Dogs & Us - The Secret of a Friendship (2020) - full transcript
(playful music)
(dogs barking)
- [Narrator] Dogs.
They are playful, fun-loving
and most of all, they are loyal.
Thousands of years ago, they
entered into an emotional pact
that is still unbroken.
Humans and dogs make a truly perfect team.
- I'm working with somebody who's really
much, much cleverer than me.
- [Narrator] Their phenomenal senses
make them an essential team partner.
And with their gifted sense of smell,
they can even try to detect
diseases in their early stages.
(speaking foreign language)
- In they end they saved my life.
- [Narrator] For some, a dog becomes
their last hope in life.
- It's really like having
my best friend in the world
right here in the cell with me.
You know what I mean?
Like sometimes I don't want
to talk to anybody else,
but I always want to hang out with my dog.
- [Narrator] Their ability to
read and communicate with us
makes the dog truly unique
in the animal world.
- Do it girl. Do it.
Your dog is smarter than you think.
- [Narrator] But why did dogs
become our ideal companion
and colleague at work?
Why are dogs so loyal
that they would follow us
to the end of the world?
What exactly is the secret
of this wonderful friendship?
(dogs barking)
Innset, a small village
in Northern Norway,
240 kilometers north of the Arctic circle.
(dogs howling)
The sled dogs that live
here, still carry parts
of the ancient wolf's genome.
They are Greenland dogs.
One of the oldest breeds in the world.
Here, humans and dogs still
have a primordial way of life.
(speaking foreign language)
- I immigrated 30 years
ago from Hamburg Germany
and bought a husky from here.
When I started offering guided tours,
my main goal was to be outside.
I wanted to be out in nature with the dogs
and in a way it's like
living the life of a farmer,
who doesn't get around a lot.
And although I haven't
seen much of the world
I can truly say that I've found
one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
- [Narrator] It all
started When Bjorn Klauer
was on a hiking tour all
the way across Norway.
He felt a desire for a solitary life,
away from human society.
Back then, a Greenland
dog was traveling with him
who not only pulled his
bags but kept him company.
Without the dog Bjorn would
have become very lonely.
Greenland dogs are perfectly
adapted for expeditions
in the extreme climate of the far north.
Their thick fur protects
them from temperatures
of up to minus 40 degrees Celsius.
(dogs barking)
They are sled dogs from tip to paw.
(gentle music)
(man speaking foreign language)
Bjorn's routine with the dogs
is dominated by the seasons.
During winter time, he
spends more than 100 days
in the open countryside.
Each day the energetic dogs
run up to 60 kilometers.
During these trips, Bjorn and the dogs
have created a very special bond.
(speaking foreign language)
- In the front there is the lead dog.
He's the one I'm in contact
with, with whom I communicate.
He always wants to do everything spot on.
So this is someone who, like all dogs,
wants to make everything
right for his owner.
You have to build mutual
trust with the lead dog.
This means on the one hand,
the dog must understand
that my commands are always good
and that I don't put them in danger.
On the other hand, if the dog
backs away from something.
I also have to trust him
and be aware that there
is something in the way.
A dog is your life insurance out here
and it trusts you under all circumstances.
- [Narrator] The highlands
of Northern Norway,
they are covered with dense
snow for more than half a year,
in an almost endless lonely Tundra.
What is now a way of life for Bjorn
has been essential for survival
for our Nordic ancestors
in this part of the world.
Sled dogs have been living in
close relationship with humans
for more than 2,000 years
across the Arctic circle,
with nomads in Siberia,
with Inuits and natives
of North America, and with
the inhabitants of Greenland,
the home of Bjorn's Greenland dogs.
In a landscape dominated by ice and snow
our ancestors were dependent on their dogs
and not only for hunting.
With their sleds, they were able to reach
other settlements to
sell or purchase goods.
Thus, the dogs played an important role
in the growth of extensive trade.
Already at this time, dogs
showed their social skills
and men appreciated the skills
and character of their dogs.
These very characteristics remain today.
(speaking foreign language)
- Sled dogs are the only
working animals in the world
that you cannot put
pressure on to do things.
They just have their own motivation.
Their joy of pulling,
their satisfaction of working in a team.
Everything has to be fun and
I think that's really great.
When I'm on a tour, then I
also have to work in a team.
I don't just stand on
the sled and say "go."
When it goes uphill I have to help.
I have to walk next to the sled
and if the snow is really deep,
I may have to put on my snowshoes.
This collaboration in my view
is the greatest experience.
This really strengthens the connection
with nature even more.
- [Narrator] For thousands of years,
sled dogs have been helping
humans across the globe.
And they have learned to understand us.
(speaking foreign language)
- When I stand on the sled
and see the dogs having fun
running and when I take in the mountains
and enjoy the landscape,
that's an incredible sense of freedom.
(playful music)
- [Narrator] The relationship
between humans and dogs
is a very special one.
Dogs are among only a
few animals that respond
to where we look at, where
we point to and how we speak.
According to recent findings,
dogs are not only able to
interpret our tone of voice,
but they actually have an understanding
of what we say to them.
Researchers have discovered that our dog
only feels rewarded
when both the intonation
and the spoken word indicate praise.
Also how a dog tilts its
head gives another indication
about their understanding of language.
It suggests that dogs process speech
in much the same way as we humans do.
Meaningful words are processed
in the left half of the brain
and the tone of voice in the right.
(man whistling)
(sheep bleating)
(gentle music)
The different sophisticated
ways in which people communicate
with dogs have changed people's lives.
Dogs have taken on tasks that humans
could not do on their own.
- These sheep dogs, they're
very compulsive in their nature.
Working sheep is almost
like a drug to them.
They love that drug.
So they'll do anything
to have the pleasure
of hunting and working sheep.
- Here on the English Scotland border,
is the home of the most
famous herding dog,
the border collie.
Derek Scrimgeour has been living
in the mountains of Cumbria for 50 years.
Besides running his sheep farm,
he has also been breeding
his own canine team partners.
- The minute I started to
work with a border Collie,
I realized this is a completely
different type of dog,
and it was clever and
it wanted to please me
and the whole concept of
the dog working sheep,
it's like magic.
It felt like magic. And
it was just so intriguing.
- [Narrator] Compared to humans,
dogs have a much larger field
of vision that makes them
true masters in observing
their surroundings.
While we perceive the
environment like this.
Dogs see the world pretty much like this,
with a field of vision
of about 250 degrees.
This allows them to notice moving animals
in the vast landscapes much better.
This helps herding dogs to
keep a close eye on all sheep
and to spot any sneaking
predators in advance.
However, most important is communication.
Lynn listens carefully to the commands
she receives from Derek.
(Derek whistling)
(gentle music)
These brief commands are
sufficient for Lynn to know
which sheep she needs to
take and to which position.
Her work is a balance
between being obedient
and taking her own initiatives.
- These dogs will run out
sort of half a mile easily
and take directions left
and right to fetch sheep
to where we want them.
I don't know anybody who can
take direction like a dog.
If anybody started giving
me as many directions
as I give my dog, I think I could stand it
for about maybe 20 minutes before I left.
But these dogs will work all day
and take advice and try to be
helpful and keep an open mind,
which is sort of very useful.
- [Narrator] The ancestors
of the border collies
lived in England and
Scotland in the 16th century.
Here shepherds discovered
and developed the skills
of the dogs, especially on
large barren pasture areas.
These dogs became key team partners.
Only with their help shepherds were able
to guide their sheep to
fresh pastures or water.
Even today, working in this vast landscape
would be impossible without the dogs.
The sheep are more than 800 meters away,
but shepherds can
communicate with their dogs
across this distance.
Derek fully trusts his
dogs and they trust him.
- Dogs are the best ones
as working as a team
with a handler.
When you buy a border
collie puppy, for example,
it's almost a given that
the dog wants to please you,
you don't have to train it to please you.
It's born, through years
of selective breeding,
to be the type of dog that
likes to be an underdog
with you as the boss.
So you don't have to dominate them.
You really just about have to show them
what you want them to do and they do it.
(Derek whistling)
I train them by word association really.
When the dog goes round
the sheep to the left,
I'll give the left-hand
command, which is come by,
which means go left round the sheep.
And then once you've got that
word that means that movement
then you put a whistle onto it.
So my command come by
(whistles). Come by. (whistles)
Then eventually I'll drop
the word and say, come by.
(Derek whistles)
Then eventually I don't say
the word at all, I just go.
(Derek whistles)
And they'll learn that
that means left as well.
So, and then (sharp
whistle) it means to stop.
So I always stop the dog
before I give her advice.
Because when the dogs is
running, it's excited,
it's doing something, it's
not easy for it to listen.
But if you go (whistles) and make it stop,
then it clears its mind
about what it's doing.
And it's open to advice.
And I try to train the dogs
so that they don't have to guess.
There now.
Come by.
Lie down. There.
- [Narrator] Derek has
taught his dogs to use
their natural predator
instinct in a different way.
The dogs use different behavior patterns,
derived from hunting.
(Derek whistling)
Targeting, sneaking up,
stalking, isolating and guiding their prey
to the desired position.
- Here.
Lie down.
There. Wait.
There now.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] For shepherds like Derek,
the border collies are still as valuable
as they were centuries ago.
- Every day, every minute of every day.
I just enjoy working with the dogs.
And especially when you get
one that's a little bit better,
something that's a little bit special.
Sometimes you get a dog
that's just a little bit of a genius.
In dog terms, it's much more of a genius
than I could ever be.
And I'm working with somebody who's really
much, much cleverer than me.
So this dog I've got just know Lynn,
she's an example of that.
She was born to work.
The minute she started working,
it was almost as if
she'd been here before.
- [Narrator] Dogs are still
proven to be the best partners
for herders around the world.
Many of these could not
master the everyday challenges
without their loyal dogs.
(playful music)
Dogs are quite unique in the animal world,
with their desire to work
and live with humans.
Researchers even assume that
dogs have played an important
role in the social and
behavioral development of humans.
Without our close relationship with dogs,
humans would probably not
be where they are today.
Above all, there is one ability
that has made dogs absolutely superior.
Their remarkable sense of smell.
Contrary to humans, dogs
are constantly immersed
in a world full of scents.
In fact, this can give them
an advantage in situations
where we do not even suspect anything.
Can dogs sense when their
owners will come home?
Mario and his owner Johanna
have a well established daily routine.
Every morning at the same time,
Johanna leaves the house.
What Johanna doesn't know
is that she leaves behind
millions of small odor particles
that her body has been
continuously emitting.
Even if he doesn't like it,
Mario comes to terms with the situation.
(dog whining)
He knows he has to
spend the next few hours
alone in the house.
And he makes the best of it.
Unnoticed by humans, the
odor particles of Johanna
remain present in the
house throughout the day.
However, their intensity
decreases as time passes.
At some point, Mario
seems to notice something,
his owner will soon be returning home.
But how can Mario sense this?
Odors change permanently
throughout the day.
If their intensity
follows a regular pattern,
they become predictable for dogs.
If the concentration of the odor particles
falls below a certain
value, dogs can smell this.
Therefore, Mario already knows
a few minutes ahead of time
that his owner will be arriving home.
Mario smells her absence.
This means dogs can actually
smell the passage of time.
- Hello! Hello!
- [Narrator] These fine odorant molecules
are also used by dogs on
very different challenges,
of the life-saving kind.
Near Graz in Southern Austria.
Here search and rescue dogs are
called in when police forces
need help in the search
for missing persons.
Urs is a so-called man trailer.
(speaking foreign language)
- My partner Urs is a Belgian
shepherd dog, a Malinois.
He is five years old has been on the job
for two and a half years.
With Urs I've traced four
people and found them alive
using the man-trail method.
- [Narrator] Today, Urs
is on a training trail,
his challenge: to find
a mother and her son.
One short sniff is enough and
Urs has memorized the scent
of the missing person.
By licking his nose Urs
binds the odorant molecules,
to his olfactory receptors.
(upbeat music)
Once the odor is stored
securely in his brain,
Urs knows exactly the
scent he needs to follow.
Now, his nose does something remarkable.
It registers human skin flakes in the air.
Every person loses on average
40,000 skin flakes per minute.
Invisible to the naked eye,
these particles leave behind
a specific scent that is
unique to every one of us,
just like our fingerprints.
This trace of tiny
particles is everywhere,
in the street, in bushes, on walls.
The dog's nose is an incredible sensor
that can detect and distinguish
these fine odor particles
from millions of others.
But Urs doesn't work alone,
man-trailing is a team effort.
(speaking foreign language)
- Man-trailing is honest work for a dog.
I don't force him, he
does it with pleasure
and the more he likes to search,
the more he shows it,
with his tail and ears.
He communicates his feelings
and that's the beauty of man-trailing,
learning to read the signs of
the dog and working with him.
- [Narrator] The biggest
challenge for Armin
is to give his dog control of the search.
If Urs walks back on the trail
it doesn't mean he has lost his track.
He rather tries to identify the direction
which the scent comes from.
Like all dogs, Urs uses a very
special feature of his nose
to trace the odor.
He can smell in stereo.
This means Urs can scan the
left side of his surroundings
with the left part of his
nose and in the same breath,
examine the right side with
the right part of his nose.
The dog can thus verify which direction
the odor is coming from
and follow the trail.
In the end, the biggest
reward for Armin and Urs
is to find the missing person.
(speaking foreign language)
- This is actually the best
part of working with dogs,
feeling their gratitude, seeing that
they are enjoying the
work by wagging their tail
as if they are saying, "It's
so much fun to work with you."
- [Narrator] Dogs have shown
that they can track our body odor,
but can they also recognize
changes inside our body?
(gentle music)
10 kilometers away in Zeltweg in Styria.
This is the home of dogs
that long didn't get
the attention which they deserved.
Today, Frans Hogl visits
Wolfgang Gleichweit
and his dogs, Rocky and Lucy.
Although Frans has had regular
checkups at his urologist.
He got his urine checked by the dogs
and they detected prostate
cancer at an early stage.
Could these dogs really have done that?
(speaking foreign language)
- I have no doubt about it,
because it is known that
dogs can detect and perceive.
They can identify drugs,
weapons, or explosives.
So why should there not be
dogs who can sense cancer.
In the end, they saved my life.
- [Narrator] In his farmhouse,
Wolfgang Gleichweit trains
these cancer protection dogs
for a charity he founded.
More than 10 years ago, the
former handler of police dogs
launched the world's first
cancer detection dog unit.
Initially there was great skepticism,
but now tubes filled with
breath, urine and saliva
arrive in his office
from all over the world.
The senders all believe in
the unique sensory abilities
of his cancer detection dogs.
(anticipatory music)
The new samples are placed in a beam.
To make sure that the dog's
nose is working properly,
negative and positive control samples
are also included in the setup.
But what exactly do the dogs smell?
Cancer detection dogs are
trained to detect odors
released by certain tumor cells.
So far, it has been
known that cancer cells
emit alkaline odors.
These molecules have been
detected in breath samples
from lung cancer patients
and in urine from
prostate cancer patients.
And it's exactly these scents
that the dogs should be able to recognize.
Wolfgang Gleichweit needs to
make sure that Rocky sniffs
each sample intensively, so no
odor is hidden from his nose.
Each cancer detection dog has
developed their own individual
sign they give when they
have found something.
(speaking foreign language)
- You have to keep in mind
that it's about a human life.
You have to be careful
to keep the error rate
as low as possible.
After each round, the beam is disinfected
to remove odors from other dogs.
Then the setup is repeated,
placing the probes at different positions.
This is repeated five times
with five different dogs to
have a thorough cross check.
We test and evaluate
samples at least 15 times
before we consider it
positive or negative.
- [Narrator] In a large-scale study
under the supervision of
various medical specialists,
Wolfgang Gleichweit was
able to prove the accuracy
of his cancer dogs unit.
More than 2,200 cancer
cases were documented
and 93% of them had been
correctly identified by the dogs.
(speaking foreign language)
- The dogs are my
partners, they're my life
and the feedback we receive
just shows us how reliable
the dogs actually are.
And this is our reward, we know it works.
And often we can say that we
have saved another human life
we've detected disease in an early stage
that may have broken
out in a few years time.
- [Narrator] Wolfgang
Gleichweit and his team
are now developing new cancer tests
that will be performed
directly on human skin.
Bagheera is currently
being trained for this,
which could work well for
detecting skin cancer.
The Labrador first sniffs a cancer sample,
to be able to recall the
smell during the actual test.
In this training session, the cancer smell
on the volunteering subject comes from
a tube sample attached to his arm.
After the test phases
Bagheera is supposed to detect
and indicate the cancer
directly on the skin.
With about 220 million olfactory cells,
dogs have about 40 times more receptors
in their noses than humans.
We have not yet grasped how
complex and comprehensive
the world of sense really is for our dogs,
but it seems that they can differentiate
the slightest traces and
even detect a single molecule
from 1 trillion others.
That's why the amazing
ability of some dogs
is still a mystery to science.
(gentle music)
North Carolina on the east coast
of the United States of America.
Lisa Briggs lives and works
here with her dog Layla.
She has trained her
golden retriever to detect
human remains for police investigations.
And she has been proven to
be extremely successful.
- Layla is a crossover dogs.
So she lives in my home with me.
She goes everywhere with
me. She's kind of a pet.
And then I can put her vest
on and she's a working dog.
She's just turned three,
but already closed eight cases
by finding human remains.
So she's good at what she does.
- [Narrator] Human remains detection dogs
are considered to have the best noses
among the working docs.
During the decomposition
process, a chemical cocktail
of hundreds of different
odor molecules is formed.
The smell of death comes
in many different forms
and Layla is one of the
few who can identify it.
- My job is to read my dog.
I've taught her what to do,
but if when we're out on a search,
I have to pay attention
to her body language.
People when they watch their dogs,
they can see it through the tail,
through the nose,
through the air scenting.
They may start barking early
when they get into odor.
And her job is to actually not
just get me close to source,
but actually get me right on the source.
Good girl!
Good girl Layla! Good girl.
Yay. Good girl.
(dog barks)
- [Narrator] In a nearby forest,
Layla is training to detect
different odors of decay.
They can be in the open,
buried in the ground, or hidden in water.
Somewhere in this forest Lisa has placed
a half-decayed real human hand,
which is allowed in the
US for such purposes.
Her trained nose enables
Layla to detect a dead body
in deep waters and she
can even distinguish
a dead rat from human remains.
For Layla the training is primarily
a game for which she is rewarded.
This doesn't change in a real case
when the police or family members
hope for important information.
- My first search and the first
time I found human remains,
I was depressed afterwards.
I was very, very sad because
I felt sad for the victim.
I felt sad for what we found.
And then I realized I
was making my dog sad.
And so I have to do a good job,
making sure that she
stays happy at her job.
So it's taken quite a bit of work
to still remain a human being
and have empathy for the family,
but not to do so much of it that my dogs
are picking up on the fact that I'm sad.
- [Narrator] Lisa and Layla
are now an experienced team
that is superior to many
other forensic methods
used by the police.
But their relationship also
reveals how dogs perceive us.
(playful music)
For dogs, their owners
are the most important
person in their lives.
They are often part of their family
and as such, they are
able to see the world
from our perspective.
Yaro will show us that he can take
the point of view of his owner.
The Labrador is trained
to bring a toy on command
but today he gets two identical toys.
One is placed in front of a milk glass,
the other in front of a
transparent glass pane.
While Yaro can see both toys, his owner
only sees the one in front of
the transparent glass pane.
As soon as his owner
gives the command "bring"
he could take each of the two toys,
but if Yaro assumes that
his owner can only mean
the toy that he can
actually see, he will bring
the one in front of the
transparent glass pane.
Mission accomplished!
Dogs can take our point of view.
Therefore we can rely on our dogs
and also entrust them with
great responsibilities.
In very close relationships
this ability can even change lives.
Peanut, an Australian
shepherd has been trained
to assist her owner Carlotta
Kramer in her daily routine.
When Carlotta was 13 years old,
she was diagnosed with
Asperger's syndrome,
a mild form of autism.
(speaking foreign language)
- I'm anxious in crowds.
It's hard for me to do things on my own
or to engage in a conversation
with a group of people,
especially when they are strangers.
It's difficult for me when I
don't know what's coming next.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] This disease
has made it almost impossible
for the 22 year old to
master everyday situations.
Her entire life has been
determined by constraints,
depression and even self-harming behavior.
Only when Peanut started living with her,
did she find a way to escape loneliness
and engage in a social life,
leaving the house and
meeting other people.
(speaking foreign language)
- She helps me in my everyday
life simply by being there.
When we go downtown people
automatically step back,
especially when she is
wearing her service dog vest.
People will say, "Oh there's
someone who needs help."
Peanut is really charming
and she shows everyone
that she has this special responsibility.
- [Narrator] Dogs are ideal for
this kind of life assistance
because they are capable
of developing empathy.
They can sense if a
person is happy or sad,
this gives Carlotta a sense of security.
(speaking foreign language)
- You don't have to be afraid.
That's the feeling she gives me.
I can rely on her every second.
And she always makes me feel loved.
I know that there's
someone to take care of me.
- [Narrator] Thanks to Peanut, Carlotta
can handle her everyday life on her own.
She is going to university
and she has found the love of her life.
But most of all, Peanut
has achieved one thing.
She has put a smile
back on Carlotta's face.
(playful music)
Dogs are able to see things
from our perspective.
While we rely primarily on our voice
when communicating with dogs,
they can read our faces
like pages in an open book.
Because our face cannot lie.
Intuitively the right
side of a person's face
is more expressive than the left side.
Therefore, we instinctively
focus on this right half
when we want to understand
the mood or feelings
of our counterpart,
it's our unconscious way
to recognize each other's feelings.
Scientists have now discovered
that dogs look at us
in exactly the same way as humans do.
They focus on our right side
and recognize our feelings.
This is how they're able to enter deeply
into our emotional life.
And they only do this with
us, not with other dogs.
But they can also use
their observational skills
in a different way.
How well dogs can
actually read their owners
can be observed by their
favorite hobby, eating.
Johanna has taught Mario to wait
before he can eat his food.
That's why he is given a
sign that he's not allowed
to approach his bowl of food.
Mario keeps a wary eye on Johanna,
but the food is just so tempting.
Only when he thinks he
is no longer observed
does Mario dare to crawl
closer to his bowl.
Always keeping an eye that Johanna
isn't taking any notice.
Although Mario desperately wants his food
he's so smart that he adapts his behavior.
In fact, Mario is weighing
up the consequences
that he would face if he gets caught,
he is assessing all the
time what Johanna can
and what she cannot see.
This continuous re-evaluation
of the situation
indicates high intelligence.
It also explains why
dogs can learn so well.
(upbeat music)
Chaser is a border collie
that's made history.
Her owner is the American
psychology professor, John Pilley
They have revolutionized science.
Chaser came into John Pilley's life
shortly after his retirement.
- Sally, my wife grew tired of me
moping around from retirement.
She knew that I needed some new challenge.
So Sally told me one day,
just before Christmas,
you're going to have a new dog.
And that made me happy.
Yeah. Pop-pop got it.
Here it comes girl. Here it comes.
- [Narrator] For the psychologist,
Chaser becomes a four-legged
research subject.
With highly surprising findings
John Pilley notices that playing together
motivates his dog to learn
quickly and memorize things.
Chaser is eager to learn.
She just has to listen
to the verbal commands.
Her eyes are fully focused on
her favorite ball called Blue.
- Wait to meet Blue.
Wait to meet Blue.
There. Step. Stay.
Step, stand.
Step one.
Step, step. There.
Step. Stay. Stay.
Chase drop. Drop.
Crawl. Crawl.
Crawl girl crawl. Crawl.
There. One, two.
Three. Good girl.
(claps hands)
You did good.
To Pop-pop.
The key thing that inspired
me from the very beginning
was when she learned the name of objects,
she showed that she knew
the names of objects
after one trial.
- [Sally] Find soccer. Where's soccer?
Find soccer.
Find soccer girl.
That's it. Good girl.
(claps hands)
- We taught her three commands.
We taught her to nose an object.
We taught her to paw an object
and we taught her to take
an object into her mouth.
What we found was Chaser
could obey those commands,
demonstrating that each one of those words
has an independent meaning.
- Nose frisbee. Nose frisbee.
Good girl.
Chaser, take Peanuts.
Good girl. Good girl.
Okay, Chase.
Paw powder puff.
Good. Chase, take powder puff.
Do it. Take powder puff.
Take. Good girl.
Good girl.
Where we've recently gone
further with this research
is that we've gone beyond two words.
We've gone to the point of
having three elements of grammar.
Chase to blue, take powder puff.
Do it girl, do it, do it,
do it, do it girl, do it.
Do it, do it.
Yes. Good girl.
That's it. That's it. Okay.
To Pop-pop, to pop-pop.
Chaser was asked to take certain
objects to another object.
Now she did that correctly.
Indicating her understanding of syntax.
Now in one time, I would say
to powder puff take peanuts
and then to peanuts take powder puff.
And so we used, in our major study,
the three elements of
grammar using objects
so that we could
demonstrate not just syntax,
the learning the rules of grammar,
but also the semantics or
the meaning was changed
when the words or objects
were inverted in the sentence.
Chase watch Pop-pop.
Stay, watch Pop-pop.
Watch Pop-pop.
Do it. Do it.
Good girl. Good girl.
Do it. Do it.
Yes, good girl.
- [Narrator] John Pilley
published his findings on Chaser
in numerous scientific publications.
Other researchers have
reviewed his studies
and discovered that Chaser
is not a unique case.
It has become clear that so far
the intelligence of dogs
has been underestimated.
- Do it girl. Do it.
Yes. Good girl.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] Chaser's love
for the game, her instincts
and her bond with her owner
have shown the world what
dogs are capable of doing.
Chaser became a star and is known
as the smartest dog in the world.
- Good girl.
Yeah. You're the smartest dog.
You're so sweet.
Learning the names of
over a thousand objects,
learning common nouns.
These kinds of findings,
definitely show what dog
lovers have always known,
that their dog is smarter
really than they think.
(playful music)
- [Narrator] Intelligent,
sensitive, loyal and outgoing,
No wonder dogs are so popular
pets all over the world.
They have another quality
that hardly anyone can resist,
their gentle, pleading, puppy eyes.
This feature which has
been especially developed
for their relationship with
humans has had a key influence
on the evolutionary history of the dog.
These eyes are probably the
most powerful secret weapon
dogs have to make us do what they want.
And when people consider
their dog as a baby with fur,
science backs this up.
When our friends stare at us
with their puppy dog eyes,
they activate the same
hormones that bind a mother
to her newborn, oxytocin and dopamine,
the cuddle hormone and
the happiness hormone.
We fall for the cuteness.
But also dogs are
sensitive to these signals.
They themselves release
these hormones when they have
contact with us and so they bond with us.
(dogs barking)
At Gwinnett county jail in Atlanta
a special program has been launched.
Jail inmates temporarily take in dogs
from a nearby animal shelter.
They look after them day and night
and train them until the
dogs have found a new home.
Michael Pomroy has been looking
after his pit bull mix Roxy
for three years now.
- You know, jail kind of takes
you away from your family.
You get removed from the people you love.
And you know, I've been
here almost three years
and after a while,
everybody kind of starts to,
you get less and less postcards
and people answer the phone less.
So it's really like having
my best friend in the world
right here in the cell with me.
You know what I mean?
Sometimes I don't want
to talk to anybody else
but I always want to hang out with my dog.
I'll come back from court.
I may have bad news from
the judge and she's there
and it's unconditional,
you know what I mean.
If I don't want to play and all that,
she'll just sit down
next to me and lay down
and be there for me.
I made some bad decisions.
A hotel room got raided.
They found a large amount of heroin.
And I've been sitting here for a while
just kind of waiting on a
better plea offer, really.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] All the dogs in the jail
have come from this animal shelter,
half an hour's drive away.
Sheriff Brad Daugherty
is the driving force
of this jail dog program
called Operation Second Chance.
His focus has been on dogs which
are in a critical situation
and would be put down unless
they are quickly adopted.
Like this little dog, Charlotte.
- Charlotte is an 11 year old poodle.
We know that she's got an abscessed tooth.
And other than that,
medically, we're not sure.
So we're gonna do blood work on her
and make sure she's not
needing any kind of medicine
or anything like that.
It breaks my heart, the things
that happen to these dogs.
But when I see them
being loved and cared for
and nurtured by these inmates
and I watch these dogs transform
from victims to members of families,
it makes it all worthwhile.
Then we have the inmates.
A lot of these guys have never had
love or respect given to them.
And these dogs love these
men and they need these guys.
- [Narrator] For the inmates
the dogs can make a huge difference.
They can give them a
new perspective on life.
- We very rarely have any kind
of behavioral issues in these units.
The dogs just seem to
bring a peace in there.
It's quieter than most,
you know, you would think
with a bunch of dogs that
it would be very noisy,
but it's not.
It's very quiet, very clean, very quiet.
And everybody behaves themselves.
It's a peaceful place.
- [Narrator] A close bond
between dogs and inmates
can trigger a new approach to life.
Many of the men recognize
themselves in the dogs,
rejected, not accepted and abandoned.
The dogs help them to
deal with their past,
their actions and their behavior.
- Before I got arrested,
I was really impulsive.
You know, if I wanted to do
something, I went and did it.
If I had a thought, I went and did it.
It was an immediate, there
was no thinking through
and decision-making.
When you're training a dog,
you can't be impulsive like that.
You can't be crazy hyperactive.
You know what I mean?
'Cause they'll respond to that
and it'll make them worse.
It's brought me a long way.
Made me a lot more ready to
transition back into society.
You know, I was a mess.
I was a mess before I got arrested.
- [Narrator] Since
2010, more than 400 dogs
have been rescued and
adopted by new families.
Michael hopes that Roxy
won't ever be selected
and can stay with him.
- I would cry my eyes out. I'd cry.
I'm not gonna hide it either.
I've seen grown men in this
dorm many, many times, you know,
they get really attached to their dog.
The dog will get adopted and
they they'll lock themselves
in their room and cry.
It's like I said earlier, it's like a kid.
You know what I mean?
It's like your kid just
got adopted and ran off.
She knows I'm talking about her.
Ain't that right.
- [Narrator] Our relationship with dogs
is something very special.
It consists of positive
feelings, trust and loyalty.
A dog doesn't judge us.
It only wants us to see him as he is.
At the end, there is an
important secret to be revealed.
Dogs brains respond to us
with the same feelings,
in the same brain areas
as we respond to them.
This means the most urgent
question of every dog owner
is thereby also answered.
Yes. Our dogs really do love us.
This is probably the explanation
for our wonderful and
long lasting friendship.
♪ So next time you feel like ♪
♪ Everything's going wrong ♪
♪ Just remember you're never alone ♪
♪ You've always got your ♪
♪ You've always got your ♪
♪ You've always got your friends ♪
♪ You've always got your ♪
♪ That's what they're there for ♪
♪ You've always got your friends ♪
(dogs barking)
- [Narrator] Dogs.
They are playful, fun-loving
and most of all, they are loyal.
Thousands of years ago, they
entered into an emotional pact
that is still unbroken.
Humans and dogs make a truly perfect team.
- I'm working with somebody who's really
much, much cleverer than me.
- [Narrator] Their phenomenal senses
make them an essential team partner.
And with their gifted sense of smell,
they can even try to detect
diseases in their early stages.
(speaking foreign language)
- In they end they saved my life.
- [Narrator] For some, a dog becomes
their last hope in life.
- It's really like having
my best friend in the world
right here in the cell with me.
You know what I mean?
Like sometimes I don't want
to talk to anybody else,
but I always want to hang out with my dog.
- [Narrator] Their ability to
read and communicate with us
makes the dog truly unique
in the animal world.
- Do it girl. Do it.
Your dog is smarter than you think.
- [Narrator] But why did dogs
become our ideal companion
and colleague at work?
Why are dogs so loyal
that they would follow us
to the end of the world?
What exactly is the secret
of this wonderful friendship?
(dogs barking)
Innset, a small village
in Northern Norway,
240 kilometers north of the Arctic circle.
(dogs howling)
The sled dogs that live
here, still carry parts
of the ancient wolf's genome.
They are Greenland dogs.
One of the oldest breeds in the world.
Here, humans and dogs still
have a primordial way of life.
(speaking foreign language)
- I immigrated 30 years
ago from Hamburg Germany
and bought a husky from here.
When I started offering guided tours,
my main goal was to be outside.
I wanted to be out in nature with the dogs
and in a way it's like
living the life of a farmer,
who doesn't get around a lot.
And although I haven't
seen much of the world
I can truly say that I've found
one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
- [Narrator] It all
started When Bjorn Klauer
was on a hiking tour all
the way across Norway.
He felt a desire for a solitary life,
away from human society.
Back then, a Greenland
dog was traveling with him
who not only pulled his
bags but kept him company.
Without the dog Bjorn would
have become very lonely.
Greenland dogs are perfectly
adapted for expeditions
in the extreme climate of the far north.
Their thick fur protects
them from temperatures
of up to minus 40 degrees Celsius.
(dogs barking)
They are sled dogs from tip to paw.
(gentle music)
(man speaking foreign language)
Bjorn's routine with the dogs
is dominated by the seasons.
During winter time, he
spends more than 100 days
in the open countryside.
Each day the energetic dogs
run up to 60 kilometers.
During these trips, Bjorn and the dogs
have created a very special bond.
(speaking foreign language)
- In the front there is the lead dog.
He's the one I'm in contact
with, with whom I communicate.
He always wants to do everything spot on.
So this is someone who, like all dogs,
wants to make everything
right for his owner.
You have to build mutual
trust with the lead dog.
This means on the one hand,
the dog must understand
that my commands are always good
and that I don't put them in danger.
On the other hand, if the dog
backs away from something.
I also have to trust him
and be aware that there
is something in the way.
A dog is your life insurance out here
and it trusts you under all circumstances.
- [Narrator] The highlands
of Northern Norway,
they are covered with dense
snow for more than half a year,
in an almost endless lonely Tundra.
What is now a way of life for Bjorn
has been essential for survival
for our Nordic ancestors
in this part of the world.
Sled dogs have been living in
close relationship with humans
for more than 2,000 years
across the Arctic circle,
with nomads in Siberia,
with Inuits and natives
of North America, and with
the inhabitants of Greenland,
the home of Bjorn's Greenland dogs.
In a landscape dominated by ice and snow
our ancestors were dependent on their dogs
and not only for hunting.
With their sleds, they were able to reach
other settlements to
sell or purchase goods.
Thus, the dogs played an important role
in the growth of extensive trade.
Already at this time, dogs
showed their social skills
and men appreciated the skills
and character of their dogs.
These very characteristics remain today.
(speaking foreign language)
- Sled dogs are the only
working animals in the world
that you cannot put
pressure on to do things.
They just have their own motivation.
Their joy of pulling,
their satisfaction of working in a team.
Everything has to be fun and
I think that's really great.
When I'm on a tour, then I
also have to work in a team.
I don't just stand on
the sled and say "go."
When it goes uphill I have to help.
I have to walk next to the sled
and if the snow is really deep,
I may have to put on my snowshoes.
This collaboration in my view
is the greatest experience.
This really strengthens the connection
with nature even more.
- [Narrator] For thousands of years,
sled dogs have been helping
humans across the globe.
And they have learned to understand us.
(speaking foreign language)
- When I stand on the sled
and see the dogs having fun
running and when I take in the mountains
and enjoy the landscape,
that's an incredible sense of freedom.
(playful music)
- [Narrator] The relationship
between humans and dogs
is a very special one.
Dogs are among only a
few animals that respond
to where we look at, where
we point to and how we speak.
According to recent findings,
dogs are not only able to
interpret our tone of voice,
but they actually have an understanding
of what we say to them.
Researchers have discovered that our dog
only feels rewarded
when both the intonation
and the spoken word indicate praise.
Also how a dog tilts its
head gives another indication
about their understanding of language.
It suggests that dogs process speech
in much the same way as we humans do.
Meaningful words are processed
in the left half of the brain
and the tone of voice in the right.
(man whistling)
(sheep bleating)
(gentle music)
The different sophisticated
ways in which people communicate
with dogs have changed people's lives.
Dogs have taken on tasks that humans
could not do on their own.
- These sheep dogs, they're
very compulsive in their nature.
Working sheep is almost
like a drug to them.
They love that drug.
So they'll do anything
to have the pleasure
of hunting and working sheep.
- Here on the English Scotland border,
is the home of the most
famous herding dog,
the border collie.
Derek Scrimgeour has been living
in the mountains of Cumbria for 50 years.
Besides running his sheep farm,
he has also been breeding
his own canine team partners.
- The minute I started to
work with a border Collie,
I realized this is a completely
different type of dog,
and it was clever and
it wanted to please me
and the whole concept of
the dog working sheep,
it's like magic.
It felt like magic. And
it was just so intriguing.
- [Narrator] Compared to humans,
dogs have a much larger field
of vision that makes them
true masters in observing
their surroundings.
While we perceive the
environment like this.
Dogs see the world pretty much like this,
with a field of vision
of about 250 degrees.
This allows them to notice moving animals
in the vast landscapes much better.
This helps herding dogs to
keep a close eye on all sheep
and to spot any sneaking
predators in advance.
However, most important is communication.
Lynn listens carefully to the commands
she receives from Derek.
(Derek whistling)
(gentle music)
These brief commands are
sufficient for Lynn to know
which sheep she needs to
take and to which position.
Her work is a balance
between being obedient
and taking her own initiatives.
- These dogs will run out
sort of half a mile easily
and take directions left
and right to fetch sheep
to where we want them.
I don't know anybody who can
take direction like a dog.
If anybody started giving
me as many directions
as I give my dog, I think I could stand it
for about maybe 20 minutes before I left.
But these dogs will work all day
and take advice and try to be
helpful and keep an open mind,
which is sort of very useful.
- [Narrator] The ancestors
of the border collies
lived in England and
Scotland in the 16th century.
Here shepherds discovered
and developed the skills
of the dogs, especially on
large barren pasture areas.
These dogs became key team partners.
Only with their help shepherds were able
to guide their sheep to
fresh pastures or water.
Even today, working in this vast landscape
would be impossible without the dogs.
The sheep are more than 800 meters away,
but shepherds can
communicate with their dogs
across this distance.
Derek fully trusts his
dogs and they trust him.
- Dogs are the best ones
as working as a team
with a handler.
When you buy a border
collie puppy, for example,
it's almost a given that
the dog wants to please you,
you don't have to train it to please you.
It's born, through years
of selective breeding,
to be the type of dog that
likes to be an underdog
with you as the boss.
So you don't have to dominate them.
You really just about have to show them
what you want them to do and they do it.
(Derek whistling)
I train them by word association really.
When the dog goes round
the sheep to the left,
I'll give the left-hand
command, which is come by,
which means go left round the sheep.
And then once you've got that
word that means that movement
then you put a whistle onto it.
So my command come by
(whistles). Come by. (whistles)
Then eventually I'll drop
the word and say, come by.
(Derek whistles)
Then eventually I don't say
the word at all, I just go.
(Derek whistles)
And they'll learn that
that means left as well.
So, and then (sharp
whistle) it means to stop.
So I always stop the dog
before I give her advice.
Because when the dogs is
running, it's excited,
it's doing something, it's
not easy for it to listen.
But if you go (whistles) and make it stop,
then it clears its mind
about what it's doing.
And it's open to advice.
And I try to train the dogs
so that they don't have to guess.
There now.
Come by.
Lie down. There.
- [Narrator] Derek has
taught his dogs to use
their natural predator
instinct in a different way.
The dogs use different behavior patterns,
derived from hunting.
(Derek whistling)
Targeting, sneaking up,
stalking, isolating and guiding their prey
to the desired position.
- Here.
Lie down.
There. Wait.
There now.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] For shepherds like Derek,
the border collies are still as valuable
as they were centuries ago.
- Every day, every minute of every day.
I just enjoy working with the dogs.
And especially when you get
one that's a little bit better,
something that's a little bit special.
Sometimes you get a dog
that's just a little bit of a genius.
In dog terms, it's much more of a genius
than I could ever be.
And I'm working with somebody who's really
much, much cleverer than me.
So this dog I've got just know Lynn,
she's an example of that.
She was born to work.
The minute she started working,
it was almost as if
she'd been here before.
- [Narrator] Dogs are still
proven to be the best partners
for herders around the world.
Many of these could not
master the everyday challenges
without their loyal dogs.
(playful music)
Dogs are quite unique in the animal world,
with their desire to work
and live with humans.
Researchers even assume that
dogs have played an important
role in the social and
behavioral development of humans.
Without our close relationship with dogs,
humans would probably not
be where they are today.
Above all, there is one ability
that has made dogs absolutely superior.
Their remarkable sense of smell.
Contrary to humans, dogs
are constantly immersed
in a world full of scents.
In fact, this can give them
an advantage in situations
where we do not even suspect anything.
Can dogs sense when their
owners will come home?
Mario and his owner Johanna
have a well established daily routine.
Every morning at the same time,
Johanna leaves the house.
What Johanna doesn't know
is that she leaves behind
millions of small odor particles
that her body has been
continuously emitting.
Even if he doesn't like it,
Mario comes to terms with the situation.
(dog whining)
He knows he has to
spend the next few hours
alone in the house.
And he makes the best of it.
Unnoticed by humans, the
odor particles of Johanna
remain present in the
house throughout the day.
However, their intensity
decreases as time passes.
At some point, Mario
seems to notice something,
his owner will soon be returning home.
But how can Mario sense this?
Odors change permanently
throughout the day.
If their intensity
follows a regular pattern,
they become predictable for dogs.
If the concentration of the odor particles
falls below a certain
value, dogs can smell this.
Therefore, Mario already knows
a few minutes ahead of time
that his owner will be arriving home.
Mario smells her absence.
This means dogs can actually
smell the passage of time.
- Hello! Hello!
- [Narrator] These fine odorant molecules
are also used by dogs on
very different challenges,
of the life-saving kind.
Near Graz in Southern Austria.
Here search and rescue dogs are
called in when police forces
need help in the search
for missing persons.
Urs is a so-called man trailer.
(speaking foreign language)
- My partner Urs is a Belgian
shepherd dog, a Malinois.
He is five years old has been on the job
for two and a half years.
With Urs I've traced four
people and found them alive
using the man-trail method.
- [Narrator] Today, Urs
is on a training trail,
his challenge: to find
a mother and her son.
One short sniff is enough and
Urs has memorized the scent
of the missing person.
By licking his nose Urs
binds the odorant molecules,
to his olfactory receptors.
(upbeat music)
Once the odor is stored
securely in his brain,
Urs knows exactly the
scent he needs to follow.
Now, his nose does something remarkable.
It registers human skin flakes in the air.
Every person loses on average
40,000 skin flakes per minute.
Invisible to the naked eye,
these particles leave behind
a specific scent that is
unique to every one of us,
just like our fingerprints.
This trace of tiny
particles is everywhere,
in the street, in bushes, on walls.
The dog's nose is an incredible sensor
that can detect and distinguish
these fine odor particles
from millions of others.
But Urs doesn't work alone,
man-trailing is a team effort.
(speaking foreign language)
- Man-trailing is honest work for a dog.
I don't force him, he
does it with pleasure
and the more he likes to search,
the more he shows it,
with his tail and ears.
He communicates his feelings
and that's the beauty of man-trailing,
learning to read the signs of
the dog and working with him.
- [Narrator] The biggest
challenge for Armin
is to give his dog control of the search.
If Urs walks back on the trail
it doesn't mean he has lost his track.
He rather tries to identify the direction
which the scent comes from.
Like all dogs, Urs uses a very
special feature of his nose
to trace the odor.
He can smell in stereo.
This means Urs can scan the
left side of his surroundings
with the left part of his
nose and in the same breath,
examine the right side with
the right part of his nose.
The dog can thus verify which direction
the odor is coming from
and follow the trail.
In the end, the biggest
reward for Armin and Urs
is to find the missing person.
(speaking foreign language)
- This is actually the best
part of working with dogs,
feeling their gratitude, seeing that
they are enjoying the
work by wagging their tail
as if they are saying, "It's
so much fun to work with you."
- [Narrator] Dogs have shown
that they can track our body odor,
but can they also recognize
changes inside our body?
(gentle music)
10 kilometers away in Zeltweg in Styria.
This is the home of dogs
that long didn't get
the attention which they deserved.
Today, Frans Hogl visits
Wolfgang Gleichweit
and his dogs, Rocky and Lucy.
Although Frans has had regular
checkups at his urologist.
He got his urine checked by the dogs
and they detected prostate
cancer at an early stage.
Could these dogs really have done that?
(speaking foreign language)
- I have no doubt about it,
because it is known that
dogs can detect and perceive.
They can identify drugs,
weapons, or explosives.
So why should there not be
dogs who can sense cancer.
In the end, they saved my life.
- [Narrator] In his farmhouse,
Wolfgang Gleichweit trains
these cancer protection dogs
for a charity he founded.
More than 10 years ago, the
former handler of police dogs
launched the world's first
cancer detection dog unit.
Initially there was great skepticism,
but now tubes filled with
breath, urine and saliva
arrive in his office
from all over the world.
The senders all believe in
the unique sensory abilities
of his cancer detection dogs.
(anticipatory music)
The new samples are placed in a beam.
To make sure that the dog's
nose is working properly,
negative and positive control samples
are also included in the setup.
But what exactly do the dogs smell?
Cancer detection dogs are
trained to detect odors
released by certain tumor cells.
So far, it has been
known that cancer cells
emit alkaline odors.
These molecules have been
detected in breath samples
from lung cancer patients
and in urine from
prostate cancer patients.
And it's exactly these scents
that the dogs should be able to recognize.
Wolfgang Gleichweit needs to
make sure that Rocky sniffs
each sample intensively, so no
odor is hidden from his nose.
Each cancer detection dog has
developed their own individual
sign they give when they
have found something.
(speaking foreign language)
- You have to keep in mind
that it's about a human life.
You have to be careful
to keep the error rate
as low as possible.
After each round, the beam is disinfected
to remove odors from other dogs.
Then the setup is repeated,
placing the probes at different positions.
This is repeated five times
with five different dogs to
have a thorough cross check.
We test and evaluate
samples at least 15 times
before we consider it
positive or negative.
- [Narrator] In a large-scale study
under the supervision of
various medical specialists,
Wolfgang Gleichweit was
able to prove the accuracy
of his cancer dogs unit.
More than 2,200 cancer
cases were documented
and 93% of them had been
correctly identified by the dogs.
(speaking foreign language)
- The dogs are my
partners, they're my life
and the feedback we receive
just shows us how reliable
the dogs actually are.
And this is our reward, we know it works.
And often we can say that we
have saved another human life
we've detected disease in an early stage
that may have broken
out in a few years time.
- [Narrator] Wolfgang
Gleichweit and his team
are now developing new cancer tests
that will be performed
directly on human skin.
Bagheera is currently
being trained for this,
which could work well for
detecting skin cancer.
The Labrador first sniffs a cancer sample,
to be able to recall the
smell during the actual test.
In this training session, the cancer smell
on the volunteering subject comes from
a tube sample attached to his arm.
After the test phases
Bagheera is supposed to detect
and indicate the cancer
directly on the skin.
With about 220 million olfactory cells,
dogs have about 40 times more receptors
in their noses than humans.
We have not yet grasped how
complex and comprehensive
the world of sense really is for our dogs,
but it seems that they can differentiate
the slightest traces and
even detect a single molecule
from 1 trillion others.
That's why the amazing
ability of some dogs
is still a mystery to science.
(gentle music)
North Carolina on the east coast
of the United States of America.
Lisa Briggs lives and works
here with her dog Layla.
She has trained her
golden retriever to detect
human remains for police investigations.
And she has been proven to
be extremely successful.
- Layla is a crossover dogs.
So she lives in my home with me.
She goes everywhere with
me. She's kind of a pet.
And then I can put her vest
on and she's a working dog.
She's just turned three,
but already closed eight cases
by finding human remains.
So she's good at what she does.
- [Narrator] Human remains detection dogs
are considered to have the best noses
among the working docs.
During the decomposition
process, a chemical cocktail
of hundreds of different
odor molecules is formed.
The smell of death comes
in many different forms
and Layla is one of the
few who can identify it.
- My job is to read my dog.
I've taught her what to do,
but if when we're out on a search,
I have to pay attention
to her body language.
People when they watch their dogs,
they can see it through the tail,
through the nose,
through the air scenting.
They may start barking early
when they get into odor.
And her job is to actually not
just get me close to source,
but actually get me right on the source.
Good girl!
Good girl Layla! Good girl.
Yay. Good girl.
(dog barks)
- [Narrator] In a nearby forest,
Layla is training to detect
different odors of decay.
They can be in the open,
buried in the ground, or hidden in water.
Somewhere in this forest Lisa has placed
a half-decayed real human hand,
which is allowed in the
US for such purposes.
Her trained nose enables
Layla to detect a dead body
in deep waters and she
can even distinguish
a dead rat from human remains.
For Layla the training is primarily
a game for which she is rewarded.
This doesn't change in a real case
when the police or family members
hope for important information.
- My first search and the first
time I found human remains,
I was depressed afterwards.
I was very, very sad because
I felt sad for the victim.
I felt sad for what we found.
And then I realized I
was making my dog sad.
And so I have to do a good job,
making sure that she
stays happy at her job.
So it's taken quite a bit of work
to still remain a human being
and have empathy for the family,
but not to do so much of it that my dogs
are picking up on the fact that I'm sad.
- [Narrator] Lisa and Layla
are now an experienced team
that is superior to many
other forensic methods
used by the police.
But their relationship also
reveals how dogs perceive us.
(playful music)
For dogs, their owners
are the most important
person in their lives.
They are often part of their family
and as such, they are
able to see the world
from our perspective.
Yaro will show us that he can take
the point of view of his owner.
The Labrador is trained
to bring a toy on command
but today he gets two identical toys.
One is placed in front of a milk glass,
the other in front of a
transparent glass pane.
While Yaro can see both toys, his owner
only sees the one in front of
the transparent glass pane.
As soon as his owner
gives the command "bring"
he could take each of the two toys,
but if Yaro assumes that
his owner can only mean
the toy that he can
actually see, he will bring
the one in front of the
transparent glass pane.
Mission accomplished!
Dogs can take our point of view.
Therefore we can rely on our dogs
and also entrust them with
great responsibilities.
In very close relationships
this ability can even change lives.
Peanut, an Australian
shepherd has been trained
to assist her owner Carlotta
Kramer in her daily routine.
When Carlotta was 13 years old,
she was diagnosed with
Asperger's syndrome,
a mild form of autism.
(speaking foreign language)
- I'm anxious in crowds.
It's hard for me to do things on my own
or to engage in a conversation
with a group of people,
especially when they are strangers.
It's difficult for me when I
don't know what's coming next.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] This disease
has made it almost impossible
for the 22 year old to
master everyday situations.
Her entire life has been
determined by constraints,
depression and even self-harming behavior.
Only when Peanut started living with her,
did she find a way to escape loneliness
and engage in a social life,
leaving the house and
meeting other people.
(speaking foreign language)
- She helps me in my everyday
life simply by being there.
When we go downtown people
automatically step back,
especially when she is
wearing her service dog vest.
People will say, "Oh there's
someone who needs help."
Peanut is really charming
and she shows everyone
that she has this special responsibility.
- [Narrator] Dogs are ideal for
this kind of life assistance
because they are capable
of developing empathy.
They can sense if a
person is happy or sad,
this gives Carlotta a sense of security.
(speaking foreign language)
- You don't have to be afraid.
That's the feeling she gives me.
I can rely on her every second.
And she always makes me feel loved.
I know that there's
someone to take care of me.
- [Narrator] Thanks to Peanut, Carlotta
can handle her everyday life on her own.
She is going to university
and she has found the love of her life.
But most of all, Peanut
has achieved one thing.
She has put a smile
back on Carlotta's face.
(playful music)
Dogs are able to see things
from our perspective.
While we rely primarily on our voice
when communicating with dogs,
they can read our faces
like pages in an open book.
Because our face cannot lie.
Intuitively the right
side of a person's face
is more expressive than the left side.
Therefore, we instinctively
focus on this right half
when we want to understand
the mood or feelings
of our counterpart,
it's our unconscious way
to recognize each other's feelings.
Scientists have now discovered
that dogs look at us
in exactly the same way as humans do.
They focus on our right side
and recognize our feelings.
This is how they're able to enter deeply
into our emotional life.
And they only do this with
us, not with other dogs.
But they can also use
their observational skills
in a different way.
How well dogs can
actually read their owners
can be observed by their
favorite hobby, eating.
Johanna has taught Mario to wait
before he can eat his food.
That's why he is given a
sign that he's not allowed
to approach his bowl of food.
Mario keeps a wary eye on Johanna,
but the food is just so tempting.
Only when he thinks he
is no longer observed
does Mario dare to crawl
closer to his bowl.
Always keeping an eye that Johanna
isn't taking any notice.
Although Mario desperately wants his food
he's so smart that he adapts his behavior.
In fact, Mario is weighing
up the consequences
that he would face if he gets caught,
he is assessing all the
time what Johanna can
and what she cannot see.
This continuous re-evaluation
of the situation
indicates high intelligence.
It also explains why
dogs can learn so well.
(upbeat music)
Chaser is a border collie
that's made history.
Her owner is the American
psychology professor, John Pilley
They have revolutionized science.
Chaser came into John Pilley's life
shortly after his retirement.
- Sally, my wife grew tired of me
moping around from retirement.
She knew that I needed some new challenge.
So Sally told me one day,
just before Christmas,
you're going to have a new dog.
And that made me happy.
Yeah. Pop-pop got it.
Here it comes girl. Here it comes.
- [Narrator] For the psychologist,
Chaser becomes a four-legged
research subject.
With highly surprising findings
John Pilley notices that playing together
motivates his dog to learn
quickly and memorize things.
Chaser is eager to learn.
She just has to listen
to the verbal commands.
Her eyes are fully focused on
her favorite ball called Blue.
- Wait to meet Blue.
Wait to meet Blue.
There. Step. Stay.
Step, stand.
Step one.
Step, step. There.
Step. Stay. Stay.
Chase drop. Drop.
Crawl. Crawl.
Crawl girl crawl. Crawl.
There. One, two.
Three. Good girl.
(claps hands)
You did good.
To Pop-pop.
The key thing that inspired
me from the very beginning
was when she learned the name of objects,
she showed that she knew
the names of objects
after one trial.
- [Sally] Find soccer. Where's soccer?
Find soccer.
Find soccer girl.
That's it. Good girl.
(claps hands)
- We taught her three commands.
We taught her to nose an object.
We taught her to paw an object
and we taught her to take
an object into her mouth.
What we found was Chaser
could obey those commands,
demonstrating that each one of those words
has an independent meaning.
- Nose frisbee. Nose frisbee.
Good girl.
Chaser, take Peanuts.
Good girl. Good girl.
Okay, Chase.
Paw powder puff.
Good. Chase, take powder puff.
Do it. Take powder puff.
Take. Good girl.
Good girl.
Where we've recently gone
further with this research
is that we've gone beyond two words.
We've gone to the point of
having three elements of grammar.
Chase to blue, take powder puff.
Do it girl, do it, do it,
do it, do it girl, do it.
Do it, do it.
Yes. Good girl.
That's it. That's it. Okay.
To Pop-pop, to pop-pop.
Chaser was asked to take certain
objects to another object.
Now she did that correctly.
Indicating her understanding of syntax.
Now in one time, I would say
to powder puff take peanuts
and then to peanuts take powder puff.
And so we used, in our major study,
the three elements of
grammar using objects
so that we could
demonstrate not just syntax,
the learning the rules of grammar,
but also the semantics or
the meaning was changed
when the words or objects
were inverted in the sentence.
Chase watch Pop-pop.
Stay, watch Pop-pop.
Watch Pop-pop.
Do it. Do it.
Good girl. Good girl.
Do it. Do it.
Yes, good girl.
- [Narrator] John Pilley
published his findings on Chaser
in numerous scientific publications.
Other researchers have
reviewed his studies
and discovered that Chaser
is not a unique case.
It has become clear that so far
the intelligence of dogs
has been underestimated.
- Do it girl. Do it.
Yes. Good girl.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] Chaser's love
for the game, her instincts
and her bond with her owner
have shown the world what
dogs are capable of doing.
Chaser became a star and is known
as the smartest dog in the world.
- Good girl.
Yeah. You're the smartest dog.
You're so sweet.
Learning the names of
over a thousand objects,
learning common nouns.
These kinds of findings,
definitely show what dog
lovers have always known,
that their dog is smarter
really than they think.
(playful music)
- [Narrator] Intelligent,
sensitive, loyal and outgoing,
No wonder dogs are so popular
pets all over the world.
They have another quality
that hardly anyone can resist,
their gentle, pleading, puppy eyes.
This feature which has
been especially developed
for their relationship with
humans has had a key influence
on the evolutionary history of the dog.
These eyes are probably the
most powerful secret weapon
dogs have to make us do what they want.
And when people consider
their dog as a baby with fur,
science backs this up.
When our friends stare at us
with their puppy dog eyes,
they activate the same
hormones that bind a mother
to her newborn, oxytocin and dopamine,
the cuddle hormone and
the happiness hormone.
We fall for the cuteness.
But also dogs are
sensitive to these signals.
They themselves release
these hormones when they have
contact with us and so they bond with us.
(dogs barking)
At Gwinnett county jail in Atlanta
a special program has been launched.
Jail inmates temporarily take in dogs
from a nearby animal shelter.
They look after them day and night
and train them until the
dogs have found a new home.
Michael Pomroy has been looking
after his pit bull mix Roxy
for three years now.
- You know, jail kind of takes
you away from your family.
You get removed from the people you love.
And you know, I've been
here almost three years
and after a while,
everybody kind of starts to,
you get less and less postcards
and people answer the phone less.
So it's really like having
my best friend in the world
right here in the cell with me.
You know what I mean?
Sometimes I don't want
to talk to anybody else
but I always want to hang out with my dog.
I'll come back from court.
I may have bad news from
the judge and she's there
and it's unconditional,
you know what I mean.
If I don't want to play and all that,
she'll just sit down
next to me and lay down
and be there for me.
I made some bad decisions.
A hotel room got raided.
They found a large amount of heroin.
And I've been sitting here for a while
just kind of waiting on a
better plea offer, really.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] All the dogs in the jail
have come from this animal shelter,
half an hour's drive away.
Sheriff Brad Daugherty
is the driving force
of this jail dog program
called Operation Second Chance.
His focus has been on dogs which
are in a critical situation
and would be put down unless
they are quickly adopted.
Like this little dog, Charlotte.
- Charlotte is an 11 year old poodle.
We know that she's got an abscessed tooth.
And other than that,
medically, we're not sure.
So we're gonna do blood work on her
and make sure she's not
needing any kind of medicine
or anything like that.
It breaks my heart, the things
that happen to these dogs.
But when I see them
being loved and cared for
and nurtured by these inmates
and I watch these dogs transform
from victims to members of families,
it makes it all worthwhile.
Then we have the inmates.
A lot of these guys have never had
love or respect given to them.
And these dogs love these
men and they need these guys.
- [Narrator] For the inmates
the dogs can make a huge difference.
They can give them a
new perspective on life.
- We very rarely have any kind
of behavioral issues in these units.
The dogs just seem to
bring a peace in there.
It's quieter than most,
you know, you would think
with a bunch of dogs that
it would be very noisy,
but it's not.
It's very quiet, very clean, very quiet.
And everybody behaves themselves.
It's a peaceful place.
- [Narrator] A close bond
between dogs and inmates
can trigger a new approach to life.
Many of the men recognize
themselves in the dogs,
rejected, not accepted and abandoned.
The dogs help them to
deal with their past,
their actions and their behavior.
- Before I got arrested,
I was really impulsive.
You know, if I wanted to do
something, I went and did it.
If I had a thought, I went and did it.
It was an immediate, there
was no thinking through
and decision-making.
When you're training a dog,
you can't be impulsive like that.
You can't be crazy hyperactive.
You know what I mean?
'Cause they'll respond to that
and it'll make them worse.
It's brought me a long way.
Made me a lot more ready to
transition back into society.
You know, I was a mess.
I was a mess before I got arrested.
- [Narrator] Since
2010, more than 400 dogs
have been rescued and
adopted by new families.
Michael hopes that Roxy
won't ever be selected
and can stay with him.
- I would cry my eyes out. I'd cry.
I'm not gonna hide it either.
I've seen grown men in this
dorm many, many times, you know,
they get really attached to their dog.
The dog will get adopted and
they they'll lock themselves
in their room and cry.
It's like I said earlier, it's like a kid.
You know what I mean?
It's like your kid just
got adopted and ran off.
She knows I'm talking about her.
Ain't that right.
- [Narrator] Our relationship with dogs
is something very special.
It consists of positive
feelings, trust and loyalty.
A dog doesn't judge us.
It only wants us to see him as he is.
At the end, there is an
important secret to be revealed.
Dogs brains respond to us
with the same feelings,
in the same brain areas
as we respond to them.
This means the most urgent
question of every dog owner
is thereby also answered.
Yes. Our dogs really do love us.
This is probably the explanation
for our wonderful and
long lasting friendship.
♪ So next time you feel like ♪
♪ Everything's going wrong ♪
♪ Just remember you're never alone ♪
♪ You've always got your ♪
♪ You've always got your ♪
♪ You've always got your friends ♪
♪ You've always got your ♪
♪ That's what they're there for ♪
♪ You've always got your friends ♪