9 special abilities that show just how smart dogs really are

Dogs have long been man's best friend, living as our domesticated companions for as long as 32,000 years. Today, they are one of the most popular pets in the US, found in over 54 million American homes, or about 44% of all households.

And every one of us thinks that our dog is uniquely special and smart. But how much do we actually know about our furry buddies and what is going on inside their heads?

To find out more about our four-legged friends, we spoke to Dr. Brian Hare, professor of cognitive neuroscience at Duke University, author of the book "The Genius of Dogs," and host of the new DogSmarts podcast.

"What really has happened in the last 10 years is that we've learned more about how dogs think than in the previous 100 years," Hare told Business Insider. "There have been a lot of big discoveries … Dogs are very distinctly different from us genetically, but psychologically, they are more like us than some of our more closely related, more genetically related, primate relatives."

Here are a few of the recent discoveries that Hare and other scientists have made about dogs and what goes on inside their brain: