From 2013-2015, Cruelty Free International published a series of ground-breaking papers showing that testing new human drugs on dogs is not predictive of human safety (1,2). Last year (2018), we supported this by reviewing the depth and nature of dogs’ cognitive and emotional capacities, showing how greatly dogs suffer in laboratory experiments, and strengthening the scientific case for ending dog testing with a compelling ethical case against it.

Our review showed the extent to which dogs understand the words and intonation in human language; how in tune dogs are to human facial expressions; how dogs experience positive emotions, much in the same way humans do; that they feel empathy, sadness, and fear; that they experience very strong bonds with humans they know. Overall, some scientists who ethically study dog behaviour and the function of dogs’ brains conclude that they have the same level of understanding and awareness as 3-year old human children.

All in all, there is a formidable scientific and ethical case supporting an end to dog testing, over and above what many believe is obvious and clear simply from observing and spending time with dogs. Science is not resting on its laurels in this respect, however, and research continues apace to investigate and illustrate how rich and advanced dogs’ lives are.

For example, research over the past few years demonstrates that dogs:

• have been shown to quickly evaluate how trustworthy, honest and reliable a person is, and modify their behaviour accordingly. When humans pointed to containers that were empty, instead of containing food, dogs learned that those individuals were not to be trusted, compared to those who pointed them towards something to eat. This is an advanced type of social intelligence.
• appear to show jealousy when their human companions show affection to other dogs—even stuffed dog ‘decoys’—which is acknowledged to involve complex cognition.
• are extremely sensitive to their human companions’ feelings and mirror their anxieties and levels of stress. Levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, in different parts of dogs’ hairs reflect the stress their guardians were under at the time that part of the hair was growing.
• are sensitive to humans’ mental states and are able to assess people’s perspectives. This is consistent with “theory of mind”, which may be defined as “the ability to ascribe mental states, such as desires and beliefs, to others”. Long thought to be unique to humans, it allows us to infer what others are thinking, and is now believed to exist, at least to some degree, in non-human primates, dogs and ravens. For example, dogs will steal food when they believe nobody is looking, and when seeking food, they will follow cues from people they believe are knowledgeable over those they believe aren’t.
• actively seek additional information in uncertain situations, for example when trying to find rewards hidden behind fences. This seems to be to reduce the chances of them being wrong, much like non-human primates and human children do. This knowledge that they may be wrong is a form of metacognition, which is an ability to “know what you know” and monitor the potential and shortcomings of one’s own thought processes. Like “theory of mind”, this was long thought to be a uniquely human attribute, but is now thought to exist in other species such as non-human primates.
• synchronise their behaviours with human individuals, much as humans do with other humans to foster social cohesion. For example, dogs will move in the same direction, manner, and stop and so on, as their owners do. The degree of synchronisation depends on the extent of affiliation (i.e. the closer they are associated, the closer the behavioural synchronisation), and dogs also prefer humans who synchronise with them.

This latest behavioural research is being underpinned by brain-imaging studies of companion dogs, who are trained to sit in fMRI scanners—giving unprecedented insight into the cognitive processes behind the dog behaviours, like those described above. Together, ethical research with dogs underlines what we already know: dogs are loving, loyal, sensitive, bright, emotional, beings who deserve protection. They feel, think and understand much more deeply than most of us ever thought…and so they suffer much more than has been acknowledged when they are subjected to invasive research in laboratories.

It is therefore intolerable that this is the fate of some 200,000 dogs across the world, every year. Evidence demands that these dogs be viewed much more empathically, and so the time for this all to end is now. That’s why we are calling for an end to the use of dogs in experiments to stop this cruelty for good.

 

1.      Bailey, J., Thew, M. & Balls, M. (2013). An Analysis of the Use of Dogs in Predicting Human Toxicology and Drug Safety. Alternatives to Laboratory Animals 41, 335-350.

2.      Bailey, J., Thew, M. & Balls, M. (2014). An analysis of the use of animal models in predicting human toxicology and drug safety. Altern Lab Anim 42, 181-199.