Hello there,
Is my dog aware that I am a human and not a dog? I mean, it will ask a human to open the door (by sitting next to it, whining and looking at us) - does it have an awareness that humans are capable of this and it isn’t?
zhongguorenmin
I’ve known several Jack Russels which were extremely defensive against any unfamiliar quadruped (dogs included), but were absolutely love and snuggles with any human, strange or not. So clearly, at least some dogs put humans in a different category than dogs.
Isn’t a better question
“Do we have a deterministic reliable way of determining what dogs are aware of and what they are not aware of that does not make big anthropocentric assumptions?”
and the answer is a “No”.
In general, the safe assumption would be that, since dogs can visually tell other dogs apart from prey animals (no cite, but it’s pretty obvious), dogs can tell different mammalian species apart to a certain degree. I would be surprised if dogs thoughts humans were dogs.
I don’t think this can be answered factually. But I would have to guess that my dog knows that I’m not a dog, but does indeed know that I am the leader of the pack, nonetheless.
There was a great line I read several years ago on this very board, along the lines of “your pet sees you as a hideously deformed member of its own species”.
Isn’t it possible that other dogs in particular give off eg aggression signals that the dog can interpret, but humans do not?
zhongguorenmin
Perhaps the answer is no - but do we have a way of determining that for other humans?
zhongguorenmin
Yes. For evidence of this, consider how a friendly dog greets a human, compared to how they greet another dog. Also take a trip to a dog park, and watch how dogs interact with each other versus how they interact with the humans that are there.
Dogs, like humans, are social creatures; one reason why there’s been a symbiotic relationship between the two species for tens of thousands of years. However social they are towards humans, most are really social towards other dogs.
Please read “How Dogs Think”…it gives a really good insight into the sensory abilities and behaviors of dogs. Basically the author makes a very good case for your dog seeing you as a dog, and makes an equally good case against thinking your dog understands and acts like a human. (And therefore speaks to the practice of humans treating dogs as anything other than dogs…being treated like a dog by an understanding owner is a good thing)
It is the closest thing to answering your question.
I always wondered if dogs just thought they were humans that hadn’t pupated yet.
They see us as the entity that feeds them and cleans up their poop.
Mine not only sees me as human but the best looking one! 
My pit bull (and many of the various bulldog breeds) act the same way: aggressive towards other dogs and submissive to humans.
My dog will try to dominate most dogs, usually sexually or (seldom) physically. He never tries to dominate a human either way though, so I assume that he does not see himself as the same species as us.
Well an assumption “other people exist and think like I do” is a smaller assumption than “other mammals, including humans and dogs, exist and think like I do”.
I once read an analysis of the difference in the way dogs and cats perceive humans.
DOG: These humans feed me, shelter me and take care of all my needs. They must be gods.
CAT: These humans feed me, shelter me and take care of all my needs. I must be a god.
Cite, please?
How do we know that you are a human?
Because my cat frequently walks across the keyboard, and types recognizable words. Maybe your dog is logged on to your account, and is pawing at the keyboard. Possibly looking for a “hot bitches” website.
That’s a great definition.
They also look upon us as a convenient meal ticket and in my case I’m sure my dog thought I was the one person in the household that was lower in the pecking order than her.
I doubt dogs have a tight grasp of the concept of species, but the very different way they typically react to strange humans as compared to strange dogs seems like compelling evidence that these occupy different categories in the canine brain.
It may have to do with smell. It’s well accepted that dogs have sensitive noses. Even to a human nose, dogs and humans are recognizably distinct; I strongly suspect this is true for dogs as well.
We can go further than that by looking at trained hunting dogs. Hunting dogs are perfectly capable of distinguising even very slight differnces betwen species. Gun dogs that will point out quail, pheasant and turkey will happily ignore chickens. Dogs used to hunt goats will ignore sheep and so forth.
Dogs have a very good ability to distinguish species, which is hardly surprsing since any wolf that attacks a boar the same way as it attacks a deer is in serious trouble.
I can’t imagine that any dog actually thinks that a human is another dog. I also think that cats see humans as furniture, not as other cats.
What do cats see furniture as?
I think dogs think of humans as… hey “humans”. I think it’s a reasonable assumption that however it is dogs think, any kind of discrete conceptualization would allow them to divide the world into “humans” and “non-humans”. To me, at least, implying otherwise produces a “Why?” question.