THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

About to meet up with some dear friends, and leave for a visit to a Gannet colony, nature center, vineyard and sheep farm, but here’s a photo from the Shangri La where Jim and I are staying for a few nights. Ummmmmmm, yes, it really is this gorgeous.

Can’t wait for the Gannets and the sheep farm, hoping to meet some “Heading Dogs” (a NZ Border collie derivative–do you Kiwis agree with that description?) and Huntaways, an exclusively NZ breed that moves sheep 100% differently than BC’s, lots of movement and barking.)

Last comments about the seminar: Thanks Karen for bringing me over and being such a great host. And thanks to the participants–what a great group. There were some truly great observers in the audience, we had a truly interesting and fruitful time with the demo dogs, and I loved working together with the audience on treatment plans. All the dogs were wonderful –thanks to their owners for letting us learn from them, and to the dogs, Lani and Harlem and Tepo and Nicki, and to  Forest, our stable, stalwart stimulus dog. And to Tepo (sounds in Kiwi like Tapoor!) … you’ve especially got my heart mister, good luck.

Just found out from home that two of my ewes, the two that didn’t get marked as bred by Redford, had lambs. Surprise. Holy moly, they must have been bred at the end of June. My poor house sitter has done brilliantly, and boy do I owe some of my good friends a favor for coming over and helping with mid-winter lambs. Ah my, never a dull moment on a farm.

But back to NZ — Here’s the view from a few feet from our B & B – Wow is right! Yes, you really do want to try to get here on vacation some time . . .

Couldn’t resist… here is a flock (should I say mob?) of some of my new Kiwi friends. What a great day we had together! (And thanks Karen for that yummy NZ lamb dinner and for all the good company. Looking forward to tomorrow….

Sheep sheep sheep! Hardly surprising, since there are something like 70 million of them in New Zealand, but still fun to see them, even in a city park, like this one in the middle of the city of Auckland, Cornwall Park. Auckland, by the way, is a gorgeous city, surrounded by water with lots of dormant volcanoes creating hills and valleys everywhere.

Karen, my host at Learning About Dogs, took Jim and I on a perfect 3 hour walk this morning with two of her good friends (the human kind) and 6 happy dogs.  We walked in a beautiful forest and along a black sand beach (the sand is “recycled” lava).

Here’s Rupert, Karen’s English Pointer, that she rescued a few years ago. All six dogs, a pointer, 2 English Setters, 1 Gordon and 2 Giant Schnauzers, ran themselves silly, and loved every minute of it.  And because of the dogs, 5 people who had never met were instantly in great conversations — so lovely how dogs bring people together all around the world, isn’t it?

I wrote this before I left for New Zealand, and I hope I can get on line to read the comments about this video. Many of you have undoubtedly seen the video of the now famous Snowball dancing to music on Youtube. Here’s another one, which had me practically wetting my pants I laughed so hard.  But in all due respect to Will Smith and his daughter, who wrote the song, this is not a piece of music that should live on forever. Watch at least to the middle though, the first part is funny, but about halfway in is when I started to lose it.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Oh my, it’s so far away–we’re on a plane right now (or will be when this posts), flying LA-Auckland, 13 hours.  Finally broke down and bought a Kindle–13 hours is a 2 book trip at least, and we’ll be gone for 3 weeks. Here’s a photo I took right before I left, for me to look at when I can get on line. It’s not the greatest piece of photography in the world, but well, you know . . .

Here’s a video I’m going to show in New Zealand of Willie, Hope and friend Mico, from this summer. I’m not going to say much about it, because I am curious what words you would use to describe what you are seeing. Watch it a couple of times, and then if you are so inspired, describe the behavior of the two younger dogs. (Willie is the adult BC, Hope is the medium sized young BC, and the other black and white guy, the smallest dog, is what looks like a BC/Bully breed cross, but his genetics are unknown.) I’m especially curious how you describe a few of the things that Hope does….. Can’t wait to hear your comments!

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Wheeeee… just a few more days before we go! Lots more to do, but we’ll make it. Can’t wait til the “drive away from the farm with Willie in the window” part is over. Argh, three weeks! Soooooo long to leave him.

While I’m gone I’ll try to post a blog once a week or so. I’ve pre-posted three of them, to come out once a week, and hope to add another each week from down under. I’ll have my cameras with me, so hope to send you photos of NZ. Our first full day there begins with a long walk on a black sand beach with our gracious host and a passle o’ dogs. Oh boy! Then the seminars Saturday and Sunday, which I’m truly looking forward to now that I have them all done and ready to go, and then it’s play play play. Oh my. Stayed tuned, hope to send you some great photos!

So how would you get water in your mouth if you didn’t have hands and a glass? Carefully watching how dogs and cat lap up liquid may seem trivial, but it’s actually a great exercise in being a good observer. As you can see in the video below, cats get water in their mouths not by curling their tongue forward, but by doing the opposite. They curl their tongues backward, and bring water up in that way, rather than making a “cup” with the top of their tongue.

When I was taping Petline for Animal Planet, the producer went crazy when I mentioned that fact. I had him slow-mo one of the videos sent in of a cat lapping up water, and showed how the tongue went the opposite direction of what we’d predict. He thought that was the most fascinating observation imaginable, and kept asking me for more great stuff like that we could use for the show. But nothing ever captured his interest as much–not micro-expressions of nervous dogs, or horses subtly communicating social status, or humming alpacas. No matter what I pointed out in a video, it was never as exciting to him as the fact that cats lap up water “backward.” Go figure.

So here’s my question of the day. Go watch your dog, and decide how he or she laps up liquid. The article attached tells us how dogs lap up water, but I’m not taking their word for it. Watch your dog, and tell me what you think. (Slo mo movie would be ideal, hey?) It seems to me that although dogs may have a species specific way of moving their tongues, the actual process is highly variable, from the dainty drinkers to the slurping water hoses.  Maybe we should have a contest for the funniest dog-drinking-video?

Cat Lapping Video

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: All but two of the sheep are bred now, and it’s been 17 days. That’s the length of the ovulation cycle in sheep, so either they didn’t get marked with red paint somehow or they aren’t cycling. (Or were they bred before we got it on? (Uh, I meant the paint!) Nope… we put ‘painted’ Redford before we let him in with the ewes.) Truffles and Snickers, the two that are unmarked, aren’t all that old, but both of them had problems nursing their lambs and would be culled by most farmers. However, I made a covenant with the ewes that once they are established members of the flock they can stay until their dotage as long as they are not suffering, so I may have 2 ewes without lambs every spring. That’s a big percentage of an eight head herd. Maybe they’ll be bred tomorrow cuz they didn’t read the chapter about their ovulation cycle? Cross your paws. Hooves? Whatever you’ve got…

Winter is definitely on its way now. We’re getting hard frosts at night, and 40 degree days. It’s hard to pack for New Zealand spring and early summer, especially when we’ll be backpacking for 5 days. I keep thinking about warm clothes for cold weather, and forgetting it’ll be 70 degrees part of the time. As a friend who is also going, and who also lives in a cold clime wrote: Must. Pack. T-shirts. But then, it could be 35 and sleeting . . .

Speaking of sleet, we had some of that lately. Here’s some artwork, a collaboration of leaves and Jack Frost.

A reader asked if I’d go through what I do to prepare for a trip when I can’t take my dogs along. I thought it was a good question for all of us, and a lead in to what could be a fruitful discussion. After all, leaving one’s dog(s) is hard, and the only way I can do it myself without being a wreck is to have a system in which I feel like I’ve covered as many bases as I can. Here are some of my tips, I’d love to hear yours:

1. Put a big-lettered note by the phone that says YOU ARE HERE and give the address and phone number of your home. House sitters rarely can spit out your address in a crisis, and that’s when they need it the most.

2. Also by the phone, leave EMERGENCY phone numbers for your usual vet (who you’ve called to approve any charges in advance) and if need be, an Emergency Vet Clinic that you trust. My experience with Emergency clinics has been mixed, so do due diligence before you leave a number. I also leave the ASPCA’s Animal Poison Hotline Number, which is 888 426-4435.

3. Leave TWO copies of a list of all contact numbers: your cell, where you’re staying and a full  itinerary, close neighbors to call in an emergency, plumbers, electricians, heating cooling service. I tell the sitter to put one copy in her car–if she gets stranded away from the house, (snow? accident?) she needs the phone number of neighbors to call to help with the animals.

4. Leave a copy of your will, being sure it specifies what is to happen to your animals. I have a friend who has agreed to take Willie, and a friend who has promised to find a home for Sushi. (Come to think of it, I haven’t made arrangements for the sheep. Better take care of that before I go!) If you don’t have a formal will (you should, honest), download a simple one from the internet and get it signed by 2 witnesses. Keep it simple, and say where your pets should go. I designate a considerable sum of money for that animal’s care. I freaked out one house sitter by leaving an envelope labeled “In the Even of My Death” under the sitting instructions, so now I’ll leave it in an easily accessible but less intimidating place. None of us want to think about this happening, but I feel much better knowing that I wouldn’t take my last breath heartsick over not knowing what would happen to Willie and Sushi.

5. If the sitter isn’t there when you leave, have her call and leave a message at your destination right away when she arrives. (I’m going to use a generic ‘she’ just to save space. Apologies to all male house sitters.) I never can relax until I know that the sitter is at the house, and always breath a huge sigh of relief when we connect. Ideally, the sitter is there when I leave the house, but that just can’t always happen. The sitter for this trip is in vet school, and will be in classes when we leave for the airport.  She’ll call my cell phone the instant she gets to the house, and I’ll finally feel like I’m “on the trip” once we talk. I don’t make this suggestion lightly: I have friends who had a sitter who never showed up, and yes, the dogs all died, and yes, it was as horrible as our worst nightmare could possibly be. I’m amazed at the number of people I’ve talked to who don’t even call the house to check in with the sitter, or do so 4 or 5 days after they left. I also strongly advise calling often if you have a new sitter. I once had a sitter who never answered the phone at the farm, but always was on her cell phone “just leaving” or “just arriving” including one night at  one in the morning. When I got back, there was no garbage… nothing, not a piece of paper, after a 10 day trip, to suggest that she had stayed the night. Hummm. Same thing happened the next time, and then, well, there wasn’t a next time.

Also, arrange to call your sitter when  you are back at the house if she will have already left. What if your plane is delayed? What if you were in a car accident on the way home from the airport? All my sitters are “on call” if for some reason they don’t hear from me. They have a list of my flights, both in and out, and know when I should be returning. If they don’t hear from me by X hour, they’ll drive back to the farm or call a neighbor.

6. Less is not more. I leave incredibly detailed notes, including not just what everyone eats and when and where, but also a long “diary” of a “day in the life.” I describe our daily routine, including that Willie and I spoon every night before we go upstairs and that’s one of his (and my) favorite times. I write out a description of each animal, their behavioral quirks, health issues, things to watch for, things I’m working on, what they “know,” what they like and don’t like, what they are allowed to do and not allowed to do. It might seem a bit compulsive and frankly it takes me forever, but I’ve never heard a sitter complain about too much information. On the other hand, I’ve heard LOTS of complaints about too little.

7. If necessary, desensitize your animals to suitcases. If your pets get anxious when they see you preparing to leave, try leaving suitcases out when you’re not going anywhere, going through your ‘leaving’ routine without actually going anywhere. Pack up, and then go watch TV. You can also sneak the suitcase into the car when you actually go away, but if you travel a lot, your dog or cat will react long before you are ready to actually are ready to leave. If  your dog or cat really does have Separation Anxiety, get a copy of I’ll Be Home Soon and go through the steps, adapting it for packing and for travel.

8. And then, once you leave the house . . . give it up. I don’t enjoy writing the notes, making the preparations, because I worry I’ll forget something and end up causing trouble. And I hate driving away. Like a dog with separation anxiety, I practically start to shake, pace, and sweat through my paws, although I do my best to remain cheerful as I’m leaving. I am happy to report I have never been known to drool, but my eyes can get pretty wet as the car pulls away from the house and the farm disappears behind a forest of oak and hickory trees. And then, finally, once I’m on the plane it’s better. Once I’ve talked to the sitter it’s much better. By the next day I’m okay, I am where I am, secure in the knowledge that I’ve done everything I can to make life good for my animals, and with gratitude for the wonderful person with whom I’ve trusted my life, my loves, my precious animals who will be there, eyes catching the light, bodies wagging from the shoulders back, tongues lapping all over me, to welcome me home.

I’d love to hear what you do before you leave home without your pets… any advice from your own experience?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Trip preparations are in full swing. Every time I cross something off the list, I add two more things. Before I go I have to finish my next Bark column, finish a chapter for a new book about training best practices for American Humane Association, finish a detailed outline of the booklet that Karen London and I are working on for adopting adult dogs, finish last tweaks of my NZ seminars, arrange for demo dogs, and oh yes, run a business. And, of course, the farm is hopping, with the lambs going to market each week and buyers being notified, preparations for winter continuing and squeezing in time to work sheep and prepare to walk 10-13 miles a day with a back pack.  Wheeeee!

Here’s a sunrise from last week, and what we call the “Slasher Movie Sheep” with Rosebud painted red from having been bred by Redford. You can see Redford’s red chest underneath fat, piggy Brittany, who started the habit of standing on the feeder to get her hay (thus negating one of its purposes, to keep hay off the wool of other sheep) and now Rosebud is doing it too. Sigh.

Thanks for the discussion about the use of Body Blocks for teaching Stay, and to re-iterate a comment I made, they work equally well with dogs of all breeds and sizes (but you have to be a bit quicker with some breeds and with small dogs).  If your dog is getting around you to the left or right, then you might be too close. It’s herding dogs that taught me that you have more control at a bit of a distance than if you are right up close. I got away with being quite close in the video in the last post, because the dogs were relatively easy to block, but if you are having trouble, try backing up a bit. It’s also a great way to learn to read dogs (what body part moves first when a dog starts to get up?) and to perfect your timing.

I mentioned in last week’s post that the video showed me working with dogs who had already been taught the first stages of Stay. Someone asked if I’d go over those, so here is me working with a Husky puppy, Anastasia, who has been taught to sit, but not to stay. The steps are simple:

- Be the best game in town with great treats and a lack of distractions that might overwhelm the dog.

- Ask for a sit, give clear visual and verbal signals to the dog to stay (note the drop in my voice) and then release before the dog has a chance to get up. Sometimes I’ll give a dog a treat as it is staying in place the first time I ask, even it is only for half a second, but often that distracts puppies, so with this pup, this first time, I released right away.

- The next times I asked Anatasia to stay I gave her a treat as she was sitting, and made the release boring. The key to a good stay, in my opinion, is to make staying fun, and getting up boring.

See either Family Friendly Dog  Training or  The Puppy Primer for a lot more on this topic, including the importance of working through what I call the 3 D’s: Duration, Distraction & Distance (from you.) Only work on one at a time, and do all you can to set up wins for your dog.

Here’s the video:

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: The trial was great fun. Good dogs, good people, wonderful hosts and a nippy wind that kept us all on our toes. As predicted, Willie and I suffered a bit from trial-itis, and our runs were much sloppier than when we practiced on the same course all by ourselves a few days before. I’d say we did well, but not great. We did get the highest scores of the runs in the Ranch class, which included a 150 yard outrun, a drive and short cross drive and a pen.  (I ran non-compete though, because in a moment of foolish optimism, I ran in Open 15 + years ago with Luke).

The Good: Willie got 30/30 on his outrun and lift for both runs, with a break-your-heart perfect outrun, way back around the sheep, stopping perfectly on balance, and lifting them slowly and carefully toward me. Several times during the runs I was able to whistle quietly and get instant responses. He was brilliant at the pen, doing everything I asked, instantly. We almost penned the first group (thought we had, and so did the crowd, until a little red lamb fooled us all and lept out, practically on top of me), and didn’t have a chance with the second, but Willie never put a paw wrong. (Out of 30 runs, there was only one pen for the entire day!)

The Bad: The Fetch on the first run, when the sheep are to be brought to you through two free standing gates, was not so gorgeous. On the first run Willie didn’t listen well, and the sheep drifted far to our right. This is a common problem with novice dogs: they are absolutely fixated on bringing the sheep to you, and check out mentally until they’ve had more training and experience. He did much much better on the second run, and brought the sheep directly to me, listening when I flanked him, and we made the fetch panels. We messed up too on the cross drive of the second run: Willie panicked and ran around to twelve o’clock rather than stopping at nine, clearly afraid he’d lose the sheep (who wanted to bolt toward the barn, which was a twelve o’clock). But I knew he did it because he was over his comfort zone, and I know what we need to work on next. For a first trial, he really didn’t mess up much at all. Okay, I’m a tad proud of him. He tried his hardest, and I give him lots of credit.

The Ugly: Happy to report I can’t think of anything in this category, except perhaps the one second in which Willie wasn’t listening and I yelled “Lie Down” three times in a row, until I realized that I could have set off fire bombs and Willie would have kept bringing me the sheep. I’m happy to say that I came to my senses early on, and most of our runs were relatively quiet and controlled. Not perfect mind you, but no chasing of sheep, no rodeos, and many moments of the sheep walking quietly around the course, with Willie listening and pacing well. [I'm laughing as I read this: working a dog on flighty sheep at a trial does not feel, internally, "quite and controlled." It feels like playing chess with fighter planes. Everything goes so fast you can barely think. The sheep are like deer and every move you and your dog makes is exaggerated ten times from normal. Me and my friends came off the course with our hearts going a mile a minute.]

Here’s Willie at his best, bringing the sheep to me on the fetch. Notice how quiet and slow the sheep are — just the pace you want to get the kind of control you need at a trial. Good boy Willie boy.

Working Willie on sheep in preparation for tomorrow’s trial reminded me of the first time I made a connection between the way Border Collies herd sheep and dog training in general. As you all know,  BCs control sheep by what I call “space management.” They don’t bark, rarely bite, but “take the space” away from sheep in the direction they don’t want sheep to go, leaving only one route open for the sheep to move. It’s a bit like the way sculptors define their art: the work is as much about the space around the sculpture as it is the object itself.

When you learn to work dogs on sheep, you  learn a lot about managing the behavior of another animal without any physical connection. Dogs have no leashes on sheep, and dog handlers have no way of physically effecting their dog’s behavior (unless they don’t have a clue how to train a herding dog and, ugh, use an electric collar). You learn early on that one way to influence your dog is to control the space around it. If she dashes toward the sheep, you need to be ready to block her access to them with your body. If you want her to run wide and free, you learn to back away from both the dog and sheep (oh so hard at first) and create an opening for your dog to move within freely.

It’s that early work that started me on what I called Body Blocks as a way of teaching dogs to Stay. When I started in dog training in the 80′s, we were all told to immediately run back to your dog if he broke his stay, grab his collar, jerk it as a correction for his disobedience, and then drag him back into place, usually grumbling your displeasure as you did.  After working with dogs on sheep, I simply started asking for a stay and then using what I call a Body Block to “manage the space” and teach a dog that wonderful things happen if they stay still. As the years went on, I got better and better at combining understanding canine ethology (in this case, their innate understanding of how to respond to you “taking the space”) and the use of positive reinforcement. (Early on I used to give a treat when I released the dog. Now that seems so foolish! What were we thinking!)

Here’s a video, also on my website along with some other videos, of me using treats and Body Blocks with the lovely dogs of a dear friend, Beth. I should mention that what you see here — me tossing treats behind me after putting the dogs on stay — is an intermediate step, not a beginning one! Both dogs have learned the basics of stay, but now are learning to hold their stay even when distracted. Notice how close I am and how short the stays are: always set your dog up to win when you are working on something new. Make it fun, and they’ll want to do it again.

Speaking of “fun” and setting up to win: Willie and I are in our first herding dog trial tomorrow. It’s a very small one, which is perfect for his first trial. Yesterday we worked sheep on a trial course, and [warning: proud owner with expanding heart speaking now] Willie was so good I could’ve carried the car home. No matter what happens tomorrow, I know that he and I have both improved immensely on what we’ve been working on this summer, and that’s all I really need to know. He is working on pace (slow but continuous), I am working on timing and blowing my whistle consistently.

I don’t expect we’ll do as well tomorrow as we did yesterday. I’m a terrible competitor, getting idiotically nervous for no reason whatsoever. Why I can give a speech to 1,200 people with my image projected three times my size on either side of me and only be mildly anxious, but be so nervous in a competition that I want to throw up, I’ll never know, but there it is. So it’s somewhat inevitable that my foolishness will spill over to Willie, but we’ll both do the best we can, and most of all we’ll cherish being together, me and Willie and Jim, on a gorgeous day with wonderful people and amazing dogs.

But enough about that; I’d love to hear if you’ve had a training breakthrough, no matter how small, that you’d be willing to share. I think that trainers, and dog lovers everywhere, are so often frustrated with ourselves for not being perfect, that we all need to remind ourselves sometimes how far we’ve come. I’m hoping to savor some of your stories soon. And if you don’t want to write a comment, do take minute to ask yourself what you’ve done with your dog that you are proud of . . .  even if it’s resisting strangling them when they won’t stop barking when you’re on the phone . . .

One of the best talks at APDT’s Cognition Symposium was Monique Udell’s presentation on her research on pointing gestures. I promised before I went that I’d write about new results on this issue, and Monique gave me lots to talk about. To recall the issue: some researchers, Hare and Tomasello originally, found that domestic dogs were able to follow the direction of a pointing arm to find food, while wolves and chimpanzees were not. They concluded that domestic dogs were inherently better at interpreting human gestures than other animals, presumably because the two species had co-evolved for over ten thousand years. If that were so, then it means that dogs contain some permanent change in their genetic complement that makes them able to communicate more effectively with people. Much has been made of this in a wide range of scientific papers, most of which have accepted as fact that dogs are better at ‘reading’ human gestures than even our closest ancestors, chimpanzees, and wolves, who are biologically the same species as dogs.

I’ve always been curious, as I mentioned in an earlier post, because in my  experience (and based on your comments, yours too), dogs seem to need to be taught to follow a point. And as was clear from the video, one needs to be careful about discussing “pointing” with the arm. Does the head move as well? The eyes?

Monique Udell, working with Dr. Clive Wynne at U. Florida, did a solid, well-controlled study to tease these issues apart. It was lovely work, with lots of good controls and a thoughtful experimental design. (As a preface, one of the points that she and her advisor, Dr. Wynne, made — and a good one at that — is that the noun “dog” can mean many things. Your pet dog lying at your feet as you read this? A village dog at the dump in Mexico city? A Dingo in Australia?)  She tested owned dogs, shelters dogs and hand-reared wolves. She varied whether the subjects were inside or outside, had a fence or barrier between them and the tester, and whether the ‘pointer’ was the owner or an unfamiliar person. She also (YEAH! first time I’ve heard of this and about time!) did NOT have the food actually under one container. Other tests have some food in both, but also have accessible food in the one pointed to. Surely dogs can tell the difference between a little food and a lot of food, not to mention different kinds, how fresh, whether just touched by the tester, etc). The subjects were taught that one container would have food, and then were made to wait while the containers were moved to the side. The tester (standing, some in earlier studies were sitting) pointed to one container or the other (no head turn or eye movements allowed if I remember correctly). If the dog went to the container that had been pointed out, it got a food treat. If it went to the other, it got nothing.

It turns out (I’m summarizing here, her details will be published soon I’m sure) that hand-reared wolves tested outside scored just as high as pet dogs tested inside, scoring about 70% correct. Pet dogs tested outside don’t do much better than chance, whether with familiar people or not, and shelter dogs tested inside scored no better.  If you test the dogs who did well with a fence between them and the pointer, they also do no better than chance, and about as well as wolves were shown to do in the past.

She presented lots more work, looking at what aspects of the gestures in all the studies are most effective. Clearly the most effective are a combination of head and eyes turned toward the object, and what they call a “dynamic proximal point” — the arm moves toward the object and stays there, versus a point that is made in one motion, then withdrawn

Thus, Udell and Wynne are not in agreement with Hare et al (also see Riedel 2007) who argue that only domestic dogs are capable of following pointing gestures. Based on their results, they argue that environment and development are the key factors. For example, the wolves that were tested earlier, they argue, were behind barriers, and not necessarily by familiar people. They argue that what is most different, along with the context of testing, is that dogs and wolves have different developmental time frames. The critical period for domestic dogs peaks at 7 weeks, end around week 14. In wolves, in peaks at 3 weeks, and ends at 6 weeks. This gives dogs a much longer time to think of humans as social companions. No matter what the developmental differences, the fact that pet dogs and shelter dogs did no better than random does not support “co-evolution” as a driving force creating permanent changes in the behavior of dogs.

Here’s what I love about all this: This is a great example of how science works. Someone discovers something. Some people consider it fact. Others question, wonder… and then someone else does more research and tries to replicate the results, and comes up with a different outcome. Hummm. Someone altogether different does another study, and another… and eventually, we start teasing apart what we know, and what we don’t know. It’s like an intellectual roller coaster. Science gets a lot wrong at first, but often (not always) ends up correcting itself, like a person wavering over a balance beam.

So what’s the answer to the question about dogs, pointing gestures and genetic predispositions based on co-evolution of two species? The answer is clear: we don’t know yet what’s going on, but we’re starting to ask better questions.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: We actually left the farm last weekend, so that our sitter for New Zealand, who is new, could get in a trial run. (She rocks — She even wrote a diary, from Willie, for us to read when we returned. I feel so lucky to have her — leaving the farm for 3 weeks is hard. It’s way over my comfort zone, so I do all I can to set things up to go smoothly and safely. Thank heavens for great sitters, I couldn’t leave home without them!)

We spent the weekend at a friend’s cabin and hiked in nearby state parks. We did a 5.5 mile hike on Saturday with our packs (mine only half full, still working up to the real thing). Lots of up and down, so it was a good workout. I was happy to get to the end, but except for one uphill grind it felt pretty good. One day of the Milford includes 5 miles of nothing but uphill, so it’s good to practice.

Here’s the pond on Sunday morning behind the cabin.  Wish I could include audio of the resident Kingfisher rattling his objections to our intrusion.

A little detail of some late fall leaves on the cabin’s foundation. I love textures, and there’s something about fall that seems to emphasize them . . .