Dog Psychology: What's That?

Have you heard people (especially professional dog trainers) talk about dog psychology? I'm sure you have. Naturally, you might wonder, whether it's a real thing or just a speech phrase. Well, dog psychology, isn't a sub-field of psychology, however, comparative psychology does study the behavior of animals. Naturally, that includes dogs as well.

However, as dogs are far from simple creatures (dogs in Moscow, Russia have even learned to  use the subway system) there have been quite a few studies done on dogs.

Some Interesting Psychological Studies on Dogs 

1. Pavlov's Dog

When one thinks of psychology and dogs, most likely the first thing that comes to mind is the famous classic experiment conducted by Pavlov. However, I'm not gonna discuss this study in detail, if you are interested in psychology, I'm sure you already know how classical conditioning was discovered.

2. Can Dogs Understand Us? 

It's not uncommon for a dog owner to talk to his or her dog, but can the dog understand the owner? Well, it would be ignorant to believe that dogs can understand absolutely everything we tell them, however it is proven that dogs can learn up to 250 words and expressions. Also, a study conducted in Hungary suggests that dogs understand the basic commands very well.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning
http://interestingthings.info/interesting-2/12-interesting-facts-about-dogs.html
http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/08/human-dog-psychology-5-weird-studies.php