/Horshack “Ooo OOo OOO” I know this one!
In fact, if you have Netflix, watch Nova: Dogs Decoded. Watch that and skip the rest of this.
Communication between dogs and humans is at an extremely high level, more than any other cross species communication.
If you put a treat under one of two cups, a chimp will not pay any attention to your pointing to the right one. It has already decided which one it will choose and you will not influence that because he does not care what you are doing, he is too self absorbed. The dog will not only understand you pointing, but will notice your eye movement. All you have to do is look at it. This works naturally on 6 month old puppies without training.
The human eye, being almond shaped, communicates direction, displeasure, etc. , but the important thing is that the dog is paying attention to you and your communication attempt, unlike most animals. The human eye follows specific patterns when looking at another human, the dog’s eye makes the exact same movements.
People are usually left eye dominant, so they concentrate on the right side of the other person’s face, first staring at the right eye, then the bridge of the nose, then back again repeatedly, eventually detouring to the other eye or the mouth, but always returning to the right eye. The human face shows emotion on the right side, leaving the left side to make a poorly formed mirror. The dog’s eye makes the exact same movement looking at even a still photo of a human face, but not a dog face. The human makes the movements for both dog and human. It does not do this for most animals (the show had little to say about cats).
So there is visual communication. There is also verbal. People can understand recorded barking and the basic emotional content. Dogs can understand a fair amount of spoken language (one dog had a vocab of 340 words).
There is some similarity in thought process. Dogs can understand abstract ideas. When shown a small train, the dog brought back a train, even though it was a different size and color. He even retrieved based on a PHOTO of the desired object. He knew it was not just a piece of paper.
The crucial factor is that the dog wants to please and be praised. He pays very close attention to your mood and desires. The human returns the affection.
The other focus of the show was also interesting. How did dogs become tame? They gave a wolf pup to a student to raise (after they already raised a dog puppy). The human bottle fed the wolf, was never apart from it ever. For six weeks the wolf was a puppy like any other. Then it changed. It was not interested in what the human did. It would jump on the table and steal food right off the plate and scolding made zero impact. It did not care that the human was displeased. It got so bad the wolf got kicked out for destroying everything (and returned to live with other wolves). So you can’t tame a wild animal. It will not communicate with you.
The Soviet Union started an experiment 50 years ago to breed wild foxes selectively. They chose based on aggression. The pup that neither withdrew or attacked, but maintained a casual attitude when approached. They also did the opposite, selecting the most aggressive. The results are predictable enough, but the surprise among the now completely tame offspring is that they now resemble dogs. The fur is no longer white. It looks like a husky, with colored patterns. The random genetics that come along with selecting for aggression.
So, wolves and humans being both daylight carnivores, they cross paths frequently. Humans always have stacks of tasty bones leftover. Some wolves are not scared or aggressive and hang out with humans. Both species benefit greatly by hunting together (tracking, intelligence, etc.) and communication begins in earnest. Everyone wins.
Except that we no longer need dogs. Why do we still have them? Humans have an instinct for nurturing. Because of the level of interaction and the emotional understanding and bonding, humans feel compelled to have pets, except that at this stage the dogs amount to parasites, taking full advantage of our built in need to nurture. This is the true answer to the question of the OP.
