How much, and what kind of noises are your dogs subjected to? I say "subjected," because so much of the soundscape surrounding our dogs is negative. Between high pitched whines from electronics (some of which we can't hear ourselves), loud televisions or music, traffic noises (city), chain saws and tractors (country), groups of people laughing at parties, dish washers churning, there is a lot of noise out there. Noisy soundscapes have a cost--to us for sure, but also to our dogs. Here's a summary from an article by Basner et. al., 2014 about the effects of noise exposure on human health. "Observational and experimental studies have shown that noise exposure leads to annoyance, disturbs sleep and causes daytime sleepiness, affects patient outcomes and staff performance in hospitals, Read More
Archives for 2018
Muzzle Punches, Air Snaps and Tooth Clacking 2018
It being Labor Day as I write this, I'd rather not (labor). So I've searched the archives for some of the most popular posts and found a line of inquiry that sucked me into reading all the comments again, nine years later. It all started with a post about "Muzzle Punches, Air Snaps and Tooth Clacking" that I wrote in October of 2009. That post elicited 117 comments. Wow. The comments about this issue were so interesting that I wrote second piece that summarized people's guesses/beliefs about what the behaviors mean, and data from the wolf literature. Here's what I wrote nine years ago, with some minor editing: (That's a long time ago. 63 years ago in dogs years?) What have we learned since then? MUZZLES PUNCHES/POKES: As best I could, I categorized your responses about the Read More
Flooded in Fly Over Country
No flooding at the farm thankfully, but our dear community, the tiny towns of Black Earth and Mazomanie are still coping with the effects of 11-15 inches of rain in a 12 hour period. Here's the bridge going west from Black Earth toward Mazo (photo from WSJ). The milk truck in the background had to be hauled out of the gap, being the first, at dark-thirty in the morning as milk trucks always are, to discover that the bridge was out. Who knows how long the bridge will be out. Right now our little county road has become a main highway, since it's the only way to go east to west around here. Here are photos from some of the local news services (WSJ, Channel 3000). I appreciate being able to use them: We count ourselves especially lucky, because not only are we on a hill, Read More
Pastoral Prairie Perfection
Midwestern prairies are a sight to behold this time of year. I've been enjoying them more than ever because Maggie has to be walked on leash during her rehab, so I'm always looking for new places that are interesting to both of us. We are lucky to live close to a prairie that is a symphony of color in late summer. I took these photos on a lazy, hazy and not-so-crazy day when Maggie and I went on one of our leash walks.. Here's Maggie on the path, to give you a sense of the scale of a forest of flowers. Some of the flowers are actually over my head. These next photos are of bottle gentian, a flower made extra special to me because you don't see it very often in the wild. This last one might be my favorite photo of the bunch, even though it is of a lowly thistle. I Read More
Book Reviews: Late Summer Version
There's only one problem with having active dogs, doing a massive home remodel and a garden begging for attention--there's not enough time in the day to read as much as I'd like. But I've still managed to enjoy some of the tsunami of books being released, and I thought I'd share what I've been enjoying lately. First, on the canine behavior front, The Science Behind a Happy Dog by Emma Grigg, PhD and Tammy Donaldson, is a great addition to anyone's library, whether a first-time dog owner or an expert in behavior and training. What I like about it especially is its unique perspective. Yes, the book contains a lot about who "dogs are" and how they see the world, how to read their visual signals and training methods that are based on good science. But what makes it especially valuable are Read More
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