So, here comes part two of the animal culture debate.  Part one you can find here – and yes, it was too good to be true, she was not house-trained overnight…

Do animals have culture? Well what is culture? Oh dear. It is defined in so many ways by so many people: are we talking about high culture, low culture, everyday practice? Do we include language? For my own part, in terms of human beings, I would consider culture to be a structure imposed on the natural world by either cognitive or manual means, shared by a group, communicated in some way between them and generally incorporating a set of values, beliefs and assumptions. It is fluid and changing. Often an element of social learning is included in a definition of culture and the idea of imposing structure on the natural environment includes the use of tools.

It seems to me that apart from the handy existence of language to communicate more complex behaviours and values, taking a broad definition, there is no reason why animals cannot also have culture, albeit in a somewhat simpler in form. It strikes me as somewhat anthropocentric to consider that they might not have culture. Why, indeed should they not?  Because it would make us look more stupid and bestial? Some of the books about dogs I have recently been reading are definite about the existence of canine communication systems – I have spent a lot of time learning how to be ‘top dog’ for example! This means going through doorways first, not showing too much affection, not allowing paws in my lap, eating first, putting my hands firmly on the dog’s back from time to time, not rolling over on my back, and generally being a hard nut. Nonetheless, this idea that dogs think human beings are dogs and get confused when we do not act like top dog is not uncontroversial. It is probably more important to be consistent in your behaviour with them than anything. As Debbie Gillard also indicates, dogs would likely be insulted to think that we thought that they had mistaken us for dogs! After all, if a dog can tell the difference between a leash and a ball… Whether human beings have to act like dogs to communicate with dogs or whether dogs are intelligent enough to grow up bicultural and learn the foreign language of human culture, in either case there are certain routine codes of behaviour which imply a degree of canine culture and/or enculturation.

When dogs meet they are likely to engage in the ‘play bow’, which is a rather genteel description for rear end sticking up in the air and front paws lying flat on the ground.

This indicates that they would like to have a playful scrap with the other dog. That generally comes after sniffing each other’s noses and backsides to determine relative status. Frequently, I have seen dogs sniff the puppy’s behind only to head off in disgust at having wasted time with this young snip of a thing and to urinate with a defiantly cocked leg on a patch of grass nearby. The social standing human beings signal with clothing, dogs signal with excretions. I am inclined to think that dogs are quite capable of transferring this knowledge and being bicultural.

Quite apart from these canine rituals there is also the fact that dogs can learn language, or at least, a relatively small passive vocabulary. Starting out with context-dependent understanding – ‘when that human stands there and I am standing here and she makes a noise and waves her arm like that and I plonk my backside on the floor, I get a treat!’ to somewhat context-independent ‘when that human makes a noise in any situation and waves her arm like that and I plonk my backside on the floor, I get a treat!’ to fully context-independent on voice-cue ‘when I hear a person say ‘sit’ and I plonk my rear-end on the floor, then I might get a treat, or at least they will be happy with me!’ It is actually quite complicated. In that Horizon Documentary on ‘The Secret Life of the Dog’ they show a seven-year-old Border Collie in Austria who can distinguish many objects by name and has a vocabulary of over 340 words!  The relevant section can be seen here in part 3/6 at 8mins20secs.  By way of comparison, it is suggested that the average well-trained dog may know fifteen commands and some can learn these in more than one language, though it is debatable if they are truly responding to the voice cue in both languages or just the context and hand signal, as in this example!

Dogs are not, of course, the only animal. Chimpanzees and other monkeys have long been studied in terms of possible culture and much recent research is finding evidence of behavioural variation. Kevin Laland and Bennett Galef cite research by Perry, Panger et al. (2003) in which differences in behaviour across 13 social groups of white-faced capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica were discovered, some of which could be described as ‘traditions’. These included ‘hand sniffing, sucking of body parts, and placing fingers in the mouths of other monkeys’ (p.7), though the jury is still out on whether this can be described as ‘culture’.

Animal culture. Why not? It certainly would not be anywhere near as complicated as human culture, but why dismiss what appear to be cultural features of animal behaviour as mere base instincts, determined by genes or environmental factors rather than viewing them as the calculated imposition of a thinking mind on the natural world. The contributions to Laland and Galef’s book include many chapters giving convincing evidence for different animal cultures such as Frans de Waal’s model of chimp learning which identifies patterns of behaviour motivated by a desire to ‘fit in’ with the group rather than to receive external reward and William McGrew’s arguments for socially learned (and cumulative) traditions exhibited in chimp behaviour variation in different African populations; and Hal Whitehead’s evidence for socially learned traditions, such as complex vocal traditions with dialectal variation in whales and dolphins. These arguments are counterbalanced by the contributions of Kim Hill and Kim Sterelny who both argue against animal culture by highlighting the cognitive and emotional aspects of human culture which differ from animal behaviour such as adherence to norms and rule systems and human emotional investment in maintaining these.

The debate rages on and I have nowhere near covered all the territory or in any way near enough depth, but I think it is delectable food for thought. Laland and Galef’s book offers the most up-to-date introduction to the contentious debate with its title neatly summing up the continuing controversy: ‘The Question of Animal Culture’ (2009). Maybe one day we will see it no longer as a question, but as a fact. Or maybe woof.