How many rescue dogs remember their past?

You know your rescue dog had a life before you entered the shelter, but how long does he actually remember? Would your dog recognize his former owners or where he lived? Can they remember specific experiences, whether good or bad? For some rescues, forgetting a painful past can be a good thing, but is it still possible? Here’s a look at how your dog’s memory works and what scientists think he can remember from his past.

Break the memory

Whether or not rescue dogs can remember their past has to do with the power of their memory. We all know that dogs have a decent memory. Otherwise, how would they know what to do when you say “sit” or what it means when you take their leash out? The act of remembering, however, is more complicated than we think. There are different aspects of memory, and how dogs remember is still unclear.

Remembering past training with semantic memory

Semantic memory is a type of long-term memory that relies on knowledge rather than experience. People use semantic memory when studying for tests, and babies use it in overdrive when learning to recognize everything from people’s faces to the colors of their favorite toys. Semantic memory is the brain that remembers general knowledge necessary for everyday life.

When you teach your dog the cue to “roll,” he uses his semantic memory to connect your words to the action you want him to perform. As long as you occasionally reinforce this memory, your dog should retain this knowledge for life. This is why when you adopt a rescue dog, one of the first things you need to do is figure out where it is with training. New owners are encouraged to randomly call different signals to see if the dog responds.

Thanks to semantic memory, dogs can easily recall things they learned years ago. If your rescue dog was trained before you met him, he won’t suddenly forget those lessons once you adopt him. This formation will stay with them even if the rest of their life changes.

Remembering experiences with episodic memory

Knowing that your dog can remember past training is helpful, but it’s not exactly what most people think of when it comes to the past lives of their pets. They want to know more about emotional things. Did the dog love its former owner? What kind of bed did they sleep in? Did they even have a bed?

This is where things get complicated. When humans remember their past, it’s like time travel. We slip back into our past shoes and relive the memory like a movie in our heads. Scientists and psychologists call this episodic memory. It is the ability to relate specific events to places, times and emotions. It’s a big part of being human, but so far the science is generally inconclusive as to whether or not other animals have the same ability.

A study published in 2016 is the closest proof we’ve gotten that dogs think about memories the same way we do. Animal psychologist Caludia Fugazza led a research team to study memory in dogs. They set up an experiment to determine whether a dog used its semantic memory or a type of episodic memory to remember a specific cue. You can learn the details of the experience here. Ultimately, the results showed that dogs have an “unexpected potential” to retain complex memories. Fugazza doesn’t go so far as to say that dogs have episodic memories like humans do, but the study suggests that dogs may have “episodic” memories that allow them to remember certain long-term events.

A crucial aspect of episodic memory is that memories are created without conscious effort. It’s the difference between memorizing a math equation because you know it will be on the test and being able to think about and remember where you were when you were studying, what the room looked like, and what color pen you were using. These memories won’t help you in the test, but your brain still remembers them without you telling it. Because we can’t explicitly ask our dogs to describe their memories, there’s no concrete way to know if they remember experiences like us. More scientists say no, but that doesn’t mean they can’t remember things from their past. There is another aspect of memory to explore.

Remembering emotions with associative memory

A dog’s ability to use episodic memory remains a big question mark, which brings us to the type of memory dogs use the most…associative memory. Associations are emotional connections made with specific stimuli, and they can be positive or negative. An example of a positive association is how a dog associates fun and excitement at the dog park. They (most likely) don’t remember that day last week when they chased a burrow for a full 30 minutes and then rolled around in a puddle of mud, but they do remember how it felt to be there. time and associate these emotions with the place.

Dogs make associations with almost everything they come into contact with. The vacuum cleaner, their toys, their food, their family members, they learn to associate everything with a feeling. This is how they always remember which toy is their favorite and recognize the people they love and the people they have learned to steer clear of.

Dogs most likely use a combination of semantic and associative memories to connect their past to their present. So when you go to take your newly adopted dog on his first car trip and he refuses to get into the vehicle, he might be using his associative memory to recall a negative experience with cars. They probably don’t think back to a specific time when they drove in a car and got sick, but because of that experience, they now associate all cars with negative feelings.

There’s still no clear answer as to what your dog is able to remember and what it isn’t, but all together the evidence shows that rescue dogs can indeed remember some aspects of their past lives. Specific events and details are probably beyond them, but they generalize things into feelings that stick with them long term. Your dog’s memory doesn’t work the same way yours does, but it’s safe to say that he remembers important aspects of his past which could include the people he spent the most time with and the significant places he visited. Now if only they could tell you what their life was like before.

Featured photo by Samantha Scholl on Unsplash

Sources: psychology today American scientist, Smithsonian , InfoVet