I just finished reading a lovely novel, The Hearts of Horses, by Molly Gloss. It's about a young woman who strikes out to make her living "gentling" horses in 1917, when many of the men were off to war. She's more comfortable around animals than she is around people (a current topic of postings on my Feb. 4th '09 blog) and uses methods atypical of the time. Rather than "breaking" horses, Molly uses what people often now call "horse whisperer" techniques to teach horses to work with, rather than against, the people who ride them. In spite of my lack of fondness for the title "horse whisperer," I will never forget watching horse trainer Pat Parelli work an "uncatchable" horse in an arena in Madison, Wisconsin. The horse was so difficult to catch that the club who brought Parelli to Madison Read More
Archives for 2009
Why are some People more comfortable around animals?
There's an interesting discussion going on, on-line, in my university course right now. One of the students asked why some people like non-human animals more than they do members of their own species. There are some extremely interesting comments posted to that question, especially about animals being 'innocents' rather than moral agents who can choose to be cruel. The question, and other potential answers, reminded me of an essay I wrote in Dog is My Co-Pilot, titled "Love is Never Having to Say Anything at All." In it I argue that one of the reasons we love dogs so much is that, well, because they can't talk. As I write in the essay: "Words may be wonderful things, but they carry weight with them, and there's a great lightness of being when they are discarded." Of course, this Read More
Tool Use in Dogs or Cats?
On Tuesday I gave a lecture in my UW class about tool use and the cultural transmission of information in non-human animals. It's one of my favorite lectures; it does my heart good to ponder so many interesting examples of our connections with other animals. The list of discoveries of animals using tools is ever growing; ever since Jane Goodall discovered chimps using modified twigs to catch termites, researchers have observed crows in Australia manufacturing hooked tools to pry insects out of bark, dolphins carefully placing sponges over their rostrums to protect their tissues while foraging, chimpanzees using two tools (hammer and anvil) to crack nuts... the list goes on and on. Here's a truly great video of New Caledonian Crows figuring out how to combine a penchant for nuts and Read More
Learning from a Dog’s Perspective; Winter Wildlife
Whoops... thought I had posted this last week. eeeps. Willie had smoke coming out of his ears last Thursday night; I felt so sorry for him. I was giving a book talk at the west side Madison Border's and brought Willie along to illustrate some of the tricks that Karen and I write about in Play Together, Stay Together. He had little trouble with the ones he knows well, but got hung up on transferring a cue from one hand to the other. I have been teaching him to do a 'high five' when I hold my hand up vertically, finger tips pointing upward, and to touch his nose to my hand when it is held horizontally, fingers pointing sideways. That's not a trivial distinction to get, it took him a few days to get it when presented the cue with my right hand. The day before the talk I had asked him to Read More
Paw Injury Makes Typing Difficult!
Apologies... I sliced the tip of my finger with a newly sharpened knife and it makes typing ridiculously slow and tedious. As a result I am terribly behind in most everything I have to do on a computer, which more often than not, is most everything I have to do for much of the day. At least it's not a dog's paw--I had a dog who badly cut his a pad on his paw and it was absurd trying to keep it clean and dry! In lieu of words, here are 2 photos a fantastic photographer, Nic Berard, took of Will (the same photographer who did the photos on the top of the blog and website), Lassie and me. I love the one of Will playing because he looks half insane (and who doesn't when they are completely lost in exuberance?) and I love that Lassie is in the background looking engaged and youthful (she was Read More