An autistic quality in dogs?

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I noticed this one quality in my dog Wilson that reminds me of how people on the spectrum can have difficulty predicting other people's movements and often get in people's way. My dog does this all the time. I highly doubt it's for the same reason I just find it funny how Wilson is always lying down in the most inconvenient place. If you stand in the corner of the kitchen making a sandwhich he might come up and lie down right behind you. Be careful not to trip.

It's like he's completely unaware of how we move around the house and he frequently fails to realize that he's in the way. Either that or he's intentionally playing games with people. He still makes me think of Autism. Maybe the title of this thread should be "everything reminds me of Autism". This thread is kind of random and I wouldn't know how to reply to it if someone else wrote it but here it is anyway.

Do you think maybe he wants attention?

Or, maybe he wants to just stretch out and relax and be near you, and doesn't realize that it's a majorly inconvenient place?

Hi, I'm a psychologist and very interested in dog behaviour. I have a 3.5 year-old beagle named Ace, who has taught me a lot about how dogs see the world! I'm also a big fan of Cesar Millan (the 'dog whisperer').

I agree that dogs can sometimes seem a bit autistic! As humans, we tend to attribute too many human emotions to dogs. People often say "Bingo gets jealous" or "Roxxy has separation anxiety" but these are human emotions, which isn't how dogs see the world. The first point to remember is that dogs don't have language, so they don't 'think' about what they're doing - they just live in the moment and behave according to how they feel.

Does Wilson place his chin on the floor, and face away from you, when he lies down next to you? If so, this is a very relaxed and submissive position. It means he feels safe and secure around you, and respects you as his pack leader, so he just wants to be as close to you as possible. In this case, he probably isn't aware that he's in your way (dogs, like Aspies, aren't very good at taking another's perspective).

On the other hand, if he gets in your way all the time, so that you always have to step around him, and places a paw or another part of his body on top of your foot, or leans against you, it probably means that he feels like he is in charge and you are his pack member. He is annoyed that you went somewhere without his permission and he wants to remind you who's in charge. If this is the case, even when you give him a nudge to tell him to move away, he'll stand his ground and you'll have to move for him!

Your detailed analysis seems silly to me because you don't know something I forgot to say. The places he occupies that are always in the way are carpeted. The carpet in the kitchen is small and the carpet in the living room only has a few available spots that aren't occupied by furniture. I guess mentioning that he likes the carpets makes this whole post meaningless in the first place but I didn't realize it when I started this thread.

Absence of language does not mean absence of thought/reason. I remember thinking before I learned language, and my thoughts now are still separate from the words I attach them to.

Lack of language (technically dogs do seem to have some language, it's just nonverbal) doesn't prove lack of thought.

It's still interesting how he lays down on carpets with seemingly not remembering how the humans typically move around the house.

I tend to think of cats as being aspergian and dogs as being NT.

@seaturtleisland

I guess you answered your own question then - he likes to be on the carpet. But the reason he specifically chooses to go on the carpet next to you is obviously because he also likes to be near you. I was asking about how he behaves when he gets in your way to figure out why he wants to be near you.

@animalcrackers

Can you give an example of reason without language?

I suppose you could argue about the definition of language, but the accepted definition within psychology is a system of communication using arbitrary symbols. Based on this definition, humans are the only animals who have language. Communication doesn't require language - even ants communicate but they don't appear to have language.

Perhaps we're also using a different definition of 'thought'. Of course dogs are conscious beings aware of their external environment and internal/mental experiences, but without language, they can't have opinions, ideas, beliefs or judgments.

Cats (domestic cats anyway) are solitary hunters, dogs are pack hunters - so they have very different social behaviour. Lions are pack hunters so their behaviour is much more similar to dogs.

He obviously doesn't care that he gets in their way! If he got kicked every time he got in someone's way (I'm NOT suggesting to do that) I'm sure he would change his behaviour. But if people step around him or move out of HIS way, then why should he bother?

True enough. I thought you were using the word "language" more broadly -- my mistake.



Yes. Would you like a personal example or something more general?

I want to just say "Nonverbal reasoning. (Think Raven's Progressive Matrices)" but I have a feeling that doesn't count as an example (?).



I can't say for sure whether or not dogs have opinions, beliefs, ideas, or judgements, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that you don't need language to have beliefs, ideas, opinions, and judgements.

@animalcrackers

Maybe this is really just a semantic argument. I'm talking about the kind of explicit 'thinking' that is directed, intentional, logical and conscious. Not the automatic, pattern-recognition type of 'thinking' that you're referring to. Obviously all animals with a brain do the second type of 'thinking' but only animals with language (i.e. humans) are able to do the first type.

Can you explain how an animal can have beliefs, ideas, opinions or judgments without language? You can certainly have associations, preferences, urges, expectations etc. without language (based on past conditioning), but can you give an example of a belief or opinion that doesn't involve language?

I don't automatically believe that humans are able to think the way we do solely because of language because I have had directed, intentional, logical and conscious thought that doesn't involve words my entire life. I don't think in words, but I do think and my thoughts are more than instinct. Just because I don't see other species expressing their thoughts and feelings like most humans do (and I include lab experiments as places to "see") does not automatically mean that they do not experience the same types of feelings and perhaps even some of the same types of cognition. Things can happen and exist without my being able to see/know about them -- and the same can be said for other people's seeing/knowing.

Pattern recognition is not always automatic -- and it is part of my logic. It can be conscious and deliberate (or at least part of conscious and deliberate thought processes) -- it is how I taught myself to read sheet music for piano at the age of 11 or 12, while the "vocabulary" I had for musical terminology was completely echolalic beyond "note". I was 22 years old when I finally learned the meaning of the word "key" and the term "key signature" despite having understood, read, and applied conceptual knowledge about both of them for at least 10 years. My understanding/thinking about the actual concepts was always logical, conscious, and intentional/directed/explicit -- and it is not more so now that I can attach words to those concepts.

By the time I was about 14 or 15 I had developed a reasonable ability to judge the actions of other kids well enough to figure out, at least some of the time, when people were setting me up or bullying me -- despite not understanding the things they said, the specifics of their amusement nor why they chose to pick on me, I knew they thought I was stupid, I knew they looked down on me, and I knew that whatever made them think badly of me was connected to whatever they thought was funny about me (I attributed intentions and thoughts/feelings to them). All of the thinking I did to arrive at these conclusions was nonverbal, but it was intentional and conscious -- it took a lot of effort and most of it was far from automatic. I formed what I would call nonverbal "beliefs" and "opinions" about these other kids and their actions that I could not have described in words at the time. I applied what I learned (in the form of sensory information as memories) from all bullying encounters (as well as other types of encounters) to new/unknown encounters with strange kids and based on their reactions if I just tried to ignore/walk away from them after deciding they probably had unfriendly intentions, I was sometimes able to conclude that my judgements were correct (whether or not my conclusions were correct, I think they represent beliefs). My thoughts and understanding of other kids may have been vague and very simple, and it was all nonverbal, but I think it goes beyond instinct, conditioning and unconscious associations -- it was explicit thought.

I don't know why you --or anybody, for that matter, say "just a semantic argument" because semantics=meaning, and meaning is everything. Words are nothing without meaning. If we disagree about the meaning of words like "thought" and "belief" than our argument might still about something real and potentially important -- our argument seems to be about what kinds of things count as "thought" or "belief"...which does become important in the grand scheme of judging and interacting with other living beings, whether they're dogs or humans.

Last edited by animalcrackers on 22 May 2013, 8:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My Viggo was just like that. He'd lie down between two book shelves near the living room door, just about the narrowest place in the apartment and one of the most used as it is on the way to both the bedrooms, the bathroom and the WC. Or he'd lie down just outside the WC or my parents' bedroom, both places from which he'd be chased often because we needed to open the door. He'd reluctantly and slowly get up and then he'd return ASAP, just to be chased again when the person inside was finished and came out again. It was so obvious that he didn't wanna get up, there were so many places where he could lie in peace throughout the flat, yet he'd always lie down where he was sure to be chased away often.
I felt sorry for him for chasing him but it was also annoying. He was bright and picked up things easily, how come he never got that?

... which I and many others do here all the time, every day, without words.

But you still need 'language' - i.e. arbitrary symbols - to do this. The symbols can be musical, mathematical etc - they don't need to be English words.