How Dogs Work

1. Dogs are biological machines whose behavior is fundamentally shaped by their physical form.

Like any machine, a dog’s behavior results from the translation of energy into patterns of movement (and ultimately, in the case of biological organisms, into offspring).

Behavior is movement. We define animal behavior as "the shape of an organism moving in space and time." Just as a clock's ticking is determined by its gears, a dog's actions are dictated by its physical structure—its bones, muscles, nervous system, and even its cells. How a dog is built, its size, proportions, and internal workings, determines what it can do and sets limits on its potential behaviors.

Shape dictates function. Different shapes enable different movements and energy efficiencies. A fifty-pound sled dog's shape is optimized for long-distance running and heat dissipation, unlike a hundred-pound Malamute or a tiny Chihuahua, which would overheat or lack the necessary mass for pulling. Even subtle differences in bone structure or muscle attachment influence gait and efficiency, impacting performance in tasks like racing.

Size matters. Changes in size dramatically alter the surface-to-volume ratio, affecting heat regulation and energy needs. Larger animals are better at conserving heat but worse at shedding it, influencing their suitability for different climates and activities. This fundamental relationship between size, shape, and energy expenditure is a core constraint on behavior, selected for by both natural and artificial means.

2. Ethology views behavior as an adaptive, inherited trait, like any physical characteristic.

The central insight of ethology is that an animal’s behavior, just like the organic parts that make up the physical form of a biological machine, is itself an adaptive product of those evolutionary forces.

Behavior is taxonomic. Ethologists study what animals actually do in nature, treating behavior patterns as characteristic traits of a species, just like anatomical features. These patterns, often called motor patterns, are seen as products of evolution by natural selection, enabling animals to feed, avoid hazards, and reproduce successfully. This perspective contrasts with viewing behavior solely through the lens of learning or individual experience.

Evolution shapes action. Natural selection acts on behavior simultaneously with structure; fins, wings, or legs are means to the end of swimming, flying, or running. The ability to move in a particular way provides a selective advantage. Therefore, ethology focuses on observing, measuring, and explaining these inherited behavioral patterns, understanding them as integral to the animal's biological machinery.

Intrinsic properties. While avoiding terms like "instinct" or "innate" due to their problematic connotations, ethologists focus on "intrinsic" behaviors. These are inherited properties, arising from the genes that build the animal's body and regulate its processes. An animal behaves like its species because it is built like its species, and this intrinsic form sets the fundamental limits on its behavioral repertoire.

3. Intrinsic motor patterns are the hardwired, stereotyped building blocks of behavior.

From that point of view, how an animal behaves is necessarily—and always—shaped by the genes that govern its construction.

Built-in rules. Intrinsic behaviors are inherent in the way an animal's body and brain are built, a product of its genes. They are stereotyped, appearing reliably in all members of a species (or breed) under specific conditions, without requiring learning or practice. Examples include:

• Neonatal suckling in mammals
• Nest building in canid mothers
• The LOST CALL in young pups
• Predatory motor patterns like EYE > STALK > CHASE

Perfect from the start. Many intrinsic behaviors, like suckling or a mother cutting an umbilical cord, must function correctly immediately for survival. There is no time for trial and error or learning. This suggests they are hardwired, triggered by specific internal or external signals (releasers).

Timing is critical. Intrinsic motor patterns have specific onsets and offsets in an animal's life history. The LOST CALL appears at birth and disappears later; maternal retrieval is only active for a limited period after birth. If these behaviors don't occur within their critical window, they may be lost from the repertoire, regardless of environmental need.

4. Behavior is dynamically shaped by developmental accommodation to environmental factors.

The overall shape of a dog, including its behavior, is always a result of how its intrinsic form responds to the properties of the environment in which it grows and lives.

Genes interact with environment. While intrinsic properties provide the basic blueprint, the final phenotype (the animal's observable traits, including behavior) is a complex synergy between genes and the environment. This is not a simple "nature plus nurture" equation, but rather a dynamic interaction where environmental factors influence how genes are expressed and how structures develop.

Accommodation alters shape. As an organism grows, its parts accommodate to each other and to external influences.

• A larger eyeball can cause the skull orbit and associated brain areas to remodel.
• Diet can affect bone density and limb shape in growing puppies.
• Sensory deprivation (like covering an eye) can prevent normal development of the visual system and related brain areas.

Critical periods for accommodation. There are specific times in development when an animal is particularly sensitive to environmental input. Exposure to certain stimuli during these "critical periods" is necessary for normal development of structures and behaviors. Lack of appropriate social input during a dog's socialization period can lead to shyness or fearfulness towards novelty, including people or specific objects like stairs.

5. Complex behaviors can emerge from the interaction of simple, local rules.

When this game runs step by step on the computer, following only these four rules operating on some given initial state, an extraordinary variety of complex patterns of colored grid cells begins to emerge.

More than the sum of parts. Emergence describes how complex, novel properties can arise from the undirected interaction of simple rules or processes. The intricate structure of a termite mound or the coiled shape of a snail shell are emergent results of simple building or growth rules, not pre-programmed blueprints.

Behavioral emergence. Complex group behaviors, often appearing coordinated or intelligent, can also be emergent.

• Geese flying in a V formation may simply be following two rules: fly south and draft behind another goose. The V shape emerges from individuals seeking the most energy-efficient position.
• Wolf pack hunting can be simulated by agents following simple rules like "move toward prey" and "move away from other wolves," resulting in complex circling patterns without explicit coordination.

Barking as emergence. Dog barking, highly variable and context-dependent, may not be a single motor pattern. Instead, it could emerge from the simultaneous expression of two simpler, conflicting vocal rules: a noisy signal to deter ("go away") and a tonal signal to solicit approach ("come here"). The mix of noise and tonality reflects the animal's motivational conflict, often due to restricted movement.

6. Foraging behavior in canids reveals distinct, often incomplete, motor pattern sequences in dog breeds.

Remarkably, however, the modern dog breeds (that is, artificially selected varieties of a single species) typically exhibit only parts of the predatory motor-pattern sequence of their wild canid relatives.

Predatory sequence. Wild canids like wolves and coyotes typically exhibit a sequence of predatory motor patterns: ORIENT > EYE > STALK > CHASE > GRAB-BITE > KILL-BITE > DISSECT > CONSUME. Each step can act as a releaser for the next.

Breed variations. Domestic dogs, shaped by artificial selection for specific tasks, often have incomplete or altered predatory sequences.

• Livestock-guarding dogs may lack DISSECT and other predatory patterns towards livestock, only exhibiting CONSUME.
• Herding dogs like Border collies emphasize EYE > STALK > CHASE but are selected against GRAB-BITE and KILL-BITE towards sheep.
• Hunting breeds like pointers emphasize EYE and POINT, while retrievers emphasize GRAB-BITE and CONSUME (without KILL-BITE).

Missing pieces. The absence or low frequency of certain motor patterns in a breed's repertoire fundamentally limits its behavioral capabilities. A guarding dog lacking CHASE cannot be trained to herd, just as a pointer lacking POINT cannot be trained for that task. This highlights how specific, genetically influenced motor patterns are essential for particular working behaviors.

7. Critical periods in development are crucial for shaping social and cognitive behaviors through accommodation.

What makes a particular period in development “critical” is that it is a time when an animal must grow a particular shape if it is going to be able to carry out important biological functions.

Time-sensitive development. Critical periods are specific windows in early life when an animal's development is highly sensitive to environmental input. During these times, certain structures or capacities must develop, or they may never fully form. This is not just about learning, but about the physical growth and wiring of the biological machine.

Socialization period. Canids have a critical period for socialization (roughly 4-8 weeks in dogs, earlier in wolves) where exposure to novel stimuli, including other species like humans or sheep, leads to reduced fear and avoidance later in life. Lack of appropriate exposure during this time can result in "spooky" or poorly socialized adults.

Accommodation shapes social bonds. Raising livestock-guarding dog pups with sheep during their critical period leads them to accommodate to sheep as social companions, preferring their presence over humans or other dogs. This is not training, but a developmental process where the intrinsic drive to bond is directed towards the species present during the critical window.

8. Play is likely an emergent consequence of overlapping, incomplete developmental motor patterns, not a specific adaptation.

Play is but a term for the protean nature of the neonatal to adult metamorphosis.

Mysterious function. Play is enigmatic because it appears energetically expensive and often lacks an obvious adaptive function (feeding, hazard avoidance, reproduction). While it resembles adult behaviors (chasing, biting), it rarely completes the functional sequence (consuming, killing).

Metamorphosis byproduct. We propose play is an emergent phenomenon arising during the juvenile metamorphosis from neonate to adult. As neonatal motor patterns wane and adult patterns onset, fragments of these behaviors overlap and combine randomly.

• A pup might suckle (neonatal) and chew (adult) a toy.
• A young canid might combine elements of infant care-soliciting with adult predatory movements.

Emergent collage. This random combination of incomplete, out-of-context motor patterns creates the variable, often disorganized activity we perceive as "play." It's not a single, evolved behavior, but a collage of pieces from other developing systems. Different play styles emerge depending on which motor patterns are available in a breed's repertoire during this transitional period.

9. While animals process information (have minds), complex cognition and consciousness are hard to prove and not always necessary to explain behavior.

You can have a machine without a mind, but never a mind without a machine.

Mind as information processing. We view the mind as an information-processing system, implemented in the brain and nervous system. Animals acquire information via senses, represent it, store it, and use it to guide behavior. This cognitive capacity is essential for adaptive responses in a changing world.

Cognition is adaptive. Many cognitive abilities, like recognizing faces or understanding object permanence (though evidence in dogs is debated and may be limited), are likely intrinsic, evolved traits. They are built-in features of the biological machine, shaped by natural selection because they enhance survival and reproduction.

Caution with complexity. While dogs are cognitively capable, we must be cautious about attributing complex humanlike mental states (consciousness, intentionality, empathy, theory of mind) without strong evidence. Phenomena like "Clever Hans" effects show how easily human cuing can be misinterpreted as sophisticated animal intelligence. Much complex behavior, like caching imaginary objects or retrieving a tape recorder, can be explained by intrinsic motor patterns or simple cognitive rules without invoking consciousness.

10. Understanding how dogs work requires integrating intrinsic, accommodative, and emergent factors, avoiding simple explanations.

Understanding the astonishingly intricate interplay between intrinsic genetic mechanisms, accommodations in development, emergent phenomena, and mind remains one of the greatest challenges of science.

Beyond simple models. No single explanation suffices for the complexity of dog behavior. It's not just genetics, or learning, or intelligence. Instead, behavior arises from the dynamic interaction of multiple forces.

Integrated framework:

• Intrinsic: The fundamental, hardwired motor patterns and cognitive capacities determined by genes (e.g., predatory sequence components, basic sensory processing).
• Accommodative: How these intrinsic traits are shaped and modified by environmental input and developmental processes, especially during critical periods (e.g., socialization, effects of diet on growth, visual system development).
• Emergent: Complex phenomena that arise from the interaction of simpler rules or behaviors, not as direct adaptations (e.g., barking, play, group hunting).
• Mind: The information-processing capacity that underlies and guides behavior, from simple releasers to potentially more complex cognitive states.

Avoid anthropomorphism. While appealing, attributing human motivations and mental states to dogs can obscure the actual biological mechanisms at work. A Border collie's herding skill, while appearing intelligent, is better understood as the shepherd's control over the dog's intrinsic motor patterns, shaped by accommodation.

Ongoing challenge. Science prefers the simplest explanations that fit observable facts. While the nature of consciousness in animals remains a profound mystery, much of how dogs work can be explained by understanding them as complex biological machines whose behavior is a product of intrinsic design, developmental flexibility, and emergent properties.

Last updated: May 31, 2025