PBS - Inside Animal Minds (2014) Part 2 Dogs and Super Senses

Inside Animal Minds

What would it be like to go inside the mind of an animal? We have all gazed into a creature's eyes and wondered: What is it thinking about? What does it really know? Now, the revolutionary science of animal cognition is revealing hard evidence about how animals understand the world around them, uncovering their remarkable problem-solving abilities and exploring the complexity of their powers of communication and even their emotions.

In the three-hour special Inside Animal Minds, NOVA explores these breakthroughs through three iconic creatures: dogs, birds, and dolphins. Travel into the spectacularly nuanced noses of dogs and wolves, and discover whether their reliance on different senses has shaped their evolution. See through the eyes of a starling in flight and test the tool-using skills of the smartest of birds, the crow. Listen in as scientists track dolphins in the Caribbean and elephants on the African savannah. Discover how researchers are pushing the animal mind to its limits, and uncover the surprising similarities to–and differences from–the human mind.

Part 2: Dogs and Super Senses

What is it like to be a dog, a shark, or a bird? Long the subject of human daydreams, this question is now getting serious attention from scientists who study animal senses. The senses define our experience of the world—they shape our minds, and help make us what we are. Humans rely on smell, sight, taste, touch, and sound, but other animals have super-powered versions of these senses, and a few, like electrically-sensitive sharks, even have extra senses we don’t have at all. From a dog who seems to use smell to tell time, to a dolphin who can “see” with his ears, we will discover how animals use their senses in ways we humans can barely imagine. But it’s not just the senses that are remarkable—it's the brains that process them. How does a swallow’s tiny, one-gram brain take in the flood of visual information that enables the bird to whiz within inches of buildings while flying at 40 miles per hour? How does a dog’s mind turn the sight of a hand signal into the happy anticipation of a treat? How has the evolution of the dog—from its wolf ancestors–reshaped its brain? NOVA goes into the minds of animals to “see” the world in an entirely new way.

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