[MagicMoonlight]

We had an old dog move in with us and it’s been interesting because it has developed a new dog culture based on my existing dog. It now barks when someone comes home, barks to go outside etc. It didn’t do any of that before but it has started doing it by watching the existing dog communicate and having people who are more attentive to its needs.

Everything I see in dogs suggests that they are sentient, they just don’t seem to need language. They speak when it is useful, like for getting attention from people in different rooms, but they don’t really need it beyond that. So they don’t go any further.

[pxc]

If you ever deliberately raise a puppy, you'll watch the formation of many communication patterns that you create both deliberately (like barking or ringing a bell to go outside) and by accident.

The more I learn about domesticated animals, the more impressed I am by their intelligence and attunement to humans, natural and learned.

[vidarh]

> Everything I see in dogs suggests that they are sentient, they just don’t seem to need language. They speak when it is useful, like for getting attention from people in different rooms, but they don’t really need it beyond that. So they don’t go any further.

If you haven't check out whataboutbunny [1] on Instagram to get an indication of how far dogs can go when given an opportunity. Bunny is trained to use buttons to "speak". A lot of it is very simple and functional ("outside", "play") that could easily be handled by body language and the odd bark, but occasionally you get fairly complex conversations which seems to indicate introspection and fairly complex reasoning that as you say they "just don't seem to need" to be able to express in language in normal conditions.

[1] https://www.instagram.com/whataboutbunny/