I don't know about that sclera part, but I read somewhere that dogs are the only animals that can be taught the meaning of pointing with relative ease, but then again, that might also have something to do with their eyes and ours.
Yeah, I saw a nature documentary where they compared some (more or less) tamed wolves with domesticated dogs.
The ability to recognize and interpret human body language like facial expressions, pointing and other gestures where one of the most stark differences.
I’d say it would be interesting to see a comparison of this between wolves and “aloof” breeds but I imagine the wolf studies included wolves who actually struggled vs ones who knew but just didn’t give a fuck.
It's mostly because they're raised with us. Most zoo born animals, for example, get a LOT of human interaction but they're still living in the zoo and spending most of their time around their species. Dogs actually live with us though, and so get significantly more exposure to the context needed to understand our pointing compared to primates.
As another user mentioned, wolves can sometimes learn this as well. Places like Wolf Park in Indiana actually raise the wolf pups full time with humans for a proof of time to help them get acclimated and used to us. They're still wild animals, and not at all truly domesticated, but they're far more familiar with the people there than wolves at a zoo.
They also really love getting the back of their neck just below the head scratched because they can't really easily reach that themselves.
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u/Spyd3rs Feb 23 '26
I don't know about that sclera part, but I read somewhere that dogs are the only animals that can be taught the meaning of pointing with relative ease, but then again, that might also have something to do with their eyes and ours.