Episode #149 What Do Dogs Remember?

Have you ever wondered if your dog remembers your face or that time you played fetch in the park? On today's podcast, we talk about how our dogs' memories not only mirror but also deviate from our own, with their extraordinary sense of smell playing a pivotal role in recollections. We also dive into how a reward system can build confidence in your dog while creating positive memories.

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Dog Memory and Recall
• 10:52 Memory, Dogs, and Training Bond

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Puppy Training Podcast, episode 149, what Do Dogs Remember? This podcast is designed to help you on your journey of becoming best friends through love and learning, as you train your own dog from home, and I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is the Puppy Training Podcast, and I'm your host, amy Jensen. Hey everyone, thanks for listening to the podcast this week. I'm so glad you're here. Occasionally we get requests from clients or followers on topics that they'd like to hear on the podcast, and today I'm going to answer one of those questions. So I got the question recently what do dogs remember? So I had to do a little studying and research on this and here's what we came up with. That's what I want to talk about and share with you today on what do dogs remember. But first, just so you know, on the first Saturday of every month we are hosting a free intro to Puppy Training class, so we'll hold it tomorrow. If you missed tomorrow, that's okay, jump on next month. The first Saturday, it's held at 11am mountain time, so that would be 1pm Eastern time. You can get the link from our website by going to our free products tab at the top of our website, or free resources, I believe is what it says, and you scroll down, find the free class, there's a button that you can register. Won't cost you a thing, and we'd love to get you ready for a new dog that you're bringing into your household any age dog, older dog, younger dog, brand new puppy, whatever it might be, we are happy to help you get prepared. So check that out.

Speaker 1: 1:36

So let's talk about memory, and what are dogs remember? I know, personally I don't have a super great memory. I wish I had a better one. But you know what? I tell people that because my memory is so terrible, I can never hold a grudge. It's actually a beautiful thing, but there are times when I wished I could remember better. Anyway, let's talk about dogs. So this topic has been one of interest and debate among pet owners and researchers. I would say but many people have witnessed their dogs that they do show signs of remembering past events or recognizing familiar faces. So that raises the question of how a dog's memory resembles that of a human's and what triggers their good and bad memories. Additionally, concerns arise regarding whether a dog's memory fades over time and if they're susceptible to developing any kind of dementia like we do in humans, so a dog's memory is similar to that of a human in many ways.

Speaker 1: 2:25

Let's talk about similarities and differences. Let's start with similarities. Both species possess the ability to recall past events. They can recognize familiar individuals and they can form associations between experiences and emotions. A lot of the classical conditioning that we do in dog training has to do with those associations. Now there are also notable differences in the way dogs and humans remember certain aspects. While humans rely heavily on verbal and visual cues so what we see and what we hear dogs rely primarily on olfactory cues, which is smell. So that's how their memories are mostly triggered. Let's go into a little more detail on the similarities first. So dogs can remember past events.

Speaker 1: 3:08

Many people have experienced their dogs displaying signs of remembering past things, such as recognizing a familiar park or reacting to a specific cue. My mom's dog, fritz, would get so excited when she turned on to our street. He knew where they were and remembered the funny it had at my house before. He can smell the smells familiar to that area and sense it as they drove closer, and he would just get really excited. She commented on this every time they would visit. Dogs can also recognize familiar faces, so dogs have the ability to remember and recognize their handlers, family members, any other individuals they have interacted with regularly. Have you ever seen videos of soldiers returning home after a long deployment? This would be a perfect example of dogs recognizing people. So their dogs definitely recognize them as they spin in circles and excitedly welcome home this family member that's been gone for a while. I've experienced something similar with this as well. After training a puppy and then sending them off to live with their family and being reunited, say a year or two later down the road for a visit, they remember me. It's actually a pretty touching experience when they get all excited to see me. It just makes me super happy that they can indeed remember me from past experiences.

Speaker 1: 4:24

Dogs form associations between experiences and emotions and we know this and we see this a lot in training. So, for example, a dog may associate a visit to the veterinarian with fear or anxiety due to past negative experiences. On the other hand, they may also associate a visit to the veterinarian with excitement or anticipation because they've had such positive experiences at the vet clinic. I think today, veterinarians are doing a great job of being that fear-free, force-free environment where they you know my vet personally will get down on the floor and welcome my puppy into their arms, just in a much less intimidating manner than maybe what we used to do. They offer my dog, you know, food, rewards and praise to help that puppy be more comfortable in their office. I think we're doing a good job on hopefully creating places like the veterinarian or the groomer where other places our dogs might visit with positive experiences so that they remember those associations as a good thing. This is largely why we work hard to socialize our dogs while they're young to new things, people, places, environments, smells. Right, we help them see the world, smell the world as a happy, rewarding place and we make as many things a positive experience for them as possible so that they'll have those good memories. Rewarding our dogs, often for checking something out on their own or being curious, is a great way to help your dog be confident. All right, let's go into some differences. So differences in memory triggers between dogs and humans would be the following Dogs, again, rely, as mentioned, on their smell, so they might have an exceptional sense of smell and they often rely on sense to trigger these memories.

Speaker 1: 6:04

For instance, a particular smell might remind a dog of a previous positive experience. We highly encourage you letting your dogs take a go sniff walk on occasion so they can relax and take in all of those wonderful smells of the area or the park or wherever the new area or place is that you are exploring with your dog. We want to help your dog create positive memories of that location through their smell. So they're going to associate their smell with whatever kind of experience they're having at that place and by rewarding them for checking it out and going and sniffing again, that's naturally relaxing to them and it's creating those. I love this place. I love I just get to go smell and be a dog and they start to connect those dots that this is a good place to be. So, just remembering that our dogs do rely on the sense of smell to create positive associations, let them go smell, right. Yes, we can have some attention walks. I'm not saying never do that, but I'm also saying hey, every once in a while, more often than not, give your dog just a go sniff walk where they get to explore and smell and sniff and create those positive associations with new places.

Speaker 1: 7:09

Now, humans, again, we rely more on verbal and visual cues. So we primarily rely on verbal communication and visual stimuli to trigger memories. For example, I might hear a familiar song on the radio or maybe I see a photograph which can evoke memories in humans. We're definitely more visual and verbal. We don't rely on smell as much as our dogs do, though I'm sure you can think of a few instances where smells probably bring you back good memories as well. I know my mom used to make homemade bread and the smell of the homemade bread when I walked through the door after a long day at school. That's a good memory I have. So I think we do a little bit of both. But I think that would be the main differences were more verbal and visual and the dogs are more in tune with their sense of smell.

Speaker 1: 7:52

Dogs can remember events from their earliest days. So, despite their young age, dogs can remember things from early puppyhood. Remember we talked about that early importance of socializing your dog and a lot of breeders are doing really great work with the early neurological stimulation and things like that. So we do want to make sure that we're starting from a young age. But dogs can display recognition of familiar people, places, routines, even months or after years have passed. Now a dog's memory changes as they age. For example, let's say that you have a nine-month-old puppy and as they grow, their memory will continue to develop and become more sophisticated with time. So they may remember specific training cues, familiar faces and places that they visited. And you'll notice, as your dog matures, training tends to get better and somewhat easier, not only because they remember more, but they also have the ability to pay better attention for longer periods of time. And we like keeping those initial training sessions short, depending on your dog's age and ability to focus, because we want them to be successful. We're always trying to set our dogs up for success. So I think it's important to recognize the progression in your dog's memory, that, yes, when they're puppies they will remember things, and that's why we do the early training and the early neurological stimulation and the early socialization. But it's important to continue those practices and recognize our dog's brains still is developing as they grow and that, as that happens, yes, their memory will also change. It will become more sophisticated, all right.

Speaker 1: 9:25

Lastly, let's just talk about dementia a little bit and maybe some problems that dogs might experience with their memory, similar to that of humans. So, just like humans, dogs are susceptible to cognitive decline and the development of dementia as they age. Now, symptoms may include disorientation. Maybe you notice some changes in their everyday behavior, maybe difficulty remembering familiar people or places. It always just seems like a new place to them. And this happens in humans too, and it is a sad event when one's brain no longer allows us to remember, and dogs may also experience this as well. So I think it's important to just understand that it's a possibility, and then we can be more empathetic and offer help rather than be frustrated should this be the case with us or our dogs.

Speaker 1: 10:07

So to wrap up, basically, a dog's memory shares many similarities with that of a human. They can remember past events, recognize familiar faces and they form associations between experiences and emotions. And we use that fact of associations to train them, oftentimes right. We're classically conditioning our dogs to make positive associations as much as possible. The difference, the main difference, would be, I guess, that dogs rely more on smell cues, olfactory cues, while humans we rely on verbal and visual cues, things that we see and hear, to trigger our memories. Again, a dog's memory does not fade over time and they can remember events from their earliest days. However, they can be affected by cognitive decline or the development of a dementia, just like we are susceptible to in humans.

Speaker 1: 10:52

So there you have it. A little bit on memory and dogs and what it looks like. I think they're amazing creatures and we sure love them, don't we? Yeah, I love dogs and it's so fun to watch them. Think you can see the little wheels spinning in their minds, especially these puppies or younger dogs who are just eager to learn. They're like little sponges who want to soak up as much learning as they can, even the older dogs, right? We all know the saying you can teach an old dog new tricks. Right, you can. You can teach an old dog new tricks. I think any kind of training you do with your dog builds the bond that you two share, and dogs don't live as long as humans. So I say, maximize the time you have together, enjoy every minute. All right, you guys have a wonderful week and happy training. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other puppy training question, visit my site, baxter and Bellacom, to contact me.