By Julia Chaly '24
Ever look at your pet and wonder what they are thinking? Wonder how much they actually remember about you when you leave and return? Memories are something that every human has. The technical definition of memory is the processes that are used to gain, store, retain, and later retrieve information. Human memory involves the ability to both save and recover information we have learned or once experienced. What about pets?
So, do dogs and cats have the ability to retain memories at all? According to Dr. Brian Hare, associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, “Dogs and cats have different types of memories, just like we do. They have spatial memory, remembering where things are located, short-term memories, and long-term memories.” Los Angeles-based veterinarian Dr. Jeff Werber also adds that pets are capable of storing many different types of memories,“from the little things like knowing where their food or litter box is, to recognizing people and places they haven’t seen in years.” So yes, your dog can most likely recall that walk you took them to get to the grocery store, and your cat has a high chance of remembering their considerable dislike for the veterinarian’s office. Pets have the ability to remember not only the locations and scents of things and people, but also their experiences with them.
Okay, so pets can remember things, but for how long? Short-term memories, or “working memories,” are a kind of memory that allows people to keep information—like a note or phone number—in mind for a few minutes. However, long-term memories on the other hand, are kept in your brain and can be remembered at your choosing. Things like long ago memories from your childhood or what happened on a special occasion years ago. “There are many examples of cats and dogs having long-term memory in both studies and in real-life,” says Dr. Jenna Sansolo, associate veterinarian at Ardsley Veterinary Associates in Ardsley in New York, “For instance, when pet owners go on vacations [they] come home to dogs that show the same excitement a human child would show after not seeing their family for the same amount of time. [Same with] the countless videos of dogs whose owners come home from military deployments.” Laurie Santos, director of the Comparative Cognition Laboratory and the Canine Cognition Center at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, says that when we wonder about long-term memories in pets, we are often referring to “episodic memories—remembering particular episodes from long ago.” Pets can remember things for quite some time, whether that be your scent or particular characteristics when you take a long trip, or certain memories they had with you before you left.
While pets can form memories of certain instances, some experts suspect that extremely positive or negative experiences are what stick with them the most. “Important events, such as those related to food and survival, and events that have an emotional impact are more likely to be stored in the long-term memory,” says Claudia Fugazza, department of ethology at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest.
“These memories have the power to affect your pet’s behavior for a lifetime,” Weber says. Dr. Veronica Cruz Balser, a veterinarian at the Metropolitan Veterinary Center in Chicago, agrees, “My dog, Tony, was near a campfire once when someone decided to add excessive amounts of lighter fluid. The fireball that came towards us was very frightening for him, as he was not expecting it. He no longer will get near campfires,” she says.
How far back do dogs and cats memories really go? Your dog or cat's memory will most likely depend on the kind of environment they have been around. According to Cruz Balser, “It depends on the type of event and emotions/reward/consequence of the event,” Cruz Balser says, “Memory decay depends on many variables, such as the type of memory used for storing the information, its importance, and its emotional valence [the strength of a positive or negative emotion]. Important information and memories with emotional content tend to be remembered for longer times.” So depending on what kind of experiences emotionally your animal has, it will influence how long they can retain that information.
So what role do you play in your pets memories? While your animal continues to learn throughout their life, pets are most susceptible to important influences/impressions when they are young. Young animals like puppies and kittens both have periods early in their lives where they learn fast about many different things in their environment. The memories that are formed during this period influence how they behave for the rest of their lives,” says Dr. Kersti Seksel, a registered veterinary specialist of behavioral medicine at Sydney Animal Behaviour Service in Australia.”
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