An article from Discovery News reports that your dog may just be able to answer that question with yes.

It seems that dogs can understand the gestures you use for pointing just as well as a two-year-old can—and that they need almost no learning time to fully comprehend them. They can also interpret human head-turning and gazing.

Apparently, since pet owners use the same baby talk with their bets as they do with their kids, both children and animals are receiving similar stimulation to be able to interpret these signals.

I sure hope that a lot of pet owners out there don’t speak to their kids the same way they scream at their pets; both animal and child would surely wet themselves.

The studies, claim that this may prove that dogs understand humans better than chimpanzees, our closest relatives, do, as chimps apparently cannot pass pointing tests. But wouldn’t that make sense? After all, we’ve domesticated dogs for thousands of years—why would chimps “get” us when they haven’t been exposed to us as long?

Another piece of evidence used to support this theory that I’m not buying is that since dogs share food—and chimps don’t—they act more like humans, too. Again, I’m thinking this is just from being around humans for so long. If you were a chimp fending for yourself in the wild, would you share food? And while wild dogs in packs have been known to share food, that doesn’t mean it’s a daily practice.

Maybe I’m just a little indignant about being considered closer to a dog than a chimp. After all, it’s chimps, not dogs, who are thought to have split from our evolutionary chain, and I’ve never seen a dog make tools. Chimps also help members of their own family (though not other groups), can lie and deceive like the rest of humanity, are able to plan for the future, and can use their own nonverbal communication.  I really think that chimpanzees are quite a bit more like humans than dogs are.

You know, I’ll never forget the time I was reading a book about baby animals to my daughter—who was actually two at the time. When I pointed to the puppy, she said “Dog;” when we saw a kitten, she said, “Kitty.” And when we got to the page with a chimpanzee, she didn’t say “Monkey,” as I thought she might, but instead, “Baby.”

Whether chimps or dogs are more like humans these days, there’s no doubt that dogs are smart animals, making them excellent human friends at the very least.