《考研英语阅读理解基础进阶88章》【第二阶段】【第2周】.PDFVIP

新东方《考研英语阅读理解基础进阶 88 篇》 《考研英语阅读理解基础进阶88 篇》【第二阶段】【第 2 周】 John Bradshaw, a biologist at the University of Bristol, has some idea about how dogs got to be dogs, which is the first stage towards gaining a better understanding of what dogs and people mean to each other. Dogs share 99.6% of the same DNA as wolves, but it does not mean that their brains work like those of wolves. Indeed, the kindliness of most dogs towards humans and other dogs is in sharp contrast to the mix of fear and aggression with which wolves react to animals from other packs. “Every dog alive today is a product of domestication,” Mr. Bradshaw writes. “What was once another one of the wild social canids, the grey wolf, has been altered radically, to the point that it has become its own unique animal.” Dogs are not like wolves, nor are they much like people despite their extraordinary ability to enter our lives and our hearts. This is not to deny that some dogs are very clever or that they are capable of feeling emotion deeply. But their intelligence is different from ours. The idea that some dogs can understand as many words as a two-year-old child is simply wrong and an inappropriate way of trying to measure canine intellect. Rather, their emotional range is more limited than ours, partly because, with little sense of time, they are trapped almost entirely in the present. Dogs can experience joy, anxiety and anger. But emotions that demand a capacity for self-reflection, such as guilt or jealousy, are almost certainly beyond them, contrary to the convictions of many dog owners. Mr. Bradshaw believes that it is difficult for people to empathise with the way in which dogs experience and respond to the world through their extraordinary sense of smell. A newly painted room might be torture for a dog; on the other hand, their olfactory ability and their trainability allow dogs to perform almost u