Ruff translation

Summary

Podcast Title: Unexplainable
Episode: Ruff Translation
Host: Noam Hassenfeld
Release Date: June 30, 2025
Description: Unexplainable delves into the mysteries that hover at the edge of scientific understanding, exploring unanswered questions and venturing into the unknown. Hosted by the Vox team, including Noam Hassenfeld, Julia Longoria, Byrd Pinkerton, and Meradith Hoddinott, new episodes air every Monday and Wednesday.

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Exploring the Enigma of Dog Emotions

[00:57] The episode begins with Noam Hassenfeld recounting his initial encounter with the study titled "Barking up the Wrong Tree," which investigates dog emotions and the complexities of interpreting them. He shares his intent to transform this study into an episode for Unexplainable but pivots when Vox's listener show, Explain It To Me, requests a collaboration focused on dogs.

[02:01] Noam introduces the central theme: Can humans truly understand what dogs are feeling, or are we merely projecting our own emotions onto them? He shares a personal anecdote about attending a dog show, observing the apparent happiness of both the dogs and their owners, which sparked his doubts about his ability to accurately perceive canine emotions.

Listener Insight: Jared Martin's Perspective

[03:24] The episode features a listener, Jared Martin, a filmmaker from Los Angeles, who poses a critical question: "The things that we perceive through our human lens to be sad or happy or whatever it might be—is that actually what's happening in the dog's brain?" Jared introduces his dog, Enzo, describing their deep bond and the nuanced communication they share. He highlights moments where Enzo seems to "talk back" or exhibit behaviors that suggest understanding beyond simple commands.

[05:24] Jared elaborates on his experiences, noting that Enzo displays different sounds and behaviors based on his needs, such as hunger or the desire to visit the dog park. He connects this to his own empathic abilities, suggesting that both humans and dogs may pick up on each other's energies in ways that transcend verbal communication.

Holly Molinaro: Redefining Animal Emotions

[10:00] Enter Holly Molinaro, a researcher and dog enthusiast who recently completed her PhD at Arizona State University. Holly challenges the conventional anthropomorphic approach to interpreting animal emotions. She shares her frustration with the tendency to project human emotions onto animals, arguing that this can lead to misconceptions and biases in caring for them.

[11:17] Holly discusses her study, "Barking up the Wrong Tree: Human Perception of Dog Emotions is Influenced by Extraneous Factors," which examines how humans interpret dog emotions without considering the animal's perspective. She reveals her experimental method: showcasing videos of her deceased dog, Oliver, against a black background to isolate his expressions from contextual cues.

[12:27] In her study, Holly found that participants struggled to accurately discern Oliver's emotions when only his facial expressions were visible. However, when contextual information—such as interactions with her father—was included, participants were more successful in interpreting his emotions correctly. This suggests that humans rely heavily on context rather than solely on an animal's expressions when assessing their feelings.

[16:10] Holly proposes a groundbreaking theory: instead of forcing human emotional frameworks onto dogs, we should adopt a species-specific perspective. She suggests that dogs may possess unique emotional states that are fundamentally different from human emotions, proposing the creation of new terminology to describe these canine-specific feelings.

Understanding Through the Canine Lens

[20:14] Holly delves deeper into the sensory experiences of dogs, emphasizing that smell is their primary sense. She recounts her personal experiment of mimicking dog-like sniffing behaviors in New York City to gain insight into how dogs perceive their environment. This exercise revealed to her that smells are transient and informational for dogs, shaping their understanding of space and time in ways that are vastly different from human visual-centric perceptions.

[25:24] Holly explains how this olfactory-centric worldview leads to a dynamic and fluid understanding of space. For dogs, smells create a constantly evolving map of their surroundings, where information is gleaned from the movement and changing intensity of scents rather than fixed visual landmarks.

[27:52] Reflecting on these differences, Holly expresses a sense of wonder and acceptance of the profound gaps in human understanding of dog emotions. She acknowledges that while humans seek to comprehend their pets deeply, the inherent differences in perception and cognition present both challenges and opportunities for further exploration.

Implications and Reflections

[29:07] Noam contemplates the delicate balance between the connections humans feel with their dogs and the fundamental differences that make full understanding elusive. He highlights the beauty in this mystery, suggesting that the pursuit of understanding itself enriches the human-dog relationship.

[30:48] The episode concludes with a light-hearted exchange, recognizing that while humans may not fully grasp dog emotions, the bond and interactions remain meaningful and fulfilling.

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Key Takeaways

• Human Perception vs. Canine Reality: Humans often misinterpret dog emotions by projecting their own feelings, leading to potential misunderstandings in pet care and communication.

• Species-Specific Emotional Frameworks: Recognizing that dogs may experience emotions uniquely necessitates developing new frameworks to accurately interpret their behaviors and feelings.

• Sensory Differences: Dogs primarily rely on their sense of smell, which shapes their perception of the world in a fluid and information-driven manner, contrasting with human visual-centric interpretation.

• Research Insights: Holly Molinaro's study underscores the importance of context in accurately assessing dog emotions and challenges the anthropomorphic bias prevalent in human-animal interactions.

• Embracing the Mystery: Accepting the inherent differences in perception and cognition between humans and dogs can lead to a more respectful and nuanced relationship, fostering deeper connections without the pressure of complete understanding.

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Notable Quotes

• Jared Martin ([03:24]): "Is that actually what's happening in the dog's brain?"

• Holly Molinaro ([16:10]): "Let's not try to put them on our terms. Let's see them on their terms."

• Holly Molinaro ([20:46]): "Smells are something appealing, maybe a food smell or something unappealing. But for dogs, I think smells are just information."

• Holly Molinaro ([30:51]): "I like that it's ever elusive. Kind of like a dog."

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This episode of Unexplainable offers a profound exploration into the enigmatic world of dog emotions, challenging listeners to reconsider their assumptions and appreciate the complex, species-specific ways in which their canine companions experience the world.

Transcript

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[Noam Hassenfeld]

A couple months ago I came across this study called Barking up the Wrong Tree, which great title, but it was all about dog emotions and whether we can actually understand them. So I started trying to shape it into an unexplainable episode. But then our friends over at Explain It To Me, Vox's Listener Call in show, they asked me to guest host an episode for them. And. And wouldn't you know, they want to do something about dogs. So today on Unexplainable, we got a little collab, like the two halves of the photo in the parent trap. We're coming together.

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[Noam Hassenfeld]

Today on Unexplainable Explain it to Me.

[Sponsor Voice]

We just project our emotions onto animals and that has always just like sat wrong for me.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

I believe that I can read my dog's mind.

[Home Depot Voice]

I think we have to try to take the dog's point of view.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

A couple weeks ago, I went to my friend's backyard to see him play a show.

[Home Depot Voice]

So from here on out, it's only songs about dogs.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

A literal dog show.

[Home Depot Voice]

Well, a good dog on the ground's worth three in the saddle no matter where you're from.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Been many good dog who was friend to a man.

[Home Depot Voice]

But Sam was a great.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

I'm Noam Hassenfeld, by the way, sitting in for JQ this week. And I'm not exactly a dog guy. I mean, I'm not a hater. I love petting a fuzzy puppy in a sunny spot as much as the next guy. But these people at this show, these were dog people. Well A three legged dog walks into.

[Sponsor Voice]

A saloon and he says, I'm looking.

[Home Depot Voice]

For the man who shot my paw.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

And then there was me, dogless, watching a band called the Beagles run through their greatest hits. Who let the dogs out? Everyone seemed like they were having a great time. The people seemed happy, the dogs seemed happy. But as I was sitting there, I started wondering, am I sure? Like, I barely know what other people are feeling. How could I be sure about a dog? So I was excited when I found out a listener was wondering the same thing.

[Jared Martin]

The things that we perceive through our human lens to be sad or happy or whatever it might be. Is that actually what's happening in the dog's brain?

[Noam Hassenfeld]

This question came from Jared Martin, who's a filmmaker living in la.

[Jared Martin]

But probably more important than that, is my little child here? My. My. My child. Dog child here. Enzo.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Enzo. Tell me about Enzo.

[Jared Martin]

So Enzo is two and a half. He'll be three in early September. I've had him since he was about eight weeks old. He's. He's trying to get out of my lap right now. He's a. He's a mix. A total mutt. And yeah, I got him. I recently, I lived with a roommate for like over 10 years. Moved out on my own, and I was like, thought it would be great. And then I got really lonely and I was like, well, I kind of want to get a dog. And we found each other. It was just kind of like the stars aligned and the rest is history.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

How well do you think you guys communicate?

[Jared Martin]

There seems to be something like a special connection that we have. I feel that's different than other interactions I've had with dogs, but also like dogs that I've had, you know, in my life. I don't know, it's like sometimes I can just like look at him, or I'll kind of give him a look, you know, like you might give a small child. And they. They know what you're thinking. Yeah, because he does have these little like, talkative moments where he. He doesn't bark, he doesn't growl. It's like a. He's like mouthing actual words. And I, I sent a video of that that we can.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Yeah, that was a crazy video.

[Jared Martin]

Enzo. No, Enzo wanted to play with a specific toy. And I told him, no, not right now, not right now. And it felt like a. Like a moody teenager in a way, like, like talking back. That's how I took it.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

You're saying that, like he understands you. Do you feel like you understand him? Like you can look at him and know what he's feeling.

[Jared Martin]

Yeah, there's. There's definitely times where that. That happens too. And he has sort of different ways of, I guess you could say, talking to me. Depending on what he wants. He'll make different sounds for different things. Like, I know the sound. He. Like, when he's hungry, he sort of behaves differently, and he'll make a different sound versus, like, if he wants to go to the dog park. And I. I just said his trigger word. But if he wants to go to the dog park, it's a. It's a very specific sound. He's getting my attention in a specific way versus, like, when he's hungry. Like, it's just a certain, I guess, like, energy level that I'm picking up on. I. I don't know. I. I tend to do that just with other humans, too, in terms of, like, I. I sense people's. Sounds very cliche. I. I'm. I'm an empath, right? Like, I can. I can pick up on people's energy, and I feel like I can do the same with him.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Lots of our listeners feel like, Jared, they know their dogs. They get their dogs.

[Home Depot Voice]

Hi, my name is Chelsea, and I really feel like I can communicate with my dog. Her name is Sweet Pea.

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She is a chiweenie, and she taught herself how to say yes to things. So we adopted our dog Rico a couple of years ago.

[Home Depot Voice]

He was a Puerto Rican street dog, and from the moment I met him.

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I knew that he was going to.

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Be my soul dog. I've had my dog Vixen since I.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Was 19 years old.

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I adopted her when I was in college.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

She is, like, my entire life. I call her the love of my.

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Life, and my husband gets super annoyed, but it's true.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

There you have it. I believe that I can read my dog's mind. Maybe I'm projecting, but I don't care. I believe it's true, but at a certain level, even Jared isn't sure.

[Jared Martin]

I definitely feel these things, and I just don't. Yeah, there's sort of a disconnect there, too, of, like, am I actually understanding this the way I think I am?

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Can we ask Enzo a question?

[Jared Martin]

Yes, Enzo.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Ask Enzo if he thinks you understand him.

[Jared Martin]

Enzo, do you understand me? Do you understand me? Yeah. No. He's like, where's the reward?

[Noam Hassenfeld]

This week on Explain it to Me, we're gonna ask the question Enzo refuses to answer. Do we actually know what our dogs are feeling, or are we just fooling.

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Cost varies by pace, transfer credits and other factors. Fees apply. Lots of people are obsessed with animals, and it makes sense why. On the one hand they're like aliens, and on the other there's this feeling that they're just like us. You can see this in movies like Air Bud or Babe or Babe. Pig in the City My human tied.

[Home Depot Voice]

Me in a bag and throwed me in the water.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

And yeah, it's fun to suspend our disbelief a little and watch a dog play basketball. But even serious documentaries do this. Like March of the Penguins.

[Jared Martin]

They're not that different from us, really.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

They pout, they bellow, they strut. You get the sense that so many people who are looking at animals are just searching for the little humans inside the outer shell. But there are some people who don't spend their time trying to find the little humans inside. They're obsessed with how alien animals are.

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[Noam Hassenfeld]

Holly Molinaro is a researcher and a dog lover who just finished up her PhD at Arizona State.

[Sponsor Voice]

I have this vivid memory of first grade watching an ant crawl across the window. And my teacher yelled at me because I wasn't paying attention. But I was just fascinated with, like, what could this ant be thinking? There's no way. It's just, like, thinking human thoughts.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Walking along the window, Holly had the same question. Our listener Jared did the same question I did. Can we ever understand what animals are feeling?

[Sponsor Voice]

I know from my own personal experience, like, we just project our emotions onto animals. We think we know what they're feeling. And that has always just, like, sat wrong for me, like, throughout my whole life, even though it's so fun to do. Like, my cat's sitting in my lap now. Like, oh, my gosh, she's obviously loving me so much right now. But in terms of taking care of them, those, like, biases can get in the way.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

She did find some research that made it seem like even trying to understand other humans could be hard. There were these researchers that photoshopped the face of someone with one expression onto different kinds of body postures. So postures that were disgusted or sad or afraid or angry. But when people looked at these images, even though the face was the same, people thought the emotions were different. They cared more about the context of the picture than the actual face.

[Sponsor Voice]

And so I was like, what if we just did this with dogs? What if I changed things around the dog and asked people the same question? What do you think the dog is feeling?

[Noam Hassenfeld]

So Holly designed a study.

[Sponsor Voice]

This study is called Barking up the Wrong Tree. Human perception of dog emotions is influenced by extraneous factors.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

She started with zoom.

[Sponsor Voice]

It was like, you know, 2021, so pandemic time still, and just, like, zoom blurs out the background. I was like, well, I feel like I could figure out how to do that.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Oh, like, blur out everything except the dog.

[Home Depot Voice]

Yeah.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Interesting.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah. Took a crash course in video editing on YouTube, you know, and figured out that you can, like, take away the background with software editing. But then I needed dogs to do it. And I go home for Christmas break, and I see my dad and my dog interacting, and I was like, this is perfect.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Can you tell me about your family dog?

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah, Oliver. He sadly passed away a couple years ago. So it's really sweet that his memory now lives on in this research. He was like a beagle boxer, pointer mix. We got him from a shelter when I was, like, in fifth grade, and him and my dad were like so tight. So we cleared out the living room, we moved all the furniture away, and I just asked my dad to do things that people would think is positive. So like seeing a leash, seeing a treat, getting praise, being played with, and then things that people would think Oliver doesn't like. So seeing the cap, the vacuum cleaner, being reprimanded, I just filmed everything to make sure that I got like a bunch of videos that I could then figure out how to edit them.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

So if you're trying to study whether we can tell if dogs are happy or sad, how do you know if Oliver likes cats or vacuums in the first place?

[Sponsor Voice]

One was just like we wanted to do, like, general perceptions of people. So, like, what would generally people associate positive or negative with dogs, but that is like a good point that has been brought up a lot is that I don't really know how Oliver was feeling with those things. You'd need to actually do some different type of studies to see how Oliver was actually feeling.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

But ultimately, in fairness to you, Right, like you're not studying what Oliver is feeling. Right, you're studying what we think he's feeling.

[Sponsor Voice]

Exactly. So I edited the video so all you saw was Oliver on a black background. And then I set up this survey, sent it out to ASU Psychology undergraduates. We had like 400 participants in the first study and first showed them six videos of Oliver on a black background. So three were when Oliver was in a positive situation and three were when Oliver was in a negative situation and showed them just the video of Oliver on a black background and said, how happy or sad do you think Oliver is? And also how calm or agitated. And then we showed them the original videos with my dad in there. You could see everything. And this time their responses were different. So before, when they couldn't see the background, all they saw was Oliver. They could not tell the difference between positive or negative videos. But suddenly when they could see everything, they saw the context. They saw my dad. They rated the positive videos as Oliver feeling happy, and they rated the negative videos as Oliver feeling sad.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Can you show me some of these videos?

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Noam Hassenfeld]

Oh, he's so cute.

[Sponsor Voice]

Okay, I'll play it.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Kind of like looking around, licking his chops a little bit seems kind of like a neutral.

[Sponsor Voice]

Okay, so what would you think the dog is feeling?

[Noam Hassenfeld]

I would say he seems relatively happy.

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Noam Hassenfeld]

Uh huh. Oh God, no. He seems so sad now. Yeah. So Oliver looks exactly the same, but now that I see your dad yelling at him, it seems like he's learning a lesson now.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yes.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

So what do you think this study tells us about us or about dogs or how we relate to dogs?

[Sponsor Voice]

I think, number one, we're just not as smart as we think we are when it comes to understanding our dogs. And sometimes people are like, that's really depressing, Holly. And I'm like, no, no, it's okay. Because now we can actually start to pay attention. Now we can recognize that we do this and start to look at our own dogs and just kind of get away from blanket statements of, oh, tail wagging equals happiness, barking equals upset, and actually pay attention to your own dog. I'm also trying to develop a new theory for animal emotion.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

A new theory of animal emotion or a new theory of dog emotion?

[Sponsor Voice]

My proposed theory is just to start from, like, a species specific point of view. Maybe, like, dogs have their own set of emotions and try to figure out what emotional capabilities they might have that we humans could never even comprehend because we're not dogs. So instead of looking for what does happiness look in a dog, let's come up with just like, a brand new word. Maybe dogs have some type of, like, happiness, but it's like subservience, because they, like, love to do things for us. And then we can, like, look at their behavior in this context and kind of piece together bits and then come up with a whole new dog emotion.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

That's really interesting. So you're kind of saying let's not try to put them on our terms. Let's. Let's see them on their terms.

[Sponsor Voice]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

So what if we stop treating dogs like fuzzy little humans? What would it be like to see dogs on their terms, not ours? In a minute, we talk to a human who tried to become a dog.

[Jared Martin]

Woof.

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Visit temptationstreats.com to learn more. Why don't we start with your name and what you do like how you'd introduce yourself at a dinner party?

[Home Depot Voice]

Well, I might not say this at a dinner party because then the whole dinner party will be about dogs, but I'm Alexandra Horowitz and I run the dog cognition lab at Barnard College in New York City and I study what it's like to be a dog.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

That is one thing. You're right. You can't say that to people. It'll just derail any conversation.

[Home Depot Voice]

Yeah, it's really. If I want myself to be the center of attention, that's I guess, the thing to say. But often I don't. So yeah, I don't lead with it.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Okay, so in the previous segment, we just heard how people can misinterpret their dogs. They can maybe think they're feeling something and maybe they're not feeling something. But you, you know exactly what they're feeling, right?

[Home Depot Voice]

Definitely not, but that is entirely what I'm interested in. Sure. And I guess part of the first step is to kind of forget about my automatic assumptions about what they're feeling, which is a very normal step for people to take, especially people who live with dogs. But it's from our point of view and I think we have to try to take the dog's point of view.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Okay, so how do you start to take the dog's point of view? What does that even mean?

[Home Depot Voice]

So they are smelling animals. Smell is their primary sense. And my interest is in saying like, well, okay, like let's try to understand the dog's way of seeing the world through their nose instead of just assuming that they're just like us, you know, but furrier and sitting on the floor where I'm sitting on the couch.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Yeah, I think the best way maybe to describe what it's like to take that seriously, to take sort of a nose first perspective of the world, is to ask you about your experience doing this. You kind of did a little experiment about this at one point, right, where you pretended to be a dog. How should I put that?

[Home Depot Voice]

Yeah. I mean, I tried to sort of step into some of the dog's behaviors, I guess, in order to a little bit understand them. Because here's one thing about smell versus vision. We're visual creatures. Let's acknowledge, right? We see the world first. But if you're a smelling creature, I thought, well, you know, how do you see the world? Smells don't just appear when you open your nose, when you exist in the space. If you look at dog behavior, they go and search out smells, right? They spend a lot of time with their nose on the ground or smelling objects that are nose height. And they sniff a lot more than we do. You know, our sniffs are pretty feeble little sniffs, and they'll do seven sniffs a second if they want to get a really good sense of something. And so I tried to do those things. I mean, that was just the first step is going around and saying, like, all right, what are smells like down at dog height and what does something smell like? If I put my nose right up to it?

[Noam Hassenfeld]

I feel like I need to get a bit more detail here. You're walking around. Where are you walking around trying to smell things at dog heights?

[Home Depot Voice]

Well, I did this in New York City, right? Where I live.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

So no one gave you a second thought, right? Because it's New York City.

[Home Depot Voice]

Oh, no. People moved away from me, you know, that's for sure. That's not okay. But I walked out of my house and followed what my dog did. Where he sniffed, I would lean down and sniff with him. I would get to his height, see what he sniffed, and try to smell it myself. Right. Is it a tree post protecting a tree from, you know, people on the sidewalk? Is it a bush? Is it the grass? Something in the grass that is super interesting to him that I try to smell. I didn't sniff other dog butts because there are other issues involved there. But if a friend met us and my dog sniffed the friend, I also sniffed the friend.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

What do you think this experience of trying to smell everything the dog smells told you about what it might be like to be a dog?

[Home Depot Voice]

Well, I think the big lesson for me was that unlike the way I had kind of characterized smells in my life, which I think is very human, as kind of good or bad, Right. Smells are something appealing, maybe a food smell or something unappealing. Like in New York, there are lots of those smells, like garbage in the summer. But for dogs, I think smells are just information. They're just information about the way the world is. So their world is wrought of smells the way ours is wrought of visual images.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

You know, when I think of looking at the world, I kind of create, I don't know, a spatial map of the world. Right. Like I'll walk through my apartment and I'll look around. Here's the door, here's the window, here's the hall. If you're doing something like that through smell, on the one hand, I have no idea what that means. Right. I have no idea how to wrap my head around that. But what does that mean for the world you live in if you're mapping it by smelling it?

[Home Depot Voice]

Well, a space inside, I think, is sort of redefined in smell as being less static. Right. So smells move. That's one of the interesting things about them. So we know this. You have a cup of coffee, you put it on the table and you can smell it on the other side of the table. Right. The smell comes out of it. So where that coffee is is like a slightly different space, maybe to a, let's say purely olfactory creature than to a visual creature. It's right in the cup to me. But to somebody who's seeing the world through smell, it's in this whole kind of universe around the cup as the smells go into the air.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Oh, that's fascinating.

[Home Depot Voice]

That doesn't mean that there's nothing concrete and real. It just means that it's a little more transient than we see.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Yeah. If I were to think about what that means for what it's like to be a dog, right. It feels a lot more chaotic. I mean, if I'm again walking through my apartment, if I go into my living room and I'm like, okay, here's the couch, it's just right here. I can put my hand on the couch and then I can put my hand a little bit to the side and there's no couch. And I feel like if I just smelled everything, everything would be kinda, kinda moving and fading and coming back and it would be blurry and chaotic.

[Home Depot Voice]

I think chaos, the idea that it's chaotic is just because, you know, we aren't using our noses this way. You know, they. If you look at dogs behavior, it doesn't seem very chaotic. I mean, their behavior kind of is consistent with this just very organized but different way of seeing.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

It also feels like if things that a dog is smelling are changing all the time, it feels like the way they might be interacting with the world would depend a lot on time.

[Home Depot Voice]

Yeah. I think time is in smell. My presence in this room really smells to my dog. And when I've been gone for an hour, I think I'm still sort of in the room to them, but a little less. And after a day, I'm a lot less in the room. And so they're sort of noting time, time passing by, the changeability of smells.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Wow, that is kind of beautiful. And also kind of sad. I don't know, imagining you fading slowly out of a room, it feels like a very different type of thing to experience.

[Home Depot Voice]

Yeah. Maybe I haven't ever thought of it as sad. I mean, in a way, there's something reassuring in the fact and maybe even alarming, I suppose, but that I'm still here when I'm not here for them. Right. And that when I come home and I've pet another dog or I've had some experience which might potentially leave an odor on my clothes, that they can kind of experience that by just smelling me and seeing where I've been. To me, that's kind of extra neat, not melancholy.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

You know, a lot of the people we've heard from in this episode, they talk about this ability to understand their dog and this connection they have. And then talking to Holly, talking to you. We're actually just really different from dogs. We can connect with dogs. We have these points of overlap. We can have relationships, but we are clearly extremely, extremely different. What does that difference mean to you? Do you find that difference exciting? Do you find that difference daunting?

[Home Depot Voice]

I mean, as an experimenter, I do find it daunting that they're quite different than we are perceptually, and therefore probably cognitively. But also exciting. Right. There's a lot of. Of possibilities, a lot of things we can investigate and learn as a person who lives with dogs, there's the mystery of it, the mystery of what it's like to be a smelling creature and how we kind of get. Even though there's this fundamental difference between us, we coexist and seem to share a lot of things, at least share space during the day. Right. Share a life. I find that mystery kind of delightful, and I don't try to solve it in my ordinary life.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

You know, we've been hearing from listeners about whether they understand their dogs, and a lot of them are like, yeah, totally. And I wonder, you know, you're someone who understands exactly how much we don't understand our dogs. But I'm also curious. Do you think you understand your dogs?

[Home Depot Voice]

Oh, no, definitely not. I mean, I don't think I do. And I don't know how anybody could, really, but, you know, they're familiar to me. And we use all the anthropomorphic words that everybody uses to talk about our sense of whether they're feeling depressed or grumpy or proud or whatever. But that's just a gloss for me. I don't really know what they're like and what their feelings are at any moment, and whether they choose to stay with me if they had an option. You know, it's a. It's a very puzzling thing, living with dogs. And I. And I'm okay with that as a scientist. I think I've just grown more and more agnostic, you know, I just feel like I know less and less in some ways because I see how much more I didn't even imagine was. Was out there. And that. That's delightful to me. Yeah. It's not to me about pinning it down and saying, well, now we have the answers. I mean, what's the fun in that? Then something that's pinned down and sort of completely understood, you'd put that away. You know, I like that. It's that knowledge is ever elusive.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Kind of like a dog.

[Home Depot Voice]

At least one that you. Though it doesn't come when you call. Yeah.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

This episode was produced by Miles Bryan. It was edited by our executive producer, Miranda Kennedy and Nerene Khan, fact checking by Melissa Hirsch, engineering by Patrick Boyd. And before we let you go, we want to ask about AI friendships. Do you have regular conversations with your friends known as chatgpt or Quad or Gemini? We're not talking intimate relationships, but if you do have regular chats with some kind of LLM, we want to hear from you. Give us a call at 1-800-618-8545. I'm Noam Hassenfeld. This is Explain it to Me. And once again, meet the Beagles.

[Sponsor Voice]

Cook some breakfast, wash the dishes. Let the dog in, let the cat out. Let the dog in, let the cat out. Let the cat in, Let the dog out, Let him hop in.