[jsanders2001]

> Dogs learned to bark specifically to communicate with humans. Wolves didn’t. Dogs get fed expensive food and sleep in warm beds, without ever having to lift a paw to ‘earn’ it. Who’s stupid, now? :)

Good point. Mine has me wrapped. He gets fed twice a day, makes me pick up his crap, gets a rubdown daily, and has his own bed.

[Salamander]

I just watched a great show on dogs the other night, which addressed the “barking” issue.

In a nutshell, dogs realized *we* were “too stupid” to understand their rich, amazingly complex body language so they literally learned to shout at us, to get us to listen.

Dogs can learn hundreds of human words, correctly associating each word with an action or object.

We can *vaguely* guess what each particular bark “means”.

[except “I want....” to which we answer “And so ye shall receive”] :)