Category: Culture

An article on decluttering

And it isn’t all that one might expect!

Jeannie and I are at opposite ends of the scale, so to speak. The older I get the more I want everything in the same place, primarily because I cannot remember where I previously put something.

Jeannie loves putting stuff anywhere because she can recall where it is!

So an article in The Conversation was fascinating.

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Decluttering can be stressful − a clinical psychologist explains how personal values can make it easier

Asking how discarding an item fits with a person’s goals can help them decide whether to keep it. MoMo Productions via Getty Images

Mary E. Dozier, Mississippi State University

I recently helped my mom sort through boxes she inherited when my grandparents passed away. One box was labeled – either ironically or genuinely – “toothpick holders and other treasures.” Inside were many keepsakes from moments now lost to history – although we found no toothpick holders.

My favorite of the items we sorted through was a solitary puzzle piece, an artifact reflecting my late grandmother’s penchant for hiding the final piece to a jigsaw puzzle just to swoop in at the last moment and finish it.

After several hours of reminiscing, my mom and I threw away 90% of what we had sorted.

“Why did I keep this?” is a question I hear frequently, both from my family and friends and from patients. I am a licensed clinical psychologist whose research focuses on the characterization, assessment and treatment of hoarding disorder, particularly for adults 60 years of age or older. As such, I spend a great deal of my time thinking about this question.

What drives the need to keep stuff?

Hoarding disorder is a psychiatric condition defined by urges to save items and difficulty discarding current possessions. For adults with “clinically severe” hoarding disorder, this leads to a level of household clutter that impairs daily functioning and can even create a fire hazard. In my professional experience, however, many adults struggle with clutter even if they do not meet the clinical criteria for hoarding disorder.

Holding on to things that have sentimental value or could be useful in the future is a natural part of growing older. For some people, though, this tendency to hold on to objects grows over time, to the point that they eventually do meet criteria for hoarding disorder. Age-related changes in executive function may help explain the increase in prevalence of hoarding disorder as we get older; increasing difficulty with decision-making in general also affects decisions around household clutter.

The traditional model behind hoarding disorder suggests that difficulty with discarding comes from distress during decision-making. However, my research shows that this may be less true of older adults.

A room full of piles of papers, stacked shelves and a tricycle.
Time to declutter. Kurt Whitman/Education Images via Getty Images

When I was a graduate student, I conducted a study in which we asked adults with hoarding disorder to spend 15 minutes making decisions about whether to keep or discard various items brought from their home. Participants could sort whatever items they wanted. Most chose to sort paper items such as old mail, cards or notes.

We found that age was associated with lower levels of distress during the task, such that participants who were older tended to feel less stressed when making the decision about what to keep and what to discard. We also found that many participants, particularly those who were older, actually reported positive emotions while sorting their items.

In new research publishing soon, my current team replicated this finding using a home-based version of the task. This suggests that fear of making the wrong decision isn’t a universal driver of our urge to save items.

In fact, a study my team published in August 2024 with adults over 50 with hoarding disorder suggests that altruism, a personality trait of wanting to help others, may explain why some people keep items that others might discard. My colleagues and I compared our participants’ personality profiles with that of adults in the general population of the same gender and age group. Compared with the general population, participants with hoarding disorder scored almost universally high on altruism.

Altruism also comes up frequently in my clinical work with older adults who struggle with clutter. People in our studies often tell me that they have held onto something out of a sense of responsibility, either for the item itself or to the environment.

“I need it to go to a good home” and “my grandmother gave this to me” are sentiments we commonly hear. Thus, people may keep things not out of fear of losing them but because saving them is consistent with their values. https://www.youtube.com/embed/JNVjPM1cIbg?wmode=transparent&start=0 Your values can help guide which possessions should stay in your life and which ones should go.

Leaning into values

In a 2024 study, my team demonstrated that taking a values-based approach to decluttering helps older adults to decrease household clutter and increases their positive affect, a state of mind characterized by feelings such as joy and contentment. Clinicians visited the homes of older adults with hoarding disorder for one hour per week for six weeks. At each visit, the clinicians used a technique called motivational interviewing to help participants talk through their decisions while they sorted household clutter.

We found that having participants start with identifying their values allowed them to maintain focus on their long-term goals. Too often, people focus on the immediate ability of an object to “spark joy” and forget to consider whether an object has greater meaning and purpose. Values are the abstract beliefs that we humans use to create our goals. Values are whatever drives us and can include family, faith or frivolity.

Because values are subjective, what people identify as important to keep is also subjective. For example, the dress I wore to my sister’s wedding reminded me of a wonderful day. However, when it no longer fit I gave it away because doing so was more consistent with my values of utility and helpfulness: I wanted the dress to go to someone who needed it and would use it. Someone who more strongly valued family and beauty might have prioritized keeping the dress because of the aesthetics and its link to a family event.

Additionally, we found that instead of challenging the reasons a person might have for keeping an item, it is helpful to instead focus on eliciting their reasons for discarding it and the goals they have for their home and their life.

Tips for sweeping away the old

My research on using motivational interviewing for decluttering and my observations from a current clinical trial on the approach point to some practical steps people can take to declutter their home. Although my work has been primarily with older adults, these tips should be helpful for people of all ages.

Start with writing out your values. Every object in your home should feel value-consistent for you. For example, if tradition and faith are important values for you, you might be more inclined to hold onto a cookbook that was made by the elders at your church and more able to let go of a cookbook you picked up on a whim at a bookstore.

If, instead, health and creativity are your core values, it might be more important to hold onto a cookbook of novel ways to sneak more vegetables into your diet.

Defining value-consistent goals for using your space can help to maintain motivation as you declutter. Are you clearing off your desk so you can work more efficiently? Making space on kitchen counters to bake cookies with your grandchildren?

Remember that sometimes your values will conflict. At those moments, it may help to reflect on whether keeping or discarding an object will bring you closer to your goals for the space.

Similarly, remember that values are subjective. If you are helping a loved one declutter, maintain a curious, nonjudgmental attitude. Where you might see a box filled with junk, your grandmother might see something filled with “toothpick holders and other treasures.”

For additional resources and information on hoarding disorder, visit the International OCD Foundation website.

Mary E. Dozier, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Mississippi State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Prof. Mary Dozier makes some powerful, and cogent, statements in this article. Especially that one’s values are subjective. Nevertheless, I think I should write out my values and see what they tell me.

Venus and Valentine’s Day

The role of the planet today!

From that post: Venus, named for the Roman goddess of love, reaches its greatest brilliancy on Valentine’s Day, February 14. Venus is currently blazing, low in the west after sunset, with Saturn below.

Wherever you are, try spotting Venus.

This article is so beautiful!

I subscribe to The Dodo and read this article last Wednesday!

This may be Columbia and a long way from where a great number of people live but it is still a most beautiful story.

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Kind Man Living On Streets Adopts Every Stray Dog He Comes Across

“They’re everything to me” 💕

By Ashley Ortiz, Published on Dec 27, 2024.

They say that home is where the heart is, and that couldn’t be more true for a man named Rubén and his pack of rescued dogs.

Despite not having a home of his own, Rubén, who goes by Noé, is dedicated to sharing his space and resources with every homeless dog in his Colombian city. Whether they’ve been left behind at a stop light or abandoned in an apartment, Noé believes in giving each dog he meets a second chance at love.

“They are living beings,” Noé said in an interview with IguanaTV. “They are everything to me.”

Noé’s pack is ever-growing, as he readily collects abandoned dogs of all ages and sizes. While it all started with just one dog, his furry family is now large enough to require a double-decker push cart.

Each dog has their own unique backstory, but they’re all loved by Noé just the same.

“This is Rocky. They left him tied up there at that traffic light,” Noé said. “These two girls are named Ears and Cheeks. I’ve had them since they were little. They were also abandoned.”

Rocky, Ears and Cheeks ride on the top level of the push cart with their siblings, a pit bull named Tyson and a German shepherd named Shakira. Below them, senior pups Tembleque, Parkinson and Morochito happily take in the world around them.

“These dogs down below are the oldest,” Noé said. “Little Morochito here was left for me while I was sleeping outside of [the store].”

The pups may have heartbreaking pasts, but their sadness has faded since being adopted by Noé. When they’re not actively traveling around the city with their beloved dad, the pack of dogs can usually be found enjoying a fresh meal made by Noé.

“I buy them milk, carrots and oats, and I combine them with ground meat and seeds,” Noé said. “I make them a hearty meal so that they eat well.”

Seeing the pups lap up their meals brings joy to Noé, even when he hasn’t eaten yet.

“They eat first,” Noé said. “My food is less important to me.”

Once the pups have finished eating, Noé usually snacks on an arepa and some coffee before heading off with his pack again. With his dogs by his side, Noé feels a sense of purpose and peace.

“The dogs keep me busy and give me a reason to wake up every day,” Noé said. “They don’t care if I’m bearded, toothless, dirty or clean. They only care that I’m by their side.”

This growing companionship is beyond fulfilling for Noé. Even on his most challenging days, Noé knows he can always lean on his beloved pack of rescued dogs for unconditional support.

“A dog’s love is the best there is,” Noé said.

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The two photographs are presented by INSTAGRAM/@IGUANATV. (And the article is published with the kind permission of The Dodo.)

One can’t do better than repeat that last sentence: “A dog’s love is the best there is,”.

Well said, Rubén!

Rillette, a wild boar, saved!

Saw this on the BBC and wanted to share it!

Here is a part of the BBC story:

Animal rights campaigners in France are celebrating after a wild boar facing the threat of death was allowed to stay with its owner.

The boar, named Rillette, was found in 2023 as a piglet by Elodie Cappé on her horse-breeding smallholding in Chaource, central France, after apparently being abandoned by its mother.

Critical thinking!

Thinking it through thanks to a recent issue of Skeptical Inquirer.

Melanie Trecer-King is the creator of Thinking is Power and the associate professor of biology at the Massasoit Community College, where she teaches a science course designed to equip her students with essential critical thinking, information literacy, and science literacy skills.

The article was published in the November/December, 2024 issue of the magazine. I believe it is free to share.

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Most people agree that critical thinking is an important skill that should be taught in schools. And most educators think they teach critical thinking. I know I did. After all, I was a science educator, and science is critical thinking. Isn’t it?

For years, I taught general-education biology, a course commonly taken by undergraduates who aren’t science majors. And while I love biology, I grew more and more frustrated with the content. I asked myself: If I had one semester to teach the average student what they need to know about the process of science and critical thinking, what would it look like?

Thankfully, my college allowed me to replace my traditional introductory biology course with a course titled Science for Life, designed to teach critical thinking, information literacy, and science literacy skills (Trecek-King 2022). Since my conversion, I’ve been sharing my new path with anyone who will listen about the value of teaching critical thinking.

Yet conversations with Bertha Vazquez, director of education for the Center for Inquiry, gave me pause. In a recent podcast conversation with the two of us and Daniel Reed (of the West Virginia Skeptics Society), Vazquez was adamant. Educators do teach critical thinking: the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) require students to ask questions, plan and carry out investigations, analyze and interpret data, construct explanations, and engage in arguments from evidence.

As a science communicator, I constantly fight misconceptions around certain terms. Theory and skepticism are prime examples. So imagine my surprise (and embarrassment) when I realized that, as a critical thinking educator, I had overlooked an important first step in critical thinking: defining terms. The irony.

What Is Critical Thinking?

While we can all agree that it’s important to teach critical thinking, there’s not always agreement on what we mean by the term.

In his book Critical Thinking, Jonathan Haber (2020) explains how the concept emerged and some of the ways it’s currently defined. John Dewey, in his 1910 work How We Think, proposed one of the first modern definitions of reflective thinking, describing it as an “active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief” (Dewey 1910, 6).

In his 1941 dissertation, Edward Glaser identified three components of critical thinking: “(1) an attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one’s experiences, (2) knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning, and (3) some skill in applying those methods” (Glaser 1941, 5–6). That same year, Glaser and Goodwin Watson published the Watson-Glaser Tests of Critical Thinking (now the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal), a widely used standardized test for assessing critical thinking skills.

Critical thinking’s “big bang” moment, according to Haber, came in the early 1980s when the state of California (Harmon 1980, 3) mandated that all students in its university system complete a course that teaches “an understanding of the relationship of language to logic, leading to the ability to analyze, criticize and advocate ideas, reason inductively and deductively, and reach factual or judgmental conclusions based on sound inferences drawn from unambiguous statements of knowledge or belief.”

And the Delphi Report (Facione 1990, 2), in which Peter Facione worked with critical thinking experts to create a consensus definition, concludes that critical thinking is a “purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations upon which that judgment is based.”

From these (and many other) definitions, Haber identifies three interconnected parts of critical thinking: knowledge of critical thinking components, such as logic and argumentation; the skills to put the knowledge to use in real-world situations; and the dispositions needed to prioritize critical thinking honestly and ethically.

This problem-solving view of critical thinking forms the basis of many of the current educational standards, including the NGSS and Common Core, which ask students to think deeply within a specific domain. And it is one scientists themselves use when trying to understand issues.

These are worthy educational goals to be sure. However, in my experience teaching general-education biology, I’ve come to realize that this approach is incomplete.

If critical thinking requires deep knowledge, then our ability to analyze topics is limited to areas in which we possess sufficient expertise. Pedagogy that encourages “independent” thinking outside these areas can have the unintended consequence of teaching students to overestimate their abilities. The best minds know they can’t know everything. Even experts rely on other experts and sources.

Additionally, in the classroom, students are provided with reliable content from which to critically analyze. In the “real world,” these guardrails are nonexistent. Not only is misinformation ubiquitous, disinformation purveyors exploit our biases and emotions to manipulate our reasoning.

And finally, we can’t address science misinformation, from evolution to vaccines to climate change, by giving students more content knowledge. We don’t fall for science denial and pseudoscience because we don’t have the facts but because of our emotions, desires, identities, and biases.

I now have a better understanding of what my colleague and friend Andy Norman means when he says that critical thinking suffers from a branding problem.

Yes, And …?

Using the above definition(s), I was teaching my biology students how to think critically. For example, I didn’t just ask them to memorize the stages of mitosis but to explore the mutations that could disrupt the cell cycle and lead to cancer. But to what end? If (or when) my former students are touched by cancer, will they remember how proto-oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes can lead to unregulated cell growth? Is that even what they need to know? I argue that, especially for students who aren’t going to be scientists, it’s far more important to teach students how and why the process of science results in reliable knowledge … and how to find it.

My Science for Life course and my Thinking Is Power resource are both based on the same premise. Knowledge may be power, but there’s too much to know. Even more, knowledge is a process; it’s not just what we know but how we know. It’s not just a noun but a verb. When we need reliable knowledge, can we find it and use it to make wiser decisions? And how do we know what information to ignore?

As a science educator, I want my students to understand how the process of science produces knowledge and why it’s reliable. Why aren’t comments such as “it worked for me” or “I know what I saw” sufficient evidence? I’ve come to realize that an essential—and often overlooked—ingredient is why we need science in the first place.

Richard Feynman famously said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” Science is how we correct for this tendency toward self-deception. That’s why I spend the first third of the semester exploring how we come to our beliefs, the limits of our perception and memory, the importance of skepticism, the cognitive biases that can lead our thinking astray, and the logical fallacies we use to convince ourselves (and others) that our conclusions are justified.

Influential voices in the skeptical community played a crucial role in shaping the ingredients of critical thinking I use in Science for Life and Thinking Is Power, which include the following:

  • Being aware of our limitations: Understanding that our perception and memory are flawed, and the biases and heuristics our brains rely on to make fast and easy decisions can lead us astray.
  • Arguing with evidence and logic: Using arguments that are well-structured and supported by evidence. This includes understanding how the different types of arguments work (i.e., deductive, inductive, and abductive) and avoiding logical fallacies.
  • Thinking about our thinking (metacognition): Actively examining and questioning our own thought processes—including the source of our knowledge, assumptions, intuitions, motivations, emotions, and biases—and how they might influence our judgments.
  • Embracing nuance and uncertainty: Avoiding the black-or-white thinking that can lead to oversimplified conclusions and accepting that our knowledge is never perfect or complete.
  • Seeking objectivity: Actively working to counter the limitations that prevent us from accurately understanding the world. This includes seeking diverse perspectives, separating our identity from our beliefs, and prioritizing accuracy over ego.
  • Having curiosity and open-mindedness: Possessing a desire to learn and understand by asking questions and seeking out information, even if it contradicts what we want to believe.
  • Maintaining healthy skepticism: Balancing gullibility and doubt and proportioning our beliefs to the available evidence. And remembering that claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
  • Exhibiting intellectual humility: Recognizing the limitations of our knowledge, being open to the expertise of others, and being willing to change our minds with evidence.

In my experience, giving students this foundation is essential for helping them become better consumers of information and science. Without an awareness that our emotions and existing beliefs can drive our reasoning, search engines and low-quality sources become tools to confirm our biases. And without an understanding of how our identities and worldviews can alter our standards of evidence, pseudoscience and science denial provide cover for what we want or don’t want to believe.

The logic of science’s practices, from carefully controlling experimental variables to making the findings available to other experts for scrutiny and replication, falls into place once students understand the problems it’s addressing. Simply put, science is our shield against self-deception.

Now instead of asking students to think critically about the biology of cancer, I teach them how to evaluate sources to find reliable information, how to recognize pseudoscientific “treatments,” and how their need for hope and answers makes them vulnerable to misinformation.

The Take-Home Message

I have no doubt that most educators teach critical thinking. But for pedagogical and communication purposes, it would be beneficial to clarify what we mean—and just as importantly to ask ourselves what we want our students to learn.

The dominant view of critical thinking in education is problem-solving in specific domains, which is absolutely a valuable skill. However, many skeptics view critical thinking as good thinking in a broader sense. My own teaching shifted toward this latter framework after I realized that problem-solving skills are insufficient without a foundation in better thinking. We may be born with the ability to think, but we must be taught to think well, and our primate brains aren’t adapted to today’s tidal wave of misinformation.

I’m grateful to the skeptical community for challenging my assumptions about critical thinking and my friend Bertha Vazquez for encouraging me to think more deeply about the good work science educators do in their classrooms every day. This article is the result of my attempt to reconcile what critical thinking means to educators and what it means to skeptics, and my hope is that it opens a conversation about how we can better serve our students. Maybe it will even start a critical thinking revolution, especially in science education.

Let the critical thinking revolution begin!

Acknowledgments

My thanks go to those on this brief list of skeptical thinkers/authors who’ve influenced my understanding of critical thinking: James Alcock, Timothy Caulfield, John Cook, Brian Dunning, Julia Galef, Adam Grant, David Robert Grimes, Jon Guy, Harriet Hall, Guy Harrison, Daniel Kahneman, David McRaney, Steven Novella, Carl Sagan, Michael Shermer, and Carol Tavris.

Special thanks to Bertha Vazquez, Daniel Pimentel, Andy Norman, Daniel Reed, and Jon Guy for their helpful feedback on this article.

References

Dewey, John. 1910. How We Think. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company.

Facione, Peter A. 1990. Critical Thinking: A Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes of Educational Assessment and Instruction—The Delphi Report. Millbrae, CA: California Academic Press.

Glaser, Edward M. 1941. An Experiment in the Development of Critical Thinking. New York, NY: Teachers College, Columbia University.

Haber, Jonathan. 2020. Critical Thinking. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Harmon, Harry. 1980. Executive Order No. 338: General Education-Breadth Requirements. The California State University and Colleges.

Trecek-King, Melanie. 2022. Teach skills, not facts. Skeptical Inquirer 46(1): 39–42.

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I hope others have read this fascinating article and repeat the statement: ‘While we can all agree that it’s important to teach critical thinking, there’s not always agreement on what we mean by the term.’

Whatever, the article was superb.

Picture Parade Four Hundred and Fifty-Eight

More from Unsplash!

Photo by James Padolsey on Unsplash

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Photo by David Taffet on Unsplash

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Photo by Thomas Lipke on Unsplash

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Photo by Rebekah Howell on Unsplash

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Photo by JAGADEESHWARAN P on Unsplash

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Photo by Luzelle Cockburn on Unsplash

That is all for this week.

Another rescue story

Saving a large dog!

What is it about people who discard dogs? And not in a caring manner but just dumped!

This article from The Dodo tells the story of a wonderful rescue.

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Neighbors Band Together To Save Stray Giant With ‘Dreadlocks’

Then they gave him a stunning makeover

By Ashley Ortiz, Published on Oct 25, 2024

The other day, volunteer dog rescuer Mary Nakiso was driving through California’s Orange County when she passed someone cowering on the side of the street. The creature was large, hairy and alone. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Nakiso slammed on her brakes to investigate.

As she approached the animal, Nakiso realized just how massive and afraid he was.

“He is literally 75 pounds and so big but so scared,” Suzette Hall, founder of Logan’s Legacy 29, wrote on Facebook.

Suzette Hall

The giant dog was petrified, which Nakiso soon learned was the result of being “thrown out” by his family a few minutes earlier.

“When he first got thrown out, he was so confused [and] running in circles in traffic,” Hall wrote. “A huge jeep with huge tires literally went over him …”

Suzette Hall

The pup, later named Benji, had no idea where his family had gone. He roamed the busy streets frantically, hoping to find his way home. After a while of running around in circles and dodging cars, Benji eventually disappeared.

Nakiso called Hall to notify her about Benji, and the two started monitoring local social media groups for any sightings of him. Later that day, someone posted about seeing a giant matted dog in their neighborhood.

Suzette Hall

Hall couldn’t make it back to the neighborhood fast enough due to traffic, so she messaged three more of her trusted friends who lived nearby.

The group of volunteers immediately agreed to help.

“I sent a message to Nuñez Aky, Yamileth and Karla,” Hall wrote. “When they got there, he was running back and forth so fast. So they waited for him to settle down.”

Suzette Hall

Hall stayed glued to her phone for updates while the team of volunteer rescuers hatched a plan to corner the flighty dog once and for all.

Then, she finally received the news she’d been hoping to hear all day.

“[B]ecause they are so amazing, they got him into a yard and shut the gate,” Hall wrote. “My heart was so happy. The fear and terror he had been through was over, and this big hunk of pure love was finally safe.”

Suzette Hall

The rescuers showered Benji with love and praise before carrying him to their car. They drove him straight to Camino Pet Hospital, where the shaggy pup received a long-overdue makeover.

“All the layers of his past [have] been shaved away,” Hall wrote in a Facebook update. “He literally had dreadlocks.”

Suzette Hall

Benji’s makeover was just the first of many steps to get him the home of his dreams. He’s since been neutered, and after a few more days of healing, he’ll finally be able to meet his new foster family next week.

It’s hard to know what Benji’s life was like before he was rescued, but his future is certain thanks to Hall and her team of volunteers. As Hall sees it, Benji will soon receive all the love and attention he’s always deserved.

“Benji is the sweetest, most loving dog I have ever met,” Hall told The Dodo. “[He’s] truly a miracle.”

—-

You can inquire about adopting Benji by emailing Suzette Hall at Info@loganslegacy29.com.

To help pups like Benji get the care they need, you can donate to Logan’s Legacy 29 here.

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That is a most beautiful story and one that should inspire many readers to look after, and care for, dogs where ever they are.

Many congratulations to Suzette for rescuing Benji.

The death of Quincy Jones.

A musical legend is dead.

Back in the late 1950s when my mother remarried after my father’s death, ‘Dad’, as he was called when he came to live at Toley Avenue, Preston Road, London, taught me how to construct a radio receiver made from a crystal, a crystal set. I have this memory of listening to Quincy Jones on my crystal set and loving the rhythm.

The BBC have a great tribute to the star, and I republish just a small part of that tribute:

“Music is sacred to me,” Quincy Jones once said. “Melody is God’s voice.”

He certainly had the divine touch. 

Jones, who had died at the age of 91, was the right-hand man to both Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson, and helped to shape the sound of jazz and pop over more than 60 years.

His recordings revolutionised music by crossing genres, promoting unlikely collaborations and shaping modern production techniques.

Picture Parade Four Hundred and Fifty-Six

These pictures were sent to me by a person whose name I could not read!

Shame, I would have liked to name the individual for being so kind.

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These are superb! Hopefully there will be other pictures.

How well do dogs understand humans?

How well do dogs understand humans?

Another guest post; this time from Lorna D.

Dogs are so close to humans, as has been reported many times in many places. This guest post from Lorna explores the very latest in scientific thinking.

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Busting Myths: Do Dogs Really Understand Human Language?

By Lorna Dikoff

Dogs are often seen as more than pets. They are companions, loyal protectors, and, for many like me, family members.

Many people think dogs understand our words like we do. This idea has been around for a long time. But is it true?

Let’s look at what science tells us about how dogs communicate. Also, let’s think about what our bonds with dogs teach us. These bonds teach us about trust and loyalty. They also reveal a deeper form of connection.

The Science of Canine Communication

Dogs have been our companions for thousands of years. During this time, they have become very good at understanding human behavior.

In 2016, researchers in Hungary made an interesting discovery. They found that dogs process words and tone similarly to humans. Dogs use different parts of their brains to recognize words and emotional sounds.

But, this doesn’t mean dogs understand language like we do. Instead, they learn to connect certain sounds (words) with specific actions or results. For example, a dog might know that the sound of a leash means a walk is coming. They recognize patterns rather than understanding language.

So while dogs are good at figuring out what we do and say, they don’t understand language the same way humans do. They’ve learned to pick up on our signs, but in their own special way.

But does this mean they understand the full meaning behind those words? The answer is no.

Dogs are great at reading people. They watch our body language, listen to our tone, and look at our faces. Dogs pay more attention to these signs than to our words.

This doesn’t mean dogs are less smart. It shows that they excel in a different type of communication.

The Myth of Full Language Comprehension

People often think dogs understand human language. We want to believe our pets understand us like other people do. It’s a nice idea, but it’s not quite true.

Dogs can learn some words and follow orders. But they don’t understand language. They remember patterns and connect words with actions. It’s not the same as how we understand each other when we talk.

This myth doesn’t make our bond with dogs any less special. It actually shows something even more extraordinary. Dogs are great at connecting with us without words. They tune into our feelings and pick up on how we act. This makes our relationship with them pretty amazing.

Dogs don’t need words to sense when we are sad, anxious, or excited. Their ability to “read” our emotions is what makes their companionship so special.

Trust and Loyalty: The Real Language of Dogs

Dogs and humans have a special bond that is far more profound than language. It’s about trust and loyalty.

These things are at the heart of what we can learn from dogs. Dogs show us how to be honest and true. They teach us about connecting with feelings, not only with words.

Dogs don’t need a large vocabulary to express their loyalty or unconditional love. Instead, they show it through actions. They sit with us when we’re sad and guard us when we’re weak. And they always get super happy to see us, even if we’ve only been gone for a bit.

This speaks to a deeper truth that dogs teach us: communication isn’t only about words. It’s about the trust we build through consistent, reliable actions.

In a world where words can sometimes mislead or fall short, dogs show us a better way. Dogs remind us of the importance of honesty and integrity in our interactions.

The Lesson from Dogs

So, do dogs understand human language? The answer is no, at least not in the way we hope. But their understanding of us is something far more profound.

Dogs teach us that we don’t always need words to talk. They teach us that our actions often speak louder than language. Their loyalty, intuition, and emotional intelligence. makes our bond with them special, more than words can explain.

We often overcomplicate communication, but dogs keep it simple. They show up and act the same way every day.

This teaches us that real connections come from trust and love. Dogs prove that understanding each other is about more than using words.

About the Author:

Lorna is the founder of Furry Friends Advisor. She is a passionate and experienced long-time dog owner with a deep love for animals. Lorna’s commitment to understanding and caring for dogs led her to spend countless hours researching and learning about canine health, behavior, and care. When not immersed in writing for her site, she is pampering her French Bulldog name Lucy. Her mission is to give advice about dog care and nutrition accessible to everyone. 

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Thank you, Lorna.

There is no question that a dog’s actions speak so much louder than words.

Trust and loyalty; they are the supreme qualities of dogs and it is a pity that in some quarters these qualities are not seen in humans.