system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How do dogs recognize other dogs of different breeds as dogs?

Dogs seem to have the capacity to recognize other dogs that look absolutely nothing like them as other dogs. They will respond by getting excited and barking in a way that they do not respond to other animals including human strangers or other small mammals. It is my understanding that all dog breeds are man-made as a result of breeding over the course of thousands of years. How then have dogs maintained the capacity to recognize other dogs of different breeds as still being dogs?
gpt
I wouldn't take it for granted that the dogs actually recognize that the other animal is a dog. A Great Dane doesn't understand that it is a dog and the Chihuahua next door is also a dog in the same way that we do. But it *can* see that the Chihuahua 'speaks the same language'. Body language is how dogs do a lot of their communication. Unlike humans, the Chihuahua is going to use its ears and tail to signal friendliness or aggression, for example. This is one of the many reasons it's important to socialize puppies with other dogs; if a puppy grows up never interacting with another dog, then it's often bewildered and frightened when it finally does encounter one.

Secondly, don't discount the power of smell. All dogs, no matter the breed, interpret their world through smell so much more than humans do. While we can't know for certain exactly what a dog's nose tells it, many breeds of dogs have been trained to track a specific species of animal, like foxes or raccoons. There is most likely a species-specific 'dog' smell that dogs can recognize as being similar to theirs in a way that the scents of humans or cats are not.