Great comments about who goes when and where, keep it up. I love hearing from you. It is truly amazing how little we know about dog behavior, isn't it? But here's some more of Anneke's results, this time from good-ole-fashioned, ethological studies observing animals in their natural environment--in this case, the dog park. Dr. Lisberg observed olfactory investigation and urination at the entrance to a popular dog park, recording who urinated when and where, and who did Ano-Genital investigation (AG), or sniffed each other's butts. She found that males and females were equally likely to urinate immediately upon entering the park, but that males often urinated more frequently than females. No surprise there. "Resident" males (dogs already there) counter marked (over or adjacent marked) Read More
Scent Marking in Dogs
Here's a brief post from one of the many fascinating talks at IFAAB... brief because I'm afraid I came home with a killer influenza, couldn't even stand up on Tuesday, much less sit up. So boring to be sick, seems like I've been sick that too much this winter. Enough already. One of the best talks at IFAAB (Interdisciplinary Forum on Applied Animal Behavior) was from Dr. Anneke Lisberg whose dissertation was on scent marking and urine investigation in dogs. [And was also my Teaching Assistant for several years, a truly great house sitter and now a dear friend and colleague, so am I objective? Not even close. But based on the comments after her talk, I'm quite sure the rest of the group concurs with my assessment.] Anneke and I talked long and hard about what she should study for her Read More
Speaking for Spot; On the Road Again
I just received a book from veterinarian Nancy Kay, titled Speaking for Spot: Be the Advocate Your Dog Needs to Live a Happy, Healthy, Longer Life. I haven't read it yet, but it looks very interesting. Anyone read it? I find the whole issue of medical advocacy fascinating and compelling and terrifying when I'm in the midst of oh, deciding, for example, whether to have Luke's foreleg amputated or have him undergo radiation therapy for his cancerous tumor. It's such a good thing that so many of us are informing ourselves about medicine in so many ways, but it's a double edged sword. Some days I yearn for the old days, in which life was simpler (tell me what should I do, Doctor?). I don't think it was better (neither for health care professionals or for patients) but lordy it was Read More
Karen Pryor’s New Book; Valentine’s Day
I just finished reading a review copy of Karen Pryor's new book, Reaching the Animal Mind (Scribner). I don't know when it's coming out, I'll let you know as soon as I hear (but you can pre-order it on Amazon now). It's an inspiring book, especially for those that haven't yet used clicker training on any of their animals. I don't use clickers for everything I have to admit, I tend to use them most for tricks, or any behavior that is not in a dog's normal repertoire. One of the interesting parts of her book is a report of research by Lindsay Wood that found clicker training significantly faster than a verbal marker at training new behaviors. This makes a lot of sense, given what we know about sound and the way it is received. I did my dissertation work on sound, and learned that sounds Read More
Darwin, Emotions and early Adventurers
I mentioned earlier that I gave a talk at the University of Wisconsin last Saturday during their celebration of Darwin Day (it was his 200th birthday on 2/12, the same day as Lincoln's 200th birthday). My talk centered on one of his less well-known books, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. This book came out only a few months after the publication of The Descent of Man, and was designed to provide further support to his contention that humans evolved from common ancestors as other animals. He knew how profoundly controversial this would be (he delayed writing his first book, The Origin of Species, for twenty years, because he was so concerned about its reception.) As we know, his concerns were well founded. The contention that humans are related to other animals was a Read More
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