A dog's memories: do they remember their owners?

A dog's memories: do they remember their owners?
As a new pet parent, it's hard to imagine life before your amazing furry friend. But have you ever wondered if your pup feels the same way about life with you? Do dogs remember their owners from previous homes? Do dogs really have memories?
There is still research to be done on how much dogs remember, but here is a look at what is known today.
Dogs have been proven to have memories, but researchers still don't know the details, including the extent to which dogs remember things.
The good news is that studies on dog memory are ongoing, including at Duke Canine Cognition Center at Duke University, where researchers are looking at the following questions, "What cognitive strategies do dogs use when navigating or remembering events? Do all dogs navigate and remember things in similar ways? Are there systematic breed differences?" Any of these questions can lead to compelling findings.
With the lack of empirical evidence on how a dog's brain "remembers" things, when faced with a question like "Do dogs remember their owners?" a good follow-up question is, "How do we know?" Fortunately, dogs are great test subjects (Sit? Sure! Fetch? You bet!), which allows experts to extrapolate information based on a dog's behavioral patterns.
We know that dogs can be intelligent , but not enough research has been done to determine whether or not memory capacity differs from one breed to another. In general, dogs exhibit several types of memory cognition, including the following.
Dogs have a very short term memory. "Dogs forget an event within two minutes," reported National Geographic , citing a 2014 study conducted on various animals, from mice to bees. Other animals have long-term memories, such as dolphins, but dogs don't seem to have a long-term memory that lasts much beyond those two minutes.
Despite their memory deficiencies, dogs show strength in other types of memory, including associative and episodic memory.
Associative memory is the brain's way of creating a relationship between two things. It can be difficult to put a cat in its carrier, for example, because they associate the carrier with going to the vet's office. A dog sees its collar and knows it is time for a walk.
Episodic memory is the memory of something that happened to you personally and is linked to self-awareness.
Until recently, it was thought that only humans and some animals had episodic memories. Some research has suggested that dogs have this ability, but a groundbreaking study in Current Biology provided strong "evidence for episodic memory" in dogs. The team trained the dogs to the point where, instead of saying "lie down," the researcher said "do it" and the dog obeyed.
Interestingly, training dogs for advanced cognition may not be too far off. Renowned psychologist and dog author Dr. Stanley Coren wrote for Psychology Today that he once interviewed a man who, having lost his short-term memory due to a brain injury as a child, relied on a "memory assistance dog" to help with episodic problems. new memories," such as where he parked his car. Pretty exciting stuff.
These advances support the idea that adopted dogs can remember their previous owners, but how they remember them is still uncertain. A dog that has lived in unfortunate circumstances, for example, may associate negative emotions or anxious behavior with certain objects or places. And we definitely know that dogs miss their humans when people leave the house - just look at how happy they are when you walk in the front door!
But this doesn't mean that your new puppy is longing for another family. As long as you provide a loving and nurturing environment, your new dog will be happy to concentrate on his present and enjoy being in your forever home.