Why Dogs are More Afraid of Men, Revisited
Today I'm reposting an article I wrote almost ten years ago to the day, (January, 2010) with a few additions and revisions. I find it is as relevant today as it was then. I'll love hearing your comments now as much as I did then. Clients often tell me that their rescue dog must have been “beaten by a man” when the dog was younger, because the dog is afraid of men. However, almost all shy dogs are more afraid of men than women, even if men have been kind to them their entire lives. We’ve always speculated that it had something to do with the way men walked (more assertively?) or their bigger chests, larger jaws, and/or deeper voices. But we’ve never really known for sure what it Read More
Nothing to Yawn About–Yawning as a Sign of Empathy
This topic is making me yawn. Literally. I'm doing it as I type this. Not because it's boring, but because yawning is contagious in a large percentage of people (If one person yawned, then 45-60% of the people observing it yawned themselves, according to one study). You don't even have to see someone yawn to get the effect: Just reading or thinking about yawning can make some of us yawn involuntarily. (If you are as bad as I am about this, and just the letters "y,a,w..." can start you yawning, don't feel foolish. It turns out that being susceptible to "contagious yawning" correlates with all kinds of good things, including high levels of empathy, and higher scores on theory of mind. Well, Read More
Slimmer Dogs, Longer Lives.
If only I couldn't open the cabinet doors myself. It would make it easier for me to maintain my ideal weight, but alas, nobody controls my weight but me. But not so for dogs. We control when and what they eat. And so they should all be at the perfect weight, right? But of course, we know that they are not. A shocking percentage of dogs and cats are problematically overweight, according to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. They report that in 2016, 59% of cats and 54 % of dogs in the U.S. were classified as overweight or obese. And the numbers are climbing: in 2009 9% of the dogs were obese, while the percentage rose to 20% in 2016. I was reminded of this in Dr. Read More