THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

For the last two days, Willie has been acting abnormally. He regressed back to sleeping in the bathroom, instead of his dog bed beside my bed. He took his stuffed Kong in the morning to his usual place, but then wouldn’t eat anything out of it. He came into the office this morning and lay down in the dark cavern underneath my desk. All atypical for him, at least in the last couple of years.

There’s something else that has changed these last 2 days, and that is the weather. I don’t know where you are right now, but in the midwest we’ve been pummeled by a tsunami of wind. The wind gusts have been over 60 miles an hour, and the roar of it was so loud it kept me from sleeping on Monday night.

I thought that the wind noise was probably a significant factor in Willie’s change in behavior, because he has become thunder phobic–and wind and thunder are often related– but then I learned this morning that we have been experiencing record low pressure for the last 2 days. Ah! Of course! It is true that Wilie has become thunder phobic this summer (right on schedule by the way, it most commonly develops between the ages of 2 and 4, and he turned 4 this summer). And in a sensory kind of backward chaining, it is common for dogs (and people) to become reactive to stimuli that predict something else. Thunder, for example, is often preceded by the wind coming up, which is often preceded by a drop in air pressure. Once the associations have been made, the dog reacts to a drop in air pressure as he or she does to the thunder itself. (That’s why, for example, dogs with Separation Anxiety often begin to pace and drool when you put on your coat, or take your usual weekday morning shower before going to work.)

There are suggestions in human medicine (and from the field of biometeorology, which is exactly what is sounds like) that changes in air pressure can cause changes in one’s ability to concentrate, in the intensity of symptoms from everything from arthritis to chronic fatigue syndrome and in a general degradation in behavior. Gedeist (1966), for example, found that 4th and 5th graders exhibited more behavioral problems when the air pressure was low, and fewer when it was high. Thus, there’s a potential that rather (or along with) being a predictor of something scary, a drop in air pressure intrinsically affects the behavior of our dogs. I find this question of effects of weather on behavior fascinating–what about when changes in air pressure are less extreme? Can they still cause changes in behavior? If so, shouldn’t we be tracking that in dogs who have problems outside of Thunder Phobia? I’d love to learn more about this from the good readers of this list: Any anecdotes? Research citations? Any biometeorologists out there?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: It’s all about getting the sheep on the little bit of grass that is remaining (all that’s left is on the front lawn, thank heavens for Willie), working up to hiking 10 to 13 miles a day on the Milford Trek in NZ with a back pack (I took a 3 mile jaunt yesterday in the crazy cold and wind to test out my new gear: everything worked pretty well, though darn near got blown off the road on the way out), finding time to practice with Willie for the little trial we’ve entered and getting the farm and yard ready for winter (not doing so well on that score so far….).

Here’s Willie and some of the flock. (Seems I’ve posted an awful lot of sheep/Willie/grass pictures lately, but that’s a big part of what’s going on at the farm. Besides, who wants a picture of me in full hiking gear? That’ll come soon enough once we get to NZ I expect…). Sorry if you’re bored with these kinds of pictures, I just never get tired of sheep grazing and good dogs watching over them.

Seriously. I jokingly asked this question at the end of my talk at APDT (more on that in the next post), but although it’s not exactly a burning question related to training and behavior, I still wonder about it.

Honestly… what do they think? We collect it and object when they try to eat it. One of my dogs had no interest in coprophagia until he watched me collect dog feces after the snow melted in late winter. Could it be that they think we prize it in some way? Hoard it for ourselves? Or do they think about it at all? Anyone else wondered about this, or I am the only crazy one who thinks about such things?

Ah, now we’re back to the beginning of my talk… thinking about thinking. (Try defining what you’re doing when you’re thinking. Think about it about!)

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Sooo good to be home. I came home early from the conference, too much to do here between fall and the farm and work.

It’s lovely here, although some wouldn’t say that. It’s been damp and cloudy, and we had a glorious rain most of Friday night, most welcome after weeks of lovely but very dry weather. It was starting to get terribly dry so it is great to see the plants get watered before winter sets in. It’s still beautiful though; not as showy as earlier, but I love the combination of still-green and orange-brown that still surrounds us.

I wish everyone could have heard Alexandra Horowitz’s talk that introduced the conference this morning. She gave an articulate and thought provoking speech about the “umwelt” of the dog.  “Umwelt” is a term coined by Uexkull to mean the world of an organism, as it is sensed, perceived and interpreted. The point, which was well explained by Alexandra, is that each species sees the world differently, based on their perceptual abilities (ie, bees see colors we don’t, dogs smell things we don’t) and the parts of their environment that are relative to them. Some have said that because each species, literally, lives in different worlds, we can never really understand what it is like to be another animal. (This was famously addressed in philosopher’s Nagel’s oft-cited article, “What is it like to be a Bat?”)

Alexandra (and I) agree with that comment to some extent — how could we ever really know what it is like to have a nose like a dog’s? — , but not to the extent that we shouldn’t give it a good try. After all, we can’t really know what goes on in the mind of another person, but we can made inferences. We can use our knowledge about the sensory capabilities of an animal and how it interacts with its environment to know a tremendous amount about who it really is and what’s going on inside its mind.

Given what we know about dogs, as listed by Horowitz: The world, to them, is:

Incredibly smelly — imagine that a simple flower contains a history of the insects that have visited it, the people who picked it, the petal that is dying versus the petal that is just about to reach its peak.

Full of our Knees (go down to your dog’s height and look at the world from there.. boy is it different),

Running at a Different Rate — I love this concept of hers, that scents come and go at different rates than visual signals, disappearing, moving around, full of information about the past in a sensory world that make look the same to us but is constantly changing to a dog. She also reminded us that dogs see at a faster “flicker-fusion” rate than humans, such that their brains divide visual signals into smaller units than do ours. Could it be that they then are quicker to see movements when they begin than we? We do know that they are better at seeing movement than we are…

Full of Details — that may be irrelevant to us, like the scent on the carpet, the slime trail of slugs on a blade of grass.

Evaluated based on how a dog can relate to it: Can it fit in my mouth? Do I chew it or chase it? Just as we see a pencil and a mitten as 2 completely different things, dogs may categorize them as the same; as things that can be picked up and put in the mouth, (or slept on, or rolled in, etc etc).

All of this is not new, in a way, but then, of course, it is, because we all need reminding that our reality is just that, ‘our reality,’ and it is no more a reflection of truth than is a bee’s view of flowers with ultraviolet stripes pointing to the pollen, or a dog’s map of the scent of a hidden toy, carried along by the breeze.

In summary, her talk was a great introduction to tomorrow’s topic of Canine Cognition. The afternoon was great fun, with an inspiring session done by Victoria Stilwell, a great champion of positive training methods, as is Kyra Sundance, trick trainer extraordinaire. Given that I’m introducing the day tomorrow, I’d better close here and get back to working on my talk. [pardon any mis-spellings, etc.... I usually proof but need to finish up my talk!]

I am, I will admit, a tad tuckered. Many of us did a book signing and I signed books for one and three quarter hours. The process is incredibly reinforcing, I am so incredibly grateful to meet so many wonderful, gracious people, but I lost my voice by the end. But I did get an extra treat….after having our pictures taken who knows how many times, Victoria and I turned the tables and got a picture of us together. Great fun.

Oh my, I overslept this morning, a rare event for me, and my plans of writing a substantial blog this morning are buried under the mess of blankets and covers that I threw aside when I finally woke up and looked at the clock. Holy moly. But I’ll write from the road and keep you up on the first 2 days of APDT. (I am leaving Friday morning, so I won’t be able to report on the rest.) I am looking forward to so much of the first two days: I can’t wait to meet Vickie Stillwell and Kyra Sundance, and will attempt to forgive them for both being young, thin and drop-dead gorgeous. The symposium on canine cognition will be a highlight for me, and as soon as my part is over (my laptop is randomly choosing not to play my videos–if you see me licking my paws and stress yawning before my talk that’s why) I will love being there.

Meanwhile, here’s what I’ll  miss at home. The grass is gone in the big hill pasture, and the only really good grass in on the front lawn. Just to the right of the photo is a county road, and I only can let the sheep graze on the lawn because I can count, 100 %, on Willie to keep them in the yard and off the road. Of course I’m out there too, and my favorite part of every day in fall is spending about 20 minutes beside the sheep, listening to them rip grass and move around the yard. There is something so primal and deeply relaxing about being beside a grazing animal. My sister is a brilliant writer, and when she came out to visit we sat with the sheep and she said “Oh my, now I get it. ‘So sheep may safely graze.’” Be safe Willie and woolies, I’ll miss you.

Below is a flyer from a woman who tragically lost her heart dog to a wild mushroom, the Death Cap. The Death Cap mushroom (Amanita phalloides) is not only the most common cause of mushroom poisoning in people in the US, it is spreading rapidly throughout the country, especially in some areas of California and New York. Here’s a story about them from NPR. The mushroom is believed to be native to Europe, not to the US, but like many imports, is expanding rapidly with little competition. It is most common around the San Francisco area, and is found most often under live oak trees (but don’t assume that’s the only place it will grow).

Earlier this summer I had a mushroom scare myself. We had an absurdly wet summer, and mushrooms grew up in places where no mushroom had ever been before. A flower bed right out the front door began sprouting mushrooms that attracted the puppy Hope as if they were made of bacon. I looked down one moment to find Hope snarfing up a flesh-colored knobby thing, that on investigation was clearly a mushroom, the fruiting body of an underground fungus. Too late to get it out of his mouth, it was already long swallowed,  I canvased the yard until I found more, which I picked and did my best to ID. I saw no signs of the species being one of the dangerous ones, but I’m no mycologist, so I was still worried. I watched Hope like a hawk for several hours, and was relieved to see no symptoms of any problems. Still, I picked every  mushroom I could find every morning; couldn’t help it.

I have been very lucky about things that my dogs have ingested. Once Lassie got into a huge chunk of suet, and I had to give her ridiculous quantities of hydrogen peroxide to get her to vomit it up. (She could have had a serious attack of pancreatitis if she hadn’t gotten rid of that much fat; she must have eaten over a pound of it. Urgh.) I attempted to kill off poor Pippy Tay one horrible morning when by  mistake I gave her my stack of 4 Ibuprofens rather than her own medicine. Off to the emergency vet where the poor thing had charcoal shoved down her throat. She was fine, although I’m sure she’s had better days. Me too.

Here are some other things, which most of you know already, not to feed your dog: avocados, onions, grapes, chocolate (poor things, no wonder they eat poop), coffee, gum with xylitol, nuts, raw eggs, and ginger-molasses cookies that have my name on them (okay, maybe that’s not a problem). Any other warnings from astute, experienced readers to help all of us keep our dogs safe?

Here’s the flyer. Poor Donato, and his heart broken owner. Ouch.

I’m working on my Intro for APDT’s symposium on Canine Cognition, and one of the hot topics right now is why dogs seem to be better able to interpret a pointing gesture than are wolves or chimps. Various research projects (see below) have shown that dogs go directly toward food hidden under one of two objects (both scented with food) if a person points toward it, while wolves and chimps do not. Some have speculated that at least 10,000 years of co-evolution (probably more) have resulted in a genetically-mediated ability of dogs to inherently understand human communicative gestures.

I’ve always wondered about the results of these studies, because in my experience, you have to teach dogs to look in the direction you are pointing. When they are young, it seems to me that they pay no attention to the direction you are indicating, and simply go to your hand and sniff it. Granted, it is pretty easy to teach them to follow a point, but you DO have to teach them to do it. That’s not the conclusion of some of the researchers, and the results of these studies have been cited a gazillion times as evidence that our relationship with dogs has created a natural selection process that has made dogs able to communicate with humans more effectively than other species.

In addition, researchers (Brian Hare, Michael Tomasello and others) have compared the responses of adult dogs and “puppies” with that of chimpanzees and wolves. The conclusions have been that even young puppies are able to follow the direction of a pointing arm, while chimps or wolves of any age are not (thus, there must be a genetic component to the behavior).

I’ve seen some of the videos of the research, and I have to tell you I think the issue is a bit more complicated. First off, the young wolves, even though they have been reared by humans, appeared to be squiggly and fidgety and not able to focus on anything. Just trying to hold them in position seemed to be almost impossible. I’ve worked with a few high percentage wolf-dogs, and I can tell you that the young ones are like ADHD dogs and can barely stay still for a second. The ones in the video I watched looked frightened and completely unable to focus. A good friend and colleague tells me that adult wolves appear to be much more focused on humans and their gestures than the young ones, so perhaps there is a developmental component to the behavior.

Secondly, you’ll see that the video below shows chimpanzees, adult dogs and “puppies” being tested.The research does seem clear that as smart as they are, chimps really don’t ‘get’ what a pointed arm and finger mean. But you’ll note in the video below that the adult dogs did very well, while the comment about the pups is “Even six-month old puppies catch on pretty quickly…”. That suggests to me that there was learning involved, and that the behavior is not 100% innate, which fits with my experience with dogs. I’ll look up the actual data on “puppies” (shouldn’t it be ‘juveniles?’) before I leave for Atlanta. Brian Hare will be there too, and I very much look forward to meeting and talking with him.

Perhaps a good explanation at this point on the issue is that there appears to be an innate tendency in dogs to be predisposed to learn to follow a pointing gesture. This is basically a nature AND nurture argument: that dogs are indeed different than other species because of their co-evolution with us, but that the issue is more complex than a simple innate ability to understand what a point means. Their responsiveness might also relate to an ability to view to humans as cooperative beings who are ‘on their side’ . . . Note that chimps tend to be extremely competitive over food, and perhaps that might be a factor in their inability to understand that a person is trying to tell them where the food is. Brian Hare is speaking Friday about differences in emotional reactivity in different species, sounds fascinating. He’s one of the few researchers who has been doing work on domestic dogs for years, and it’s great that he’ll be at the conference.

I could go on, but I’ll just raise this issue now, and take it back up after hearing the talks of Clive Wynne and Monique Udell, both of whom have been doing their own research on this topic of pointing gestures and how they are interpreted. If I understand it correctly, they too have been somewhat skeptical of some of the conclusions drawn by other researchers.

Here’s a video from YouTube of some of the work . . .[Note that the researcher in this clip is actually presenting 3 signals (at least): Head Turn, Eye Gaze and Arm/Finger point. That is by design; the research worked on sorting out dog's responses to all 3, and found that dogs will target the container with food even if the experimenter keeps her head still and just moves her eyes toward it. Added 10/13]

Thanks for the great comments on what’s needed in a booklet for people bringing home adult dogs from shelters or rescues.  Keep ‘em coming, either on this post or the previous one. A lot of you will be gratified to know that the points at the top of my own list are similar to many of yours:  1) patience patience patience, 2) do not expect the dog you bring home to be the dog you end up with in 3 days, 3 weeks or 3 months and 3) don’t try to make up for past neglect or abuse (or the perception of it, which common but often not accurate) by coddling a dog such that she becomes emotionally overloaded by you and finally, for now,  4) no, love is not enough… love doesn’t mean much if you are totally confused about what is expected of you. You simply have to teach your dog what you want, rather than waiting for him or her to do wrong.

I could go on, but I’m about to officially play hookey. It’s only a little before 4 pm on a Friday, and I am way behind in lots of work, but it’s gorgeous outside and soon it’ll be dark and pouring rain or drifting snow and life is short. Me and Willie boy are going outside! But I thought you’d enjoy a few pics I took recently of fall colors. Wow, I love fall… on days like today it looks like someone photo-shopped the out of doors and boosted up the saturation way past normal. I’ll miss color soooo much by the end of winter, so out I go to soak it up. (Too bad Willie can’t enjoy colors like I do, at least I don’t think he does. But boy does he love the cool, fresh, dry air. He is absolutely full of himself right now. Time to go put that energy to work!)

Karen London and I are planning on writing a booklet for people who adopt dogs from shelters or rescue groups. We’re both aware that often it can be intimidating to sit in your living room with a new family member, whose background you may not even know. Over the many years that we’ve worked with people who have adopted dogs, and with our own dogs that we have taken in from difficult circumstances (5 between us), we know that these dogs can present challenges, and generate questions that are not often answered by standard training books.

We have our own ideas about what to include in the booklet, we’ve already written an outline, but we’d love to hear from you too. If you have a dog that you obtained from a shelter or rescue group, or adopted an adult dog who might have had a difficult past, what did you want to know when you brought the dog home? What do you think are the most important things for adopters to know? Keep in mind that we are envisioning a relatively concise booklet, not a full-length book. Pat Miller has written a good full-length book on the topic, Do Over Dogs, and it’s a great resource. We’d like to create an affordable booklet for rescues and shelters to hand out to adopters that hits the highlights and emphasizes what is most important. We both know already that the challenge is going to be keeping it short, but we’d still love to hear what you think should be included. The readers of this blog have a vast amount of knowledge, and what a great thing it would be to share it . . .

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Willie and I just got back from a long walk, working our way up to the Milford Trek in New Zealand. I still can’t imagine walking 13 miles with a full pack yet, but I’m getting a tad closer anyway. We walked for about an hour, as fast as I could, with a pack about half full. That was fine, but then when I came home we trucked up the steep hill behind the house and I was, uh, tuckered. Willie worked the sheep, which involved some good, fast runs, brought the sheep down to the grass in the front yard and worked with me to keep them there, safely out of the road, and then came inside, picked up his current favorite toy and begged to play fetch. Maybe he should go to NZ and do the hiking?

Here’s one of my favorite and easiest fall recipes; I got it from some dear friends who love good food as much as I do: Cut Roma tomatoes in half, drizzle with Olive Oil and sprinkle with Basil, put in oven on 300 til soft and condensed. They should shrink to at least half their original size. It can take up to 2 hours. Use right away or freeze, they last all winter in the freezer.  I use them in pasta, (Linguini with homemade Pesto–made that too last weekend–with braised greens & melted tomatoes, yummmmm) or as a side dish, etc etc. They are like concentrated tomato-ness; I think of them as Tomato Haiku. (The green on the side is basil I added after cooking just to make the photo pretty.)

And here’s one of my favorite prairie grasses, Little Bluestem, shining in the sun in the park where Willie and I walked.