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
Human-Animal Relationships; People and Dogs
I started teaching my University of Wisconsin course yesterday, titled "The Biology and Philosophy of Human/Animal Relationships." It is, granted, a lot of work, but I love doing it. I love the intellectual stimulation it creates, and I love working with 150 smart, motivated young people with minds like steel traps (okay, most of them) who are hungry to learn how to relate their education with the day-to-day issues of life. We'll be talking tomorrow about "humans and animals." Or, is it "humans, and other animals?" What really makes us different from the rest of the animal world, and what makes us the same? I love thinking about those questions, and I love how dogs are always reminding me that while we humans are special... different in so many ways than all the other animals on earth, Read More
Too cold; Feed the birds
It was 26 below this morning on the thermometer by the kitchen window, 36 below at a neighbor's. I suspect the temperature in the barn, which is down the hill from the house, was somewhere in between. Good grief. I was born in Arizona, and the concept that it is MUCH warmer in the freezer compartment of my refrigerator than it is outside just doesn't compute. It seems so very, very wrong. Lassie couldn't handle it at all. I took her out this morning, hoping she could urinate or defecate in seconds, but she stood outside for a few seconds and than ran inside and pooped on the dining room floor. She looked up at me while she did so as if she was concerned about what she was doing.... Am I being problematically anthropomorphic for thinking she felt unease about going in the house? (She has Read More
The Redstart Rollercoaster; Lambs in Winter
Has it just been two days since Snicker's lambs were born? Or two weeks? Here's the good news: the lambs, at the moment anyway, are doing well. Here's the bad news: since I last wrote, Snickers tried her best to kill the ewe lamb, both lambs got diarrhea, both lambs began bawling non-stop as lambs only do when they are not getting enough food, it sounded like the white lamb had pneumonia, my car threatened to break down so we had to drive it into Madison in a snowstorm at rush hour, and then go back in to get it at rush hour later that day. I should start at the beginning. Having lambs at all in the depth of a Wisconsin winter can only be described as an agricultural whoopsie of major proportions. Our lambs are supposed to come in early April, when it's warmer and the grass will be lush Read More
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