
Babies Understand Dogs, Bark-matching Study Finds - vaksel
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090720163559.htm
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BigZaphod
My 7 month old certainly seems to understand dog language. I have two dogs and
if they get to playing too rough, he gets concerned. Once when they decided to
both pounce on the cat angrily, he even started crying - which stopped the
dogs! If they're playing gently with each other, he'll start giggling and want
to play too. It's uber cute, really... :)

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trafficlight
Why do you think your son was upset about the dogs harassing the cat? Why
would it even matter him?

I think that's more interesting than the dogs changing their behavior based on
his reactions.

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BigZaphod
He responds to emotion in pretty much any animal (or human) as far as I can
tell. We also have an iguana (yeah, our house is a zoo...) and the iguana had
to get some eye medicine at one point. I was holding my son nearby when my
wife was trying to catch the iguana (because at this point it had caught on to
the whole medicine thing and it did not like it). This also elicited a cry
from him, as if he even managed to sense fear or anger in the reptile. In that
case, though, it's also possible he was just responding to the iguana
thrashing his tail and trying to run away inside his enclosure. The sights or
sounds may have just scared him that day or even the actions of my wife trying
to catch the iguana, or something - it's hard to say for certain.

As to why... I can't really ask him - he's not big on word use yet. :) I would
guess, to some extent, that there's an instinctual desire to stay alive and
that hostility can be a risk to that. Anger or fear could result in the people
or animals around you doing something dangerous. It could also be a trust
thing whereas anger represents a possibility that he can no longer trust your
motives, maybe? I don't know - just guessing. :) It isn't just anger or fear
that gets responses, of course. Happiness gets a big response, too, from a
huge grin to joyful giggling to bouncing and other things that are like a
direct visual indication of a burst of endorphins.

I did just think of a dog parallel, though. When he cries out of fear when the
dogs are playing too rough with each other or the cat, it's a bit like how
dogs will correct one another in a pack. If you've ever observed dogs in
groups greater than 1, they have this interesting dynamic where they will keep
each other in line. One dog may get too excited and another will perhaps bark
or nip at them to get them to settle down. Crying out of fear could be a
similar response in the sense that it's all the baby can really do to inform
the "pack" nearby that they need to calm down, please.

