Are Dogs People Too?

Who doesn't love their poochy pal? Dogs are considered man's best friend but do you think that they should have the same rights as people do? A recent study has shown that dogs can exhibit emotions too. But how similar are their emotions to ours?

After some training, Gregory Berns with the help of a trainer has trained dogs to stay still during an MRI scan. Many test subjects later and some strange conditions (having the dogs, or rather their owners, fill out consent forms, as if they were children, where the test subjects can back out if they so chose) the stage was set to start the study. The dogs were put through the MRI machines without sedation or restraints and adorable earmuffs to protect their very sensitive ears. The study was performed using hand signals and presenting the dogs owner to the dogs. In the human brain, between the brainstem and cortex lies the caudate, in which parts of the human caudate activate when someone experiences joy. When examining the dogs, the hope was that a dog's caudate would light up in the same way. After the study was completed it, it was shown that many of the same things that activated in the human caudate also activated in the dog's caudate. Berns seems to think that dogs have the ability to experience positive emotions like love and attachment which he associated with as that of a small child.
The problems I have with the claims he makes are that we are still learning so much about the mind of animals and specifically dogs, it's hard for me to believe that they have all the same cognitive processes that we do. Also the study is not to see whether or not the dog's caudate lights up when they are happy but to see how the dog's brain works as it lies motionless in the MRI. Additionally, how can we test true emotion in the dogs when were trying to get a reaction out of them with food. Everyone gets happy thinking about digging into their favorite meal, humans and other animals, not really a solid example that our emotions are very similar.

There have been plenty of other studies proving that dogs are attune to our emotions, can learn words at an amazing speed, and even have memory skills to play Simon Says but saying dogs have the same emotions as we do is different. I'm not saying that in coming years we will be able to see into a dogs mind and maybe understand how they think and feel but as for right now I don't think that lovable Fido and my baby brother are on the same cognitive level.