Weronika Stróżyk

Humans have always been great friends with dogs, so it is not surprising that the two of them have been helping each other for longer than we think. Even though guide dogs officially became part of the medical institution in the 18th century, there are signs that they were helping blind people long before that. For example, people think that the murals of Herculaneum as well as a Chinese scroll painting from the 13th century show guide dogs navigating their owners. However, the years after World War I are when they became extremely popular and useful. Since dogs would works with humans during the war, delivering messages and tracking the injured, the human-canine relationship expanded greatly, which is why dogs started receiving training in Germany and other countries to help the soldiers who lost their sight fighting for their country. In the article I read, Morris Frank, a blind man, is given as an example of a person who benefitted from the existence of guide dogs. Thanks to his can...

To really understand dogs’ influence on us and our minds, we have to understand them first. Communication is a very important part of interacting with someone, so a lot of scientists started studies and experiments to find out if dogs understand our language and if they have their own. Studies show that when dogs hear us speak, they are more focused on understanding the emotions behind our words rather than the words themselves. In the 1990s, the author of the article I read, who is also a scientist, decided to run some tests using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory, which is used to determine language ability in young children, on dogs. The results showed that a dog can remember about 165 words and gestures. Only the smartest ones, meaning those that are in the top 20 percent of dog intelligence (also known as “super dogs”), can remember more than 250 words. If we were to compare the mind of a dog with the mind of a human, an average dog would have a mental ability id...