The Baby and the Dog

I have a two-year-old Jack Russell named Lucy and a five-month-old baby named Emmett. Today they really bonded. I've never heard Emmett laugh as hard as he did today, watching Lucy run around the living room and jump on and off the couch. Thank goodness for the simple things in life that make us smile and laugh...oh, the sound of a baby laughing!

This made me wonder, though, why did a dog make Emmett laugh harder than I or my husband could make him laugh? She didn't even try. She doesn't even know that she was being funny (to a baby). When Lucy jumps around like that, I get annoyed. I definitely don't find it hysterical. Is a dog running around a very simple form of humour? One that adults, in their advanced stage of cognitive development, can't appreciate anymore?

What is it in our brains that make us find things funny? What tells us to make the laughing sounds? Not to mention the fact that I'm pretty sure adults can (usually) control our laughter, whereas babies sure can't. They just let themselves laugh...at pretty silly things.... Babies also seem to laugh at things for some time before they can generate their own humour.

Although...as soon as a baby starts shrieking for joy, I can't help but laugh myself.

Hmmm....