sleeping newborn puppy very lovely

puppy, i love them :D

People Who Treat Their Dogs Like Children

So far since I started this blog no one has outright flamed me and called me a jerk, but I think today might be that day. I know many of you out there are dog lovers and I fully expect to hear from a couple of you.

Let me start by saying I've never had a dog. I never even wanted a dog. Once I dog-sat for my brother's dogs for a weekend and I thought I'd die from the pressure (because in those days, those dogs WERE his kids and I was terrified one was going to die on my watch). I don't really like dogs. I think they're cute and adorable and what not, but I also think they stink, they make a big mess and they're expensive. I've already got two kids who are cute, adorable, stinky, make big messes and cost me a ton of money why in the world would I bring a dog into the mix?? Now that I've made that list I can see how people might think they're similar - but I don't.

A dog is not a child. A child is that tiny human being that lives in my house. It walks and talks and poops in a toilet (finally!). It cannot be left alone for the day chained in the yard with a bowl of water and a rawhide bone. It doesn't sleep in a cage or in my bed. It has never chewed up my shoes or drank out of the toilet.

(I do have one child who has an imagination and PRETENDS to be a dog. Shocker. She was born in the Chinese Year of the Dog and we unknowingly gave her a dog name. She never had a chance.)

I love when we go to a party and we meet "dog parents." We make small talk and it finally comes up: "Do you have kids?" I'll ask.

"No. But we have a dog."

"Oh...that's nice."

"Yes. It's just like having a child. She's our baby. Would you like to see a picture of her?"

At this point they are met with an awkward silence from the Hubs and myself, because we truly do not know how to respond. If we open our mouths, we will surely say something rude like, "Hell no. It's a dog. I'd barely be interested in seeing a picture of a real baby if you actually had one so I definitely don't want to see a picture of your dog."

Or I might say to them, "Oh your dog is like a baby? Oh really? Do you prefer Pampers or Huggies? Are you nursing? Isn't pumping a bitch? Who is your daycare provider or are you home with the little darling? Is she talking yet? Is she eating solids yet? Who is your pediatrician? Where do you do Mommy & Me classes? Does she sleep through the night?"

And then I'd just go on my rant:

Yeah, your dog is nothing like a baby.

You can knit sweaters for it and put bows in its hair and push it around in those weird doggie strollers or carry it in your Prada bag but it's still a dog. You can talk to it in baby talk and cuddle it like a baby - but it's not a baby.

Your dog is not a person.

Your dogs licks its own balls. I don't know any people who do that. You don't need to leave the TV on for it when you leave the house to run errands. Your dog does not like CSI. (And BTW you can't have it both ways. If your dog is like a baby then CSI is completely inappropriate. Real babies don't watch CSI. Better try Dora instead - then maybe your dog could learn Spanish.) You don't need to take your dog to see a shrink when it seems sad and get some Puppy Prozac or a medium so it can communicate with you. ("Your dog is telling me how much she loves you and wishes you'd rub her belly more often. That'll be fifty bucks.")

I will never go to a memorial service for a dog. (These exist, people. I've heard about them. Slide shows set to music and eulogies for Pepper the Best Dog in the World.)

I know that your dog is nothing like my kids because I'll feel bad when your dog dies. I will. (I'm not heartless!) But losing a dog isnothing like losing a child. If you lost a child, I'd be heartbroken for you. I wouldn't be able to fathom the absolute unbearable pain you would have - because that was your child.

That was the little person whose first word was "Mommy" and draws "foldable hugs" for you to carry around in your pocket so you can have a hug anytime you need one. That was the little person who loves puppies and wants a pair of damn Shape Ups. Does your baby want Shape Ups? Or an iTouch? Or a DS? I doubt it - because he's a dog.

What do dogs think of humans?

In My Talks with Dean Spanley, by Lord Dunsany, we are introduced to an elderly clergyman, the Rev Dean Spanley who was the dog Wag in a previous life. (Thanks to Charles Moore in the Speccie)

With the help of some libation, Spanley recalls his earlier canine life as Wag.

What do dogs think of we humans? 

Well, they worship us, of course: their terms for us are "the Wise Ones, the Great Ones". I'll have to tell Marcus, Basil and Nikki that. They call me "boss" (Marcus and Basil) or "daddy" (Nikki).

Here is how Wag/Spanley describes the "wonderful pointlessness of canine pleasure": 

So we came to the pig's house and looked in through his door at him and shouted, "Pig". He didn't like that. He looked just like a pig; he was a pig and he knew it. He came towards his door saying silly surly things in a deep voice. You know the kind of talk. And we just shouted "Pig. Pig. Pig." Both of us, for nearly half an hour. It was perfectly splendid and we enjoyed it immensely.

And dogs' attitude to punishment. Wag comes home having been out on an unauthorised "hunt":

... the door opened, and the Great One appeared. And I said that I had been hunting and would never hunt again, and that the shame of my sin was so great that I could not enter the house, and would only crawl into it. So I crawled in and had a beating, and shook myself, and it was a splendid evening.Shades of our Weimaraner Marcus, after he's raided the kitchen bin. Heknows he's done wrong, and takes his punishment -- if we catch him at it -- in the same good grace. "Fair cop, boss, I done earned it and I'm bang to rights", then shakes himself and heads off, just like Wag. If he got something tasty from the kitchen tidy, it was worth it.

Meantime, today's International Herald Tribune has an article about Chaser, a border collie who has learnt 1,022 nouns. She's moved on to higher studies now. "We're trying to teach some elementary grammar to our dog," said his owner Mr Piley.

Chaser, a border collie who lives in Spartanburg, S.C., has the largest vocabulary of any known dog. She knows 1,022 nouns, a record that displays unexpected depths of the canine mind and may help explain how children acquire language.

Chaser belongs to John W. Pilley, a psychologist who taught for 30 years at Wofford College, a liberal arts institution in Spartanburg. In 2004, after he had retired, he read a report in Science about Rico, a border collie whose German owners had taught him to recognize 200 items, mostly toys and balls. Dr. Pilley decided to repeat the experiment using a technique he had developed for teaching dogs, and he describes his findings in the current issue of the journal Behavioural Processes.

He bought Chaser as a puppy in 2004 from a local breeder and started to train her for four to five hours a day. He would show her an object, say its name up to 40 times, then hide it and ask her to find it, while repeating the name all the time. She was taught one or two new names a day, with monthly revisions and reinforcement for any names she had forgotten.

Border collies are working dogs. They have a reputation for smartness, and they are highly motivated. They are bred to herd sheep indefatigably all day long. Absent that task, they must be given something else to do or they go stir crazy.

Chaser proved to be a diligent student. Unlike human children, she seems to love her drills and tests and is always asking for more. “She still demands four to five hours a day,” Dr. Pilley said. “I’m 82, and I have to go to bed to get away from her.”

One of Dr. Pilley’s goals was to see if he could teach Chaser a larger vocabulary than Rico acquired. But that vocabulary is based on physical objects that must be given a name the dog can recognize. Dr. Pilley found himself visiting Salvation Army stores and buying up sackfuls of used children’s toys to serve as vocabulary items.

It was hard to remember all the names Chaser had to learn, so he wrote the name on each toy with indelible marker. In three years, Chaser’s vocabulary included 800 cloth animals, 116 balls, 26 Frisbees and a medley of plastic items.

Children pick up about 10 new words a day until, by the time they leave high school, they know around 60,000 words. Chaser learned words more slowly but faced a harder task: Each sound was new and she had nothing to relate it to, whereas children learn words in a context that makes them easier to remember. For example, knives, forks and spoons are found together.

Dr. Pilley does not know how large a vocabulary Chaser could have mastered. When she reached 1,000 items, he grew tired of teaching words and moved to more interesting topics like grammar.

One of the questions raised by the Rico study was that of what was going through the dog’s mind when he was asked to fetch something. Did he think of his toys as items labeled fetch-ball, fetch-Frisbee, fetch-doll, or did he understand the word “fetch” separately from its object, as people do?

Dr. Pilley addressed the question by teaching Chaser three different actions: pawing, nosing and taking an object. She was then presented with three of her toys and correctly pawed, nosed or fetched each one depending on the command given to her. “That experiment demonstrates conclusively that Chaser understood that the verb had a meaning,” Dr. Pilley said.

The 1,022 words in Chaser’s vocabulary are all proper nouns. Dr. Pilley also found that Chaser could be trained to recognize categories, in other words common nouns. She correctly follows the command “Fetch a Frisbee” or “Fetch a ball.” She can also learn by exclusion, as children do. If she is asked to fetch a new toy with a word she does not know, she will pick it out from ones that are familiar.

Haunting almost every interaction between people and animals is the ghost of Clever Hans, a German horse that in the early 1900s would tap out answers to arithmetic problems with his hoof. The psychologist Oskar Pfungst discovered that Hans would get the answer right only if the questioner also knew the answer. He then showed that the horse could detect minute movements of the questioner’s head and body. Since viewers would tense as Hans approached the right number of taps, and relax when he reached it, the horse knew exactly when to stop.

People project their expectations onto animals, particularly dogs, and can easily convince themselves the animal is achieving some humanlike feat when in fact it is simply reading cues unconsciously given by its master. Even though researchers are well aware of this pitfall, interpreting animal behavior is particularly tricky. In the current issue of Animal Behaviour, a leading journal, two previous experiments with dogs have been found wanting.

In one report, researchers say they failed to confirm an experiment showing that dogs would yawn contagiously when people yawn.Another report knocks down an earlier finding that dogs can distinguish between rational and irrational acts.

The danger of Clever Hans effects may be particularly acute with border collies because they are bred for the ability to pay close attention to the shepherd. Dogs that ignore their master or the sheep do not become parents, a fierce selective pressure on the breed’s behavior. “Watch a collie work with a sheepherder and you will come away amazed how small a gesture the person can do to communicate with his dog,” said Alexandra Horowitz, a dog behavior expert at Barnard College and author of “Inside of a Dog.”

Juliane Kaminski, a member of the research team that tested Rico, was well aware of the Clever Hans effect. So she arranged for the dog to be given instructions in one room and to select toys from another, making it impossible for the experimenter to give Rico unwitting cues. Dr. Kaminski works at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Dr. Pilley took the same precaution in testing Chaser. He submitted an article describing his experiments to Science, but the journal rejected it. Dr. Pilley said that the journal’s advisers had made valid criticisms, which he proceeded to address. He and his co-author, Alliston K. Reid of Wofford College, then submitted a revised article to Behavioural Processes. Dr. Horowitz, who was one of Science’s advisers in the review of Dr. Pilley’s report, said of the new article that “the experimental design looks pretty good.” Dr. Kaminski, too, regards the experiment as properly done. “I think the methodology the authors use here is absolutely sufficient to control for Clever Hans,” she said.

The learning of words by Rico and Chaser may have some bearing on how children acquire language, because children could be building on the same neural mechanisms. Dr. Pilley and Dr. Reid conclude that their experiments “provide clear evidence that Chaser acquired referential understanding of nouns, an ability normally attributed to children.”

But the experiment’s relevance to language is likely to be a matter of dispute. Chaser learns to link sounds to objects by brute repetition, which is not how children learn words. And she learns her words as proper nouns, which are specific labels for things, rather than as abstract concepts like the common nouns picked up by children. Dr. Kaminski said she would not go as far as saying that Chaser’s accomplishments are a step toward language. They show that the dog can combine words for different actions with words for objects. A step toward syntax, she said, would be to show that changing the order of words alters the meaning that Chaser ascribes to them.

Dr. Pilley says he is working on just that point. “We’re trying to teach some elementary grammar to our dog,” he said. “How far we’ll be able to go we don’t know, but we think we are on the frontier.”

His goal is to develop methods that will help increase communication between people and dogs. “We are interested in teaching Chaser a receptive, rudimentary language,” he said.

A Nova episode on animal intelligence, in which Chaser stars, will be broadcast on Feb. 9.

As with other animals for which prodigious feats of cognition have been reported, like Alex the gray parrot or Kanzi the bonobo, it is hard to place Chaser’s and Rico’s abilities in context. If their achievements are within the general capacity of their species, why have many other instances not been reported? If, on the other hand, their achievements are unique, then either the researchers have lucked out in finding an Einstein of the species, or there could be something wrong with the experiments like a Clever Hans effect.

Dr. Pilley said that most border collies, with special training, “could be pretty close to where Chaser is.” When he told Chaser’s dog breeder of the experiment, “he wasn’t surprised about the dog’s ability, just that I had had the patience to teach her,” Dr. Pilley said.

Dr. Horowitz agreed: “It is not necessarily Chaser or Rico who is exceptional; it is the attention that is lavished on them,” she said

Do Dogs Think?

Owners assume their pet's brain works like their own. That's a big mistake.

Blue, Heather's normally affectionate and obedient Rottweiler, began tearing up the house shortly after Heather went back to work as an accountant after several years at home. The contents of the trash cans were strewn all over the house. A favorite comforter was destroyed. Then Blue began peeing all over Heather's expensive new living room carpet and systematically ripped through cables and electrical wires.

"I know exactly what's going on," Heather told her vet when she called seeking help. "Blue is angry with me for leaving her alone. She's punishing me. She always looks guilty when I come home, so she knows she's been bad. She knows she shouldn't be doing those things."

Heather's assessment was typical of many dog owners' diagnoses of behavioral problems. And her vet agreed, suggesting "separation anxiety" and prescribing anti-anxiety medication for Blue. Heather also hired a trainer, who confirmed the diagnosis.

Blue, they concluded, was resentful at her owner's absence and was misbehaving to regain the attention that she'd once monopolized. After all, Blue didn't transgress like this when Heather went out shopping or took in a movie with friends. It must be punitive. Heather's mother even recalled Heather, as a child, throwing tantrums when she went off to work. Heather and Blue had become so close, she joked, that they were acting alike.

So Heather shut Blue in the kitchen with a toddler gate, removing countertop food and garbage. Things calmed down. Heather began to relax and gave Blue the run of the house again.

Heather, a friend of a friend, had called me for counsel as well. But since she, her vet, her trainer, and her mother had all reached the same conclusion, and since the rampaging had stopped, I didn't give the situation much thought.

A month later, though, Heather was back on the phone: Blue had relapsed. She yowled piteously when confined to the kitchen or basement. Worse, she was showing signs of aggression with people and other dogs and refusing to obey even simple commands that were once routine. On one late-night walk, Blue attacked a terrier walking nearby, opening wounds that needed stitches.

Blue's problems had grown so serious that kennels wouldn't board the dog and the vet wouldn't examine her without a muzzle. Heather was thinking of finding her another home, turning her over to a rescue group, possibly even euthanizing her.

"She's out of control," Heather complained, exhausted, angry, and frightened. She sounded betrayed—a dog she'd loved and cared for was turning on her because she went to work. "I caused this by leaving her," Heather confessed, guiltily. But was she supposed to quit her job to stay home with her dog?

his time, Heather got my full attention. I took notes, asked questions, then called a canine behaviorist at Cornell and explained the problem in as much detail as I could.

"Everybody says the dog was reacting to her going back to work," I suggested.

"Everybody is probably wrong," was his blunt comeback. "It's 'theory of mind.' This is what often happens when humans assume that dogs think the way we do."

His analysis: "Being angry at the human and behaving punitively—that's not a thought sequence even remotely possible, given a dog's brain. The likely scenario is that the dog is simply frightened." When Heather was home, she was there to explain and enforce the rules. With her gone, the dog literally didn't know how to behave. The dog should have been acclimated to a crate or room and confined more, not less, until she got used to her new independence.

Lots of dogs get nervous when they don't know what's expected of them, and when they get anxious, they can also grow restless. Blue hadn't had to occupy time alone before. Dogs can get unnerved by this. They bark, chew, scratch, destroy. Getting yelled at and punished later doesn't help: The dog probably knows it's doing something wrong, but it has no idea what. Since there's nobody around to correct behaviors when the dog is alone, how could the dog know which behavior is the problem? Which action was wrong?

He made sense to me. Dogs are not aware of time, even as a concept, so Blue couldn't know whether she was being left for five minutes or five hours, or how that compared to being left for a movie two weeks earlier. Since she had no conscious notion that Heather's work life had changed, how could she get angry, let alone plot vengeance? The dog was alone more and had more time to fill. The damage was increasing, most likely, because Blue had more time to get into mischief and more opportunities to react to stimulus without correction—not because she was responding to different emotions.

I was familiar with the "theory of mind" notion the behaviorist was referring to. Psychologist David Premack of the University of Pennsylvania talks about it; it's also discussed in Stanley Coren's How Dogs Think.

The phrase refers to a belief each of us has about the way others think. Simply, it says that since we are aware and self-conscious, we think others—humans and animals—are, too. There is, of course, enormous difference of opinion about whether this is true.

When I used to leave my border collie Orson alone in the house, uncrated, he learned to open the refrigerator with his nose, remove certain food items, open the plastic container, and consume its contents. Then he'd squirrel away the empty packages. Everyone I told this story made the same assumptions: Orson was a wily devil taunting me for leaving him alone. We actually installed a child lock on the refrigerator door. But what changed his behavior was that I began to crate him when I went out. He has not raided the fridge since. Yet he could easily sneak in and do that while he's uncrated and I'm occupied outdoors or elsewhere in the house. Is he no longer wily? Or is he simply less anxious?

There's no convincing evidence I'm aware of, from any reputable behaviorist or psychologist, that suggests dogs can replicate human thought processes: use language, think in narrative and sequential terms, understand human minds, or share humans' range of emotions.

Yet that remains a powerful, pervasive view of dogs, the reason Heather's vet, trainer, and mother all agreed on Blue's motivations. It's almost impossible not to lapse into theory-of-mind reasoning when it comes to our dogs. After all, most of us have no other way in which to grasp another creature's behavior. How can one even begin to imagine what's going on inside a dog's head?

Most of the time, I don't know why my dogs do what they do. They seem aware that I have a way of doing things. They've learned that we don't walk in the street, that I don't distribute food from my plate, that there will be a bone or treat after dinner. But they are creatures of habit and instinct, especially when it comes to food, work, and attention. I often think of them as stuff-pots wedded to ritual, resistant and nervous about change.

I don't believe that dogs act out of spite or that they can plot retribution, though countless dog owners swear otherwise. To punish or deceive requires the perpetrator to understand that his victim or object has a particular point of view and to consciously work to manipulate or thwart it. That requires mental processes dogs don't have.

The more I've moved away from interpreting my dogs' behavior as nearly human, the easier it is to train them, and the less guilt and anxiety I feel.

To attribute complex thoughts and plots to their actions unravels the training process. Training and living with a dog requires a different theory: that these are primal, predatory animals driven by instinct. Rather than seeking animal clues to her dog's behavior, Heather imagined herself as the dog. She reasoned that if she, Heather, were suddenly left alone for long periods, abandoned by someone she loved and used to spend a lot of time with, she would feel angry and hurt and might try to get even, not only to punish her companion but to try to persuade him or her to return.

That's attributing a lot of intellectual activity to an animal that can recognize a few dozen words but has none of its own, that reads human emotions but doesn't experience the same ones. Since the Cornell behaviorist made sense to me, I conveyed his analysis: The dog didn't know how to behave with Heather gone. Crating Blue would reduce her anxiety and give her less chance to act up. I persuaded Heather—by now distraught—to buy a large crate. For weeks, she fed the dog in the crate, leaving the door open. Between meals, she left treats and bones inside.

The first time Heather closed the crate door, Blue threw herself against the metal, whining and howling. The same thing happened the second, third, fifth, and dozenth times. But Heather, cautioned that training and retraining often takes weeks and months, persisted. Sometimes she left the treat-filled crate open; other times she closed it.

After several weeks, Blue began to go into the crate willingly and remained there quietly for short, then lengthening periods. Heather walked Blue two or three times daily; when she was gone for more than three or four hours, she hired a dog walker to take her out an additional time and throw a ball. But whenever Heather left the house, she put Blue in the crate and left a nearby radio tuned to a talk network.

This time, Heather got it right, treating Blue as a dog, not a rebellious teenager. Blue improved dramatically, and the improvement continues. Her aggression diminished, then seemed to vanish, although Heather no longer lets her near dogs or children unleashed. It seemed the dog had comprehensible rules to follow, and felt safer.

Blue was liberated from the confusion, anxiety, and responsibility of figuring out what to do with her unsupervised and sudden freedom. Once again there was little tension between the two of them. Heather's house wasn't getting chewed up, and homecomings weren't tense and angry experiences. Yet here was a case, I thought, where seeing canine behavior in human terms nearly cost an animal its life.

Sometimes it does. Harry, a social worker in Los Angeles, wrote me that he had a great rescue dog named Rocket and was happy enough with the experience to adopt a second. Rocket attacked the new dog while Harry was feeding them, then bit a neighborhood kid. "He never forgave me for getting the new dog," Harry explained. "He was so angry with me. I couldn't trust him not to take out his rage on others, so I had him put to sleep."

We will never know, of course, what Rocket could or could not forgive. Rocket probably didn't attack the new dog out of anger at Harry. He was more likely protecting his food or pack position. The creature in the household with the most to lose from a new arrival, he probably simply fought for what he had. Then, once aroused, he was more dangerous. As trainers know, dogs under pressure have two options: fight or flight. Rocket decided to fight and paid for it with his life. Had his owner known more about dogs' true nature, he might have introduced the new dog more gradually, or not at all. And there might be one less bitten child. But this is all a guess. We will never know.

When I face such training problems—and I do, we all do—I try to adopt a Sherlock Holmesian strategy, using logic and determination. We have all sorts of tools at our disposal that dogs don't have. We control every aspect of their lives, from food to shelter to play, so we ought to be able to figure out what's driving the dog and come up with an individually tailored approach that works—and if it doesn't, come up with another one.

Why will Clementine come instantly if she's looking at me, but not if she's sniffing deer droppings? Is it because she's being stubborn or, as many people tell me, going through "adolescence"? Or because, when following her keen predatory instincts, she simply doesn't hear me? Should my response be to tug at her leash or yell? Maybe I should be sure we've established eye contact before I give her a command, or better yet, offer a liver treat as an alternative to whatever's distracting her. But how do I establish eye contact when her nose is buried? Can I cluck or bark? Use a whistle or hoot like an owl?

I've found that coughing, of all things, fascinates her, catches her attention, and makes her head swivel, after which she responds. If you walk with us, you will hear me clearing my throat repeatedly. What can I say? It works. She looks at me, comes to me, gets rewarded.

The reality is, we don't know that much about what dogs think, because they can't tell us. Behaviorists tend to believe that dogs "think" in their own way—in sensory images involving their finely honed instincts. They're not capable of deviousness or spite. They love routine: Nothing seems to make them more comfortable than doing the same thing at the same time in the familiar way, day after day: We snack here, we poop there, we play over here. I am astonished at how little it takes to please them, how simple their lives can be if we don't complicate them

Inside the science of how dogs think

Ever wonder what your dog is thinking as it gazes at you while you are barking commands?

Duke University's Canine Cognition Center in Durham, North Carolina, is one of the few labs in the country focused on how dogs think.

"We're excited about describing the psychology of our dogs," says professor Brian Hare, the lab's director. "Different dogs solve different problems differently. And what we want to understand is: What is it that either makes dogs remarkable as a species or what is it that constrains the ability of dogs to solve problems?"

To test the dogs' ability, Hare and a team of graduate students put dogs through a variety of games similar to those you might play with young children.

"We don't want to look at cute pet tricks. What we want to know is, what does the dog understand about its world?" Hare said.

Hare has been analyzing our four-legged friends for about 15 years. He says dogs have figured out how to read human behavior and human gestures better than any other species has, even chimpanzees.

"The way they think about their world is that people are superimportant and they can solve almost any problem if they rely on people," says Hare.

Children start relying on adults' gestures when they're about a year old. That's about the same age that dogs start to recognize and rely on humans, too, Hare says.

When both I and Hare tried to direct Hare's dog Tazzie to a cup that had a treat in it, Tazzie took his master's cue and went toward the cup. I was a stranger to Tazzie, so the dog didn't rely on my information.

"He's grown up with me," says Hare. "We do lots of stuff together. He's never met you before, so he's saying, look, if they're both telling me where to go, I'm going to trust the guy who I'm with all the time."

According to Hare, this proves dogs are complex social animals who understand they have different relationships with different people.

"They really narrow in and pay attention to you and they want to know what it is about the world that you can help them with," he says.

Researchers at Duke are studying dogs to better understand their limitations. If they can identify why dogs make mistakes, they believe they can help them improve. That could mean making dogs better at working with people with disabilities or better at working with the military.

"They are a very different species and they think about the world differently than we do. And we need to figure out what are the constraints on how they solve problems, how is it that they think differently from us. And I think that we're going to be able to have a much, even richer relationship with dogs than we already do if we figure all that out," says Hare.

The professor says even though domestication has made dogs smarter, they are not perfect. Still, they're so smart, he says, that they can understand the principle of connectivity.

"They know they're connected on a leash and [dogs reason] 'Well, now I have to listen, because if I don't do what you say you can stop me. Where if I'm ... not on a leash, well, yeah, I know the command but I don't have to listen to you now,'" explains Hare.

And just like children, dogs also understand that if you turn your back, they can misbehave, especially after their owners have told them not to do something.

"Your dog takes the food you just told it not to take, and you're really upset because your dog disobeyed you, and you think that your dog is not obedient. Well, no, no, no, your dog was obedient but it realized that it could get away with it," says Hare.

At the end of the day, dogs may rely on humans, but they also use their skills to manipulate their owners and the world they live in. And even though dog owners like to think they're in command, the professor says it may actually be Fido who is really in charge.

Thinking about Dogs as If They Were People: Is Anthropomorphism a Sin?

I recently gave a talk to an audience of scientists and university professors during which I referred to the "personality" of dogs and the fact that dogs can experience emotions such as love and disgust. One well known animal researcher rose and accused me of excessive "anthropomorphizing." In everyday language he was suggesting that I was treating dogs as if they were simply four-footed people in fur coats. Among people who study dogs or any other animal this is considered to be a cardinal sin. The word anthropomorphism comes from comes from the Greek words anthro for human and morph for form and it is meant to refer to the habit of attributing human qualities and emotions to non-human beings. It is something that we humans do quite automatically.

This accusation of anthropomorphism on my part reminded me of a conversation that I had with Donald O. Hebb in the early 1980's. He was a brilliant psychologist whose research first gave us anunderstanding about how interactions with the environment actually help to change the structure of an individual's brain. Hebb had finished giving a series of lectures at the university and we were now sitting in a colleague's living room chatting. As I reconstruct his comments in my mind they started after I mentioned to Hebb that I was thinking about writing a book on the intelligence of dogs and then perhaps following it up with a book on the personality of dogs.

He smiled and said in his gentle Nova Scotia accent, "You'll get into trouble with your scientific associates if you use words like 'personality' or 'intelligence' to describe the results of research on dogs. They'll accuse you of 'anthropomorphizing.' Most likely they will assume that you are some soft-headed thinker who believes that animals are pretty much just fur-covered humans that think and act the way people do. It'll probably do your career more harm than good." He took off his rather severe looking glasses and wiped them absentmindedly as he continued.

"Back in the 1940's I worked for two years in the Yerkes Primate Research Laboratory trying to describe the temperaments of some of the captive chimpanzees that they used for behavioral research. At the time there was official prohibition against using anthropomorphic descriptions in the scientific reports of any animal research completed there. I certainly never would have dared to use the word 'personality' in talking about a chimp. I was told that that even to say something like 'that animal was afraid' was not good practice since it hinted that the animal felt fear the way that humans do. Instead I was expected to simply describe the conditions that might have stimulated behaviors and then to describe those behaviors objectively. Like when I showed chimps a life-sized model of a human head with no body attached, I was supposed to say that the animal ran to the back of the cage and cowered down and screamed or whimpered, instead of simply saying that 'the animals were frightened by sight of certain unusual or strange objects.' To hint that the animal was 'afraid' would have been considered to be anthropomorphizing.

"Well the truth of the matter is that when I did try to objectively describe the temperaments and behavior patterns of the animals without using the words we use to describe human emotions all that I ended up with was a giant mess. I mean all that I had created was this immense list of specific acts and specific situations. You really couldn't find any order, pattern or meaning in that kind of data. Unfortunately at the practical level, focusing attention only on specific acts and behaviors was also a bit dangerous. A couple of times I was so caught up in recording behavior descriptions that I missed the animal signalling that it was annoyed or unhappy with me, and I nearly had some fingers bitten off--or worse.

"While I was going through all of this, I couldn't help but notice that the staff or keepers (you know the people who cared for the animals on a daily basis and who don't have advanced degrees and don't need to worry about research purity) didn't seem to have any problems. They used the same kind of intuition that we normally use when we observe the behavior of people. Because of that they could describe one animal as having a 'dominant personality,' another as being 'nervous,' another was considered to be 'a friendly beast,' still another was 'shy' and there was even one that they claimed was 'bashful.' These were clearly anthropomorphic statements which suggested that, like people, the animals had distinct and individual personalities and that you could use their personalities to predict the animals' future behaviors.

"If I were trying to be a totally objective researcher, especially given the scientific attitudes of that time, I should have rejected their statements as speculative, anthropomorphic, nonsense, but to be truthful I didn't. You see, the words that the animal care staff used to characterize the behaviors of those animals were useful and helpful. When they described an animal in this way to a newcomer (or even to a psychologist who was not too arrogant to listen) this 'personality' information allowed that person to predict how the animal would respond and to safely interact with it.

"Their anthropomorphic descriptions obviously suggested that each animal had certain attitudes and behavior predispositions. It also implied that each animal experienced predictable emotional changes. Whether this is so or not I can't say, but it did provide an intelligible and practical guide to the behavior of those animals. It clearly worked with the chimps, and I think that it should work with any animal including dogs."

If Hebb were still alive today I believe that he would be pleased with research which has accumulated in the last 20 years indicating that in some ways dogs are very much like humans-at least very young ones. Research suggests that the mind of a dog has much the same mental abilities and is roughly equivalent to the mind of a human child aged 2 to 2 ½ years of age. This means that a bit of anthropomorphizing, or thinking about dogs in the same way we think about humans actually turns out to be useful.

I am not suggesting that dogs are simply hairy little humans, but rather that thinking about the behaviors of dogs in the same way that we think about the behaviors of young humans can help us to understand and predict the behavior of dogs as long as we restrict the scope of our thinking. If we use as a starting point the fact that behaviors and abilities of dogs are apt to be similar to that of a 2 ½ year old human, then talking about basic emotions in canines, like love and fear is sensible. If we accept the fact that dogs, like toddlers, have personalities, in the sense that they also have consistent predispositions to act in certain ways, then we can use the same kind of thinking that we use with people to predict canine behaviors. This is not anthropomorphism it is simply common sense that recognizes those similarities that exist between the mind of a person and the mind of a dog.

Seizures (Epileptic) in Dogs

Epilepsy, Idiopathic or Genetic, in Dogs

Epilepsy is a brain disorder that causes the dog to have sudden, uncontrolled, recurring physical attacks, with or without loss of consciousness. This may sometimes occur for unknown reasons (idiopathic) or due to genetic abnormalities. However, idiopathic epilepsy is often characterized by structural brain lesions and is more likely seen in male dogs. If left untreated, the seizures may become more severe and frequent.

Symptoms and Types

Seizures are usually preceded by a short aura (or focal onset). When this occurs the dog may appear fightened and dazed, or it may hide or seek attention. One the seizure(s) begin, the dog will fall on its side, become stiff, chomp its jaw, salivate profusely, urinate, defecate, vocalize, and/or paddle with all four limbs. These seizure activities generally last between 30 and 90 seconds.

Seizures most often occur while the patient is resting or asleep, often at night or in early morning. In addition, most dogs recover by the time you bring the dog to the veterinarian for examination.

Generally, the younger the dog is, the more severe the epilepsy will be. As a rule, when onset is before age 2, the condition responds positively to medication. Behavior following the seizure, known as postictal behavior, include periods of confusion and disorientation, aimless wandering, compulsive behavior, blindness, pacing, increased thirst (polydipsia) and increased appetite (polyphagia). Recovery following the seizure may be immediate, or it may take up to 24 hours.

Dogs with established epilepsy can have cluster seizures at regular intervals of one to four weeks. This is particularly evident in large-breed dogs.

Causes

Idiopathic epilepsy is genetic in many dog breeds and is familial; meaning that it runs in certain families or lines of animals. Breeds most prone to idiopathic epilepsy include the Beagle, Keeshond, Belgian Tervuren, Golden Retriever,Labrador Retriever, Vizsla and Shetland Sheepdog. Multiple genes and recessive modes of inheritance are suggested in the Bernese Mountain Dog andLabrador Retriever, while non-gender hormone recessive traits has been proposed in the Vizsla and Irish Wolfhound. There are also recessive traits in the English Springer Spaniel which can lead to epilepsy, but it does not appear to affect all members of the family. Seizures are mainly focal (involving localized areas of the brain) in the Finnish Spitz.

The characteristics associated with genetic epilepsy usually manifests from 10 months to 3 years of age, but has been reported as early as six months and as late as five years.

Diagnosis

The two most important factors in the diagnosis of idiopathic epilepsy is the age at onset and the seizure pattern (type and frequency). If your dog has more than two seizures within the first week of onset, your veterinarian will probably consider a diagnosis other than idiopathic epilepsy. If the seizures occur when the dog is younger than six months or older than five years, it may be metabolic or intracrainal (within the skull) in origin; this will rule out hypoglycemia in older dogs. Focal seizures or the presence of neurologic deficits, meanwhile, indicate structural intracranial disease.

Treatment

Most of the treatment is outpatient. It is recommended that the dog does not attempt to swim, to prevent accidental drowning white it undergoes treatment. Be aware that most dogs on long-term antiepileptic or anticonvulsant medications become overweight. Therefore, monitor its weight closely and consult your veterinarian for a diet plan if necessary.

Living and Management

It is essential to monitor therapeutic levels of drugs in the blood. Dogs treated with phenobarbital, for instance, must have their blood and serum chemistry profile monitored after initiating therapy during the second and forth week. These drug levels will then be evaluated every 6 to 12 months, changing the serum levels accordingly.

Carefully monitor older dogs with kidney insufficiency that are on potassium bromide treatment; your veterinarian may recommend a diet change for these dogs.

Prevention

Because this form of epilepsy is due to genetic abnormalities, there is little you can due to prevent them. However, the abrupt discontinuation of medication(s) to control seizures may aggravate or initiate seizures. Additionally, avoid salty treats for dogs treated with potassium bromide, as it may lead to seizures.

Living With Your Epileptic Dog

Helpful Hints - Originally compiled by Lisa Comeau

The following is a compilation of ideas, or hints, for people living with an epileptic dog. They are split into three problem areas -- Giving Medications, During the Seizure, and Safety. Nothing here is meant to be medical advice -- these are only things that other people with epileptic dogs have done to make their dog's life and their lives easier and safer. Not every idea will work for every dog, these are just suggestions you may want to try should the particular situation arise.

Credit for this list is be given to the members of Epil-K9 which was started in the spring of 1996. Epil-K9 is an invaluable forum for owners to share problems, ideas, fears, successes and sorrows with people that truly understand.

Giving Medications:

- Many dogs on Phenobarbital gain weight - giving medication with food may make this worse

- Take a paper cup of water and get the dog to drink a couple laps. Open their mouth really wide and pop the pills in as far back as you can. A few more sips of water and the pills are down. This also stops the dry throat - hack the pill up later syndrome.

- If you don't like putting your fingers in the dog's mouth, inexpensive pill guns can be purchased at many pet stores and vet offices.

- Try lightly blowing at the dog's nose or rubbing the throat to get them to swallow.

- A kiss on the forehead and telling the dog how brave they are is a must after pill-time.

- If you have only one animal in the house and one with a good appetite? Use an automatic cat feeder to dispense meds with dinner when you can't be home to give them.

- Make a 'meatball' which is about 3/4 inch in diameter and consists of canned dog food and the pills.

- Wrap the pill in a piece of cheese.

- Liquid potassium bromide (Kbr) can be given right on the food or squirted on a small piece of bread and given. Use a baby medication dropper or syringe to measure the amount.

- Pill splitters and crushers are available at most pharmacies. If you must divide the dose into an odd amount, crush the pill and use a razor blade to divide the amounts into the number of doses needed.

- To remember to give the medication, check out the pill containers available at your local pharmacy. A weeks worth of medication can be prepared in advance, and the question of "did I give it or didn't I" can be answered with one look at the medication dispenser. Some even have alarms to remind you a dosage is due.

- Keeping medication with you at all times may be important if your dog seizures frequently. Small fanny packs or ID wallets can even be attached to the dogs collar. Extra Phenobarbital, oral valium, and even liquid Valium can be carried by the dog when away from home.

During the Seizure:

- Some dogs are light or sound sensitive during seizure episodes. Try dimming the lights and keeping phones at a distance from the dog.

- Keep old towels or baby diapers handy to catch urine if your dog urinates during seizures.

- Some human epileptics say they have an easier time if the seizure is allowed to run its course. Calling the dog's name to bring them out of the seizure may not be the best thing for your dog. Try it each way and see which is more comfortable for your particular dog's seizure.

- A fan blowing on the dog, or rubbing the feet and belly with cool water may help cool the dog down. Of course, in any case should the dog seem to be overheating due to repeated seizures or not coming out of a seizure -IMMEDIATELY bring the dog to/or contact a vet since overheating can be very dangerous.

- Many dogs are confused and even blind right after a seizure. Keep the dog in a safe area where they cannot fall down stairs or hurt themselves.

- Keep a careful journal of the seizures. As soon as possible write down the exact time the dog started to seizure and the time the seizure ended. A stop watch or watch with a second hand can be helpful. After the seizure is over and you have time - write down all circumstances surrounding the seizure, such as unusual food eaten, activities that happened during the previous day, medications or vaccinations recently given. A detailed journal can be helpful when bringing your dog to a new vet or neurologist.

- Be prepared to transport a dog that cannot stand up and walk, or is even in the middle of a seizure. Hard plastic children's sleds can be used to carry or drag the dog to the car. A heavy blanket folded can also act as a stretcher. If you are alone with a very heavy/large seizing dog, call the vets office for instructions. Depending on where you live you may want to try calling the police for help in getting the dog into the car if no one else is available.

Safety:

- Seizure proofing your home is important since most of us cannot be there to watch our dogs at all times. Seizures may occur when the dog is home alone. Many people crate their dogs while they are not there. An airline type crate (Vari-Kennel or Furrari) minimizes the chances of the feet getting caught up in the wires.

- While crating, or even when leaving the dog home alone, make sure the dog is not wearing a collar (especially with tags) that could get caught while the dog is thrashing. Choking can result.

- Some people make a special room for the epileptic dog, clearing out any objects/furniture that may injure the dog during a seizure. Crating or making a 'doggy room' may be the best idea should you have a 'catapulting dog', that is one that throws itself across the room during seizures.

- Never leave an epileptic dog alone near any water deep enough to drown in. If you need to, investigate getting a doggy lifevest for your dog.

- If you are concerned about your dog seizing while swimming, doggie life vests are available.

- Protection or separation may need to be considered in multiple dog households. A seizing dog can trigger the 'pack' instinct in which an injured animal on the ground is attacked. Monitor your dogs until you know their reactions to the seizing dog.

- Baby gates can be invaluable to block off stairways or confine the dog to a certain room.

- Be careful of leaving windows open should you have a dog that spends time near one. Screen windows can easily fall out of the framing as well as your dog.

- Prop a large piece of styrofoam insulation against a sliding glass door if you are afraid of your dog hitting against it.

- Buy a new or used baby alert monitor to 'hear' your dog if he sleeps in a different part of the home. Just put the receiver part in your bedroom -this may help you sleep better if you are constantly trying to 'listen' to hear if the dog is all right.

- If you really want to know what happens when you are not home, buy a voice activated tape recorder. It only records when significantly loud noise is heard. This will not only let you know if your dog has seized, but if he has been barking all day. Some also videotape their dog during the time they are gone. They then fast forward thru the tape to see if anything unusual has happened during the day.

- Keep phone numbers to your vet and all emergency vet hospitals near all phones. 2:00 a.m. in the morning is not he time to decide if your dog is in status and then figure out what to do. Drive by the emergency vet so you know exactly where it is. When traveling, get emergency numbers in advance or immediately find the hospital nearest you when you arrive. Keep the number handy at all times.

- An ID tag on a lost epileptic dog is very important. It's scary enough to think of a lost dog, but a lost dog without medications is even worse. Medical alert tags are available at most pharmacies, pet supply catalogs or from your vet. It can even be engraved and worn with your dog's regular tags.

- Train all your dogs for basic obedience. You may need it someday if you are walking multiple dogs and your epileptic seizures. The situation would be much easier if the other dogs will obey a sit or down stay.

Dog Training : dog nightmares

Question

QUESTION: My normally friendly 5 month old mixed breed dog has nightmares at times, and he is getting very large! He just woke from a nightmare and ran at my husband, growling in a very protective, aggressive way, and only stopped upon hearing us call his name to calm him down. Acted chagrinned, apologized , and promptly went back to sleep. My husband is not especially keen on aggressive dogs (who is?), and is not comfortable at ALL with this behavior. Any ideas? The pup is a rescue (but we got him 8 weeks ago....no bad experiences, traumas here, that we can think of). He's awoken sort of like this twice before, but when he was less intimidating. Kind of hallucinating-like. Can this be related in some way to some kind of hormone surge (puppy puberty?)

ANSWER: Is there a common trigger for all 3 incidents? Was someone walking by his bed, or was he possibly startled out of sleep by a loud noise? Let me know if this is the case and I can offer suggestions to help.

However, if he's waking himself out of a sound sleep with no outside stimulus that's apparent, I would highly recommend you get him to a vet ASAP. The "nightmare" you think you're seeing could actually be a seizure. There are are number of causes of seizures that can manifest in aggression and your vet may refer you to a neurologist. 

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: thank you. upon further thought, the one common thing is that upon waking, he "sees" something looming, and out of place. there were piles of materials placed over my husbands prone head when the dog awoke, and it seems to be THOSE that he (the dog) was aggresive towards. Another time, it was a stuffed christmas thingy, placed high on a wardrobe, and he did the same thing, ....growling and barking, all puffed up, at the stuffed snowman...it took taking it down, introducing him to it, letting him touch it and sniff it, to calm him down. my husband thinks he may have some trouble with his vision, i will be taking him to a vet to have that checked out. thanks for your input, elena

Can dogs have nightmares?

You are watching your adorable fur ball calmly sleeping on your bed. The dog would twitch one leg… and then the other while making a soft snoring sound. Cute! Suddenly the dog is shaking the head, rolling the eyes, breathing laboriously and making a pitiful whining sound. Gosh, is the dog having a seizure… or is the dog having a nightmare? Various studies conducted on canine behavior have proven that dogs are thinking animals. As such they are capable of dreaming and of having nightmares.

Scientists tell us that everybody dreams. Some people would not really remember if they are dreaming or what they are dreaming about. Dreams are said to be the brain’s way of processing and consolidating information and experiences the sleeper has gone through. As dreams center on unexplainable themes at times, dreams are believed to be nothing more that the brain’s illogical and random activity.

Nightmares are pretty much the same as dreams. Both occur during the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep. However, unlike dreams that are oftentimes happy experiences, nightmares would commonly make the sleeper’s heart race. The nightmare would create fear, anxiety and a feeling of helplessness. Humans and dogs are believed to have striking similarities. Human and dog are believed to be about 95% similar in genetics. However, a dog’s nightmare may not be considered by the dog as an unpleasant experience. Although dogs are considered to be thinking animals, it is highly possible that the dog would not even remember what the nightmare is all about. Nightmares especially recurring ones would be harder on the pet owner rather than on the dog.

Concerned owners would try to understand what causes the nightmare. Owners would even try to know the possible ways to handle the nightmares in order to help the pet. Dogs, like humans would progress from light sleep or the non-rapid eye movement stage to deep sleep or the rapid eye movement stage of sleep. Dreams and nightmares generally occur in the REM stage although it can also happen during the other stages of sleep. Humans may know the reason for their nightmares. The bad dream may be associated with post traumatic experiences. Depression, anxiety, mental disorders can be the reasons why a person would have nightmares. What about a dog? Canines are intelligent creatures. Dogs are one of the most studied animals. However, no one would really know what runs inside the brain of man’s best friend. No one would know why dogs have dreams and nightmares. Surprisingly, bad dreams seldom occur in dogs with post traumatic experiences. Nightmares are seldom noticed on abused and abandoned dogs as well. Nightmares are more often seen on puppies and in older dogs. This refutes the theory that nightmare is caused by a post traumatic experience.

It may be heart rending to see the pet having a nightmare but it would not be wise to interrupt the sleep of the dog. Waking up the dog may create more confusion. In any case, it may be hard to awaken the dog that is on the REM stage of sleep. Calling the pet’s name or talking softly may help the pet snap from the nightmare. Recurring nightmare can be a manifestation of a medical concern. It would be best to take the dog to the vet for proper diagnoses. Although there are tranquilizers and anxiety medications that can help dogs with recurring nightmares, the medications must not be used unless prescribed by the vet.