Tags

, , ,

Many years ago, I had read a National Geographic article on animal play. The article showed how play was not just a game but an important aspect of learning and growing up. Play and games are important in learning for human children too. There are other advantages of play. The article today is about Dog “Plays”. And it shows how dogs aren’t just smart creatures (dogs can understand certain human signals like pointing to something such as a ball – which even chimps, our closest kin, cannot understand) but they are also capable of understanding complex human emotions. In fact, dog play shows that dogs have an idea about honesty and fairness (allowing a tinier dog – literally an underdog – to have an upper hand in play for instance)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/in-dogs-play-researchers-see-honesty-and-deceit-perhaps-something-like-morality/2014/05/19/d8367214-ccb3-11e3-95f7-7ecdde72d2ea_story.html