VCU Center for Human-Animal Interaction Director Nancy Gee and her dog Allie (Photo by Ash Daniel)
Dogs make us smarter, and that’s a fact, says Nancy Gee, an anthrozoologist who heads the Center for Human-Animal Interaction at Virginia Commonwealth University. Gee has spent decades studying the impact that interaction with man’s best friend has on the performance and mood of students, from preschool to college, and she co-wrote the top reference book for educators and mental-health workers who want to bring dogs into the classroom. As part of a collaborative study led by the University of Lincoln, United Kingdom, Gee found evidence that the feelings that calm dogs elicit in humans could improve cognition.
The UK-based study, with findings published last year, was the first to use a randomized, controlled trial to show the effect that dog-assisted interventions have on students with special educational needs. When a cohort of special needs students interacted with therapy dogs over a semester, they showed a drastic reduction in cortisol, a hormone that indicates stress, that was greater than that seen in neurotypical peers who interacted with the canines. Both neurotypical and special needs students also had lower stress levels than peers who, instead of receiving a dose of puppy love, were guided through relaxation techniques and meditation or experienced no changes in the classroom setting.
“What we found is that the special needs students secreted less cortisol when they interacted with the dog than in the yoga relaxation or in the classroom as usual condition,” Gee says. “That bore itself out over the course of the semester. ... As the semester goes on, children get more and more stressed. And that didn’t happen in the dog condition.”
Researchers also observed improvements in executive functioning, a cognitive measure of the ability to stay on task, in the canine groups, which was directly caused by decreased stress. Gee explains it this way:
“Imagine you’re really nervous about something … and now I give you math tasks to do, but your brain is too busy being worried about this other thing rather than focusing on math problems,” Gee says. “So, if we can get your brain to let go of the worry and relax, you can then dedicate more of your cognitive resources to a math problem.”
Dog therapy and educational programs are common in hospitals and schools, but Gee is one of the first to explain the biochemical mechanisms behind why they work.
“In science, it’s a big deal to be able to make causal inferences,” Gee said. “And we’re starting to be able to get there because we are having randomized controlled trials that are showing the impact of the presence of a dog on a variety of things, including executive functioning, stress, biomarkers and so on.”
Previous research by Gee has connected dogs to better learning outcomes in the classroom, but not for reasons she first assumed. “I [had] said a dog doesn’t make you smarter, a dog is just making the children more motivated and helping them focus their attention,” Gee said. “Now, years later … we might have some evidence that dogs make us smarter because executive functioning is related to being smart.” Executive functioning enables us to make sound decisions and plans and limit off-task thoughts, Gee adds.
What is it about dogs that makes us feel so chill? For one, dogs are nonjudgmental, which could help lower cortisol levels in stressful situations where acceptance is important, Gee says. The theory has been explored by other researchers, such as in a University of Buffalo study that asked women to solve math problems in the company of either their spouses or their dogs and then measured the women’s stress responses. Turns out they were more comforted by the family dog than their partner. Dogs may also help children with speech delays. In another study, Gee found that when children with speech delays read to dogs trained to sit at attention, they verbalized more than when reading to either toy dogs or people.
The experience of petting dogs and staring into their eyes has also been linked to a higher release of oxytocin, a hormone that facilitates bonding, in both humans and dogs, further explaining the calming power of canines. Our strong relationship with dogs has had more than 35,000 years to develop, ever since we first started domesticating and hunting with the species. Gee’s research shows children may be the biggest beneficiaries of the loving, symbiotic connection between humans and dogs.
“I think kids are drawn to dogs,” Gee said. “I think there’s something very special and unique about that relationship between children and dogs. … When they see other children interacting and having so much fun with the animals, they don’t want to be left out.”
