If you've been following last week's blog and the comments, you know that there's been an active discussion about whether dogs can (or can't) form "true" friendships. This was motivated by an article in Time Magazine by Carl Zimmer that discussed the evidence of friendship in several species of mammals, including dolphins, baboons and horses. In spite of the irony of a cover photo that includes two dogs (and the photographer saying: "I actually had to make sure that the dogs coming in were actually friends."), the article states "... most scientists think they [relationships between dogs] fall well short of true friendship." I'm curious who the 'most' scientists are... I suggested to the author that he might want to talk to scientists who study dogs like Barbara Smuts & Camille Read More
A Great Laugh: Dogs Finding Nirvana
My posts will be a bit shorter and perhaps less frequent in the next few weeks, but I couldn't resist passing on a blog post from Bark Magazine that gave me the best laugh of the week. It's about a reported (so yes, this is a story about a story about a story) who read that a dog sold in China for 1.5 millions dollars and reminded us that the dog, a Tibetan Mastiff, is believed to be the reincarnation of a Tibetan monk. I suspect I laughed especially loudly because, like many, I can get truly silly when I'm tired and 2) I go on and off the meditation wagon like a five-week old puppy in and out of a whelping pen (I'm currently back on it, but someone better tie me up to keep me there). The Bark blog was written by my colleague (and co-author); here it is: Karen London's Bark Read More
Who Do You See When You Look at Your Dog?
See the dog, not the story. This is a quote from one of your colleagues, a blog reader who sent this in as a comment about dogs in rescue. (And who I should credit, but because I'm in a time crisis, I can't right now, but THANKS! and I will find your name when I can get more time.). I was reminded of the value of that saying by Kathy Sdao at Clicker Expo last weekend. She did a presentation on being a truly good observer of your dog, something we all know the value of, but she made it special for me by suggesting that we toss away our 'stories' about our dogs, and work with who we have. I truly took that to heart. I have a story about Willie, about how he was such a mess when he was young, about how he had projectile diarrhea and was pathologically afraid of other dogs and so sound Read More
Bad News! Dogs are Dangerous. Good News: Madison Mag Rocks.
As is often the case with all of us, my agenda for today changed after a phone call that got my attention. A reporter for CNN called, and asked what I thought about an article that just came out in Emerging Infectious Diseases (the journal of the Center for Disease Control). Titled "Zoonoses in the Bedroom," the article by B.B. Chomel and B. Sun provides a list of anecdotes and a few studies that link sleeping with pet dogs and cats with serious diseases. The same connection is made with kissing pets, and being licked by them. They conclude by saying that "Our review suggests that persons, especially young children or immunocompromised persons, should be discouraged from sharing their bed with their pets or regularly kissing their pets. Any area licked by a pet, especially for young Read More
My New Year’s “Not-Resolutions” — Yours?
Like many people, I'm classically conditioned to associate "New Year's Resolutions" with broad, generic and doomed-to-fail pronouncements, like "I'll be healthier!" "I'll lose 20 pounds!" "I'll be an all around better person!" "I'll kind and generous to everyone I meet!" I made my share of impossible resolutions in decades past, and like most of them, they fell apart before the end of January. However, as is often the case, learning about behavior and dog training has helped me to come up with focused and attainable goals, so now I don't make New Year's Resolutions, I made one or two commitments for the year to come. We know that commitments are most often kept if 1) they are focused and specific, 2) they are attainable and 3) they are made public. Not that you have to blog about them Read More
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