May 15, 2025

Ares Nguyen

11th Grade

Fountain Valley High School 

For the past couple of centuries, dogs have been seen as domestic animals that we humans keep as pets. They play with us, sleep with us, they even get us through rough times. Sometimes you may yell at them for doing something like eating your food. But how exactly can they tell how we’re feeling? A dog’s brain is often wired to be able to process human language with their brains. Their ability to recognize our emotions is through the visual and auditory signs we may make.

Dogs often observe our body language and the overall situation, listening to what we’re saying. The temporal pole part of their brain is the anterior part of the temporal lobe, which activates when they hear our voices. This triggers the auditory cues that they utilize to determine how we feel whether we are sad, angry, etc. Alongside the temporal lobe, the frontal lobe allows dogs to feel alert and react. Something interesting is that shorter pieces of a phrase, such as laughing and saying “ha ha ha” will allow the dog to use those acoustics and determine that you’re laughing. However, if they hear longer pieces, such as “haaa haaaa haaaa,” they will correlate that with crying or whining.

The temporal pole is also what allows dogs to process our vocalizations and determine that we are yelling at them. Oftentimes, a dog does not remember what they did wrong past five minutes, so they will only process the fact that you are yelling at them using the temporal pole. This part of the brain is sensitive to our emotions, with the intent that it can better understand how we feel. The right hemisphere processes negative emotions, such as yelling, and the left hemisphere handles positive emotions, such as laughter or praise. Additionally, the amygdala is a part of the brain that triggers the dog’s emotions, such as being excited, scared, or sad. This is often triggered in tandem with the temporal pole, due to their cognition of human emotions. 

To conclude, the dog’s brain is complex and difficult to understand. They process our emotions in an auditory and visual sense, not actually knowing what we are specifically saying. However, this is what makes dogs unique and what allows us to love them for the animals they are.