Consistency and clarity. That was the ticket. I resolved to be more consistent—with both dogs and humans alike.
After one of the puppy classes, Helen asked me, “Could Cato be in the Dog Project?”
“He’s too young,” I replied.
“How old does he have to be?”
“At least a year old.”
“But,” Helen opined, “he’s really smart. I bet he could hold his head still.”
“He probably could. But puppies’ brains aren’t fully grown. We wouldn’t know how to compare his brain to an adult brain like Callie’s.”
Helen took this in. “Could I start training him so that he’ll be ready by the time he’s one year old?”
“Sure,” I said. “But why do you want him to be in the Dog Project?”
Helen stroked Cato’s head. “So I can know what he’s thinking.”
I smiled. I knew exactly how she felt.
Epilogue
Two years and two dogs. Two dogs scanned and two dogs gone. The Dog Project started as an idea born from the grief of losing our pug Newton but blossomed into something bigger than any of us could have expected. Up until that point, I had kept my feelings toward dogs mostly to myself. But after we published the initial results with Callie and McKenzie, there was an outpouring of support from people all over the world. I was moved by how strongly people wanted to know what their dogs were thinking.
One of the first people I heard from was Jessie Lendennie, a poet and managing editor at the publisher Salmon Poetry in Ireland. Jessie was kind enough to send me an anthology of poems, Dogs Singing, that she had compiled from poets all over the world. It is a remarkable tribute to the powerful effect that dogs have on people. I found it inspiring as the Dog Project progressed beyond just two dogs.
Moving forward was a risky move. We still had no funding to speak of. The only reason we got as far as we did was through the volunteer efforts of Mark and Melissa and all the people in my lab, especially Andrew. Scanner time still cost $500 an hour, and there were no freebies in that department. I had paid for scan costs out of discretionary research funds that I had accumulated over the years, but at the end of the hot dog and smell experiments, we had to ask ourselves: What now?
We had the only dogs in the world that were trained to go into an MRI. We could keep dreaming up questions to ask about how the canine brain worked, but there were limits in what we could learn from just two subjects. If the Dog Project was to continue to decipher what our furry friends think about us, the path was clear: we needed more dogs. If we had more dogs, we could sort out the questions about how many of the differences between Callie and McKenzie were because of their genetics, their environment, or just random day-to-day fluctuations in their mood, which surely must happen, just like humans. We all wanted to know about the differences in breeds.
Even though I wasn’t sure how we would pay for all this, there was never any real question that I was going all in. I had always followed my passion and hunches in science rather than trying to fit my research program into whatever the funding agencies’ hot topic of the year was. I didn’t hesitate to commit all of my available resources to expand the Dog Project. I had faith that eventually people would soon realize that this wasn’t a frivolous endeavor, and that deciphering what goes on in dogs’ minds would tell us something about where humans came from and how we can live more harmoniously with these wonderful creatures.
The first order of business was to recruit the A-Team. Mark sent out an e-mail to everyone who had come through CPT in the past ten years. He put in calls to local veterinarians. We set a high bar. Callie and McKenzie had shown us what kind of dog could do this. Dogs had to be calm, good in novel environments, good with strangers, good with other dogs, inquisitive, unafraid of loud noises, able to wear earmuffs, and, above all, have a drive to learn new things.
We held tryouts. We tested the dog-human teams for their ability to learn new tasks, like going in the head coil and wearing earmuffs. We played recordings of the scanner noise, watching for any signs of anxiety. After hours of testing, we were still left with five new dogs and owners who were ready to commit to the project. Just as exciting, the dogs represented a cross section of breeds. We had Kady, a Lab-golden mix who had washed out of therapy training for being too sensitive. There was Rocky, the miniature poodle; Caylin, another border collie; and Huxley, a Brittany mix. And finally, rounding out the motley crew was Tigger, a funny Boston terrier who reminded me a lot of Newton.
Kady wearing earmuffs (above). Tigger in the head coil (below).
(Helen Berns)
Mark honed our training plan, and we began holding weekly classes at CPT where we gradually acclimated the dogs to the MRI environment. In just a few months we had gone from two dogs to eight, and we were well on our way to boldly going where no dogs had gone before!
Callie testing a neck coil.
(Helen Berns)
Callie continued as top dog. Whenever we added something new—a new experiment or a piece of equipment—Callie was the first to try it out. With her help, we discovered that we could obtain stronger signals from a dog’s brain by using a coil designed for the human neck. With this type of coil, the pickup element was closer to the brain than in the birdcage.
In talking about the Dog Project, I have learned that people react in one of two possible ways. Dog people do not need any further explanation. They understand the desire to know what their dogs are thinking, especially how they love them. If anything, these folks wonder why nobody has done this before. The other type of person, possibly a dog owner but not actually a dog person, views this as a colossal waste of money. Shouldn’t we be using these expensive MRI machines to improve human health?
It is a valid question, and the best way I can answer it is to say that through the Dog Project, we are improving the human condition. Although I had worked in neuroscience for almost twenty years, and the majority of my research had been funded by the National Institutes of Health to understand how the human reward system goes awry in addiction, more people have been positively impacted by our one experiment on two dogs’ brains than the thousands of MRIs we had previously done in humans. Not everyone loves dogs, but for those who do—and that is about half the people in the United States—their dog’s welfare is intimately tied to their own. If we can understand just a little bit of what goes on behind those puppy eyes, dog-human bonds can only become stronger.
There are already well-documented beneficial effects of living with animals. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that living with pets can decrease blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglyceride levels, as well as alleviate feelings of loneliness. Dogs, especially, provide opportunities for exercise and socialization.