your dog
Canines are brilliant animals displaying a high sense of understanding, the complexity of emotions, and critical thinking.
If you want to learn more about your dog, all you need to do is observe its body language. Although it seems meticulous, look closely at its eyes, tongue, head tilt, tail, neck, fur, legs, etc. The position of its body parts shows you how it’s feeling, but it also notifies you to react appropriately.
The behavior of animals depends on their critical thinking. Dogs often use their body to communicate with people and other animals. They can show fear, aggression, happiness, submission, appeasement, etc.
Dogs show happiness by tail wagging, jumping up and down, and initiating play. On the other hand, aggression makes a dog appear larger to stop the approach of a person or an animal that seems like a threat.
Direct eye contact is enough in dog-to-dog communication. But, in connection with a different threat, the dog will tense up its muscles and expose its teeth to avoid potential conflict. If submissive or fearful, the dog will turn its head and neck away and sometimes lift one paw. It will avoid eye contact. These could also be signs of appeasement.
Critical thinking as a result of evolution
Dogs openly communicate with their bodies, but they also read people’s facial expressions and eyes. If your dog observes you, it shows excellent comprehension of complex social cues.
Besides social cues and body language, another fact supports the idea of dogs being capable of critical thinking.
Dogs are direct descendants of wolves. Wolves can think logically, especially when evaluating risks. Gray wolves were the earliest domesticated animal. They helped people hunt, scavenge, and guard their property.
Most importantly, canines provided companionship. Throughout the centuries, dogs have shown great ability to adapt to people. To show such social tolerance and attentiveness, dogs had to be capable of complex development. During their closeness and contact with people, they had an opportunity to gain experience and learn.
What’s critical thinking?
Critical thinking is a process of actively synthesizing, analyzing, and evaluating information gathered from observing, experiencing and understanding the existing information.
After the assessment, one would use that information and seek the truth that doesn’t include following what others believe in. There are many critical thinking papers out there and essay examples on relevant topics.
Yet, only a few of them focus on the presence of critical thinking in animals. We can understand critical thinking through this example: if teachers are trying to teach their students how to study properly, they should focus on reasoning and evaluation.
This approach to education and studying should be applied to all schools, colleges, and universities. To add, blindly following and accepting facts at face value is the opposite of critical thinking.
Understand dog behavior
Before taking your dog to behaviorists or dog training classes, listen to it first.
Observe your dog’s behavior and communicate with it. It is sending you messages through its body language.
These fluffy companions are capable of a form of critical thinking and thus capable of logic, reason, and complex emotions. Be your dog’s best friend, as it is yours.
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