Learning from Dogs

A wonderful news item from the BBC from their China ‘desk’.

Some dog run! All 1,700 kilometres across China

Here’s how it was presented on the BBC News website.

A stray dog has completed a 1700km journey across China after joining a cycle race from Sichuan province to Tibet.

The dog, nicknamed “Xiaosa”, joined the cyclists after one of them gave him food.

He ran with them for 20 days, covering up to 60km a day, and climbing 12 mountains.

Cyclist Xiao Yong started a blog about Xiaosa’s adventures, which had attracted around 40,000 fans by the end of the race.

Yong now hopes to adopt Xiaosa.

Luckily, someone smart grabbed the BBC footage and uploaded it to YouTube thus allowing me to include that below:

I did several Google searches for Xiao Yong’s blog but failed to come across it – never mind, it doesn’t detract from a delightful story this Memorial Day week-end here in America.

A rather overdue posting.

Back on April 2nd this year, I posted a piece called I am your dog!  The item was motivated by coming across a personal reflection of the relationship that I had, and still have, with Pharaoh, my German Shepherd dog, back in 2007 when I was still living in England; I met Jean in Mexico Christmas 2007!

Among the many comments was one from Perfect Stranger who writes the fabulous blog Dogs of Doubt.  He said in his comment,

Hi Paul, I do believe this comment belongs on this post … two videos, part of a true story about an Aussie dog, a modern day “Dog on the Tucker Box”, a true blue friend to an entire town who eventually ended up building him a statue … yeah, not “it” but “HIM”.

First video shows you how tough Aussies animals are ,, watch the fight, it’s awesome, I laugh every time I watch it. they say it really happened.

Second video is the trailer for “Red Dog” – The Pilbara Wanderer!  , hope you get to see the movie

I promised to make that comment a post all on it’s own right – then promptly forgot!  So apologies and here are those two movies.

A delightful contribution from a guest author.

Dear readers, from time to time I am approached by other authors who have flattered me by asking if I would like to publish their Blog posts from time to time.  So I have been doubly flattered by having two authors contact me in the last week.

So to the first.  It is with great pleasure that I welcome Jane Brackman, Ph.D., author of the blog Doctor Barkman Speaks who will, from time to time, republish her posts on Learning from Dogs. I have no doubt that you will enjoy her scientific expertise regarding dogs

So today, please enjoy …

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HOW DOGS THINK – NEW SCIENCE LOOKS INSIDE THEIR MINDS WITH MRI IMAGING

A couple of smart guys, Gregory Berns and Andrew Brooks of Emory University, watching a military dog assist Navy Seals as they overran the Osama Bin Laden compound, got a brilliant idea.  If you can teach dogs to jump out of helicopters, surely dogs could be trained to enjoy themselves inside an fMRI machine while scientists calculate what the dogs are thinking by scanning their brains.

The researchers, who are dog-lovers, explained, “We want to understand the dog-human relationship, from the dog’s perspective.  From the outset, we wanted to ensure the safety and comfort of the dogs.  We wanted them to be unrestrained and go into the scanner willingly.“

So they recruited a professional dog trainer, Mark Spivak, and two companion dogs, a Feist Terrier named Callie and a Border Collie named McKenzie.  The team said that both dogs were trained over several months to walk into an fMRI scanner and hold completely still while researchers measured their brain activity.

This is what the researchers wrote in the journal article that was published in PLOS last week:

Because of dogs’ prolonged evolution with humans, many of the canine cognitive skills are thought to represent a selection of traits that make dogs particularly sensitive to human cues. But how does the dog mind actually work? To develop a methodology to answer this question, we trained two dogs to remain motionless for the duration required to collect quality fMRI images by using positive reinforcement without sedation or physical restraints. The task was designed to determine which brain circuits differentially respond to human hand signals denoting the presence or absence of a food reward.

Eventually they hope to answer the more profound questions we all ask:  Do dogs have empathy? Do they know when we are happy or sad?  How much language do they really understand?”  (And here’s one from me- When they pee on the carpet and we don’t find it until the next day, when we scold them do they know why we are scolding them?)

Or read the entire scholarly article here:

Berns, Gregory, Brooks, Andrew and Spivak, Mark, Functional MRI in Awake Unrestrained Dogs (April 27, 2012). 

Jane Brackman, Ph. D.

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Well, I don’t know about you but I found this a most fascinating article.  All of us who live around dogs, both physically and emotionally, sense the closeness, may I use the word ‘magic’, of the relationships.

Take a look at the photograph below.  Until I left the UK in 2008, a few of us owned a lovely old Piper Super Cub.  It was a joy to fly.  I used frequently to take Pharaoh to the grass airfield, Watchford Farm, up on the Devon moors.  One day he showed such interest in the aircraft that I lifted him up to the passenger’s seat, strapped him in and taxied all over the grass airfield.  This picture shows something that is difficult to explain otherwise – Pharaoh’s real joy at sharing the adventure.  Of course, I didn’t fly with him, that would have been a step too far, but we did taxi almost up to take-off speed.  Dr. Barkman, what do you make of that?

Watchford Farm, Devon, July 2006.

A pictorial explanation of a dog’s working world – big thanks to Gordon for forwarding them!

With big thanks to Rich S. for forwarding these to me – enjoy!

And a little closer to home ….

A picture of Pharaoh as a young puppy in the arms of Sandra Tucker, the owner of Jutone, German Shepherd breeders in Devon, SW England.

Pharaoh, aged 9 weeks, picture taken on the 12th August, 2003.

Compared to a picture of Cleo as a young puppy in the arms of Jean here in Payson.

Cleo, aged 8 weeks, picture taken 4th April, 2012

And closing with a picture of Cleo taken yesterday.

Cleo, coming up to 14 weeks.

Humour at its best!

Take a couple of minutes off and bury our crazy world with a laugh.  With big thanks to Dan Gomez for forwarding on what had been sent to him by Greg H.

Now 19 days since our young German Shepherd puppy joined us.

On the 9th April, I wrote a Post about the arrival of young Cleo who became part of our family on the 8th.  Here’s a couple of photographs from that Post.

Little bit of bonding going on!

Welcome, young lady. I'm the boss around here!

So here are a couple more taken yesterday afternoon, the 25th. Cleo was weighed last Monday and was 28 lbs, some 6 lbs gain since the 8th.

Two very loving ladies!

Pharaoh and Cleo already inseparable.

Must say that Cleo has settled in very well with her other four pack mates. Indeed, Cleo, like Sweeny, mixes easily with all the other dogs, not just Pharaoh’s group.

Taking a rest from the serious stuff!

The first picture comes from Merci O. from here in Payson.

Lost for words!

The next two are from the camera of ‘yours truly’.

Tough work being a puppy!

Cleo has settled in so beautifully and we can’t believe that these two weeks have gone so quickly.

Finally, talking of settling in, our five young chicks have reached the stage where they could be housed outside in their new chicken house, the move taking place just five days ago.

Welcome to your new home, young chick!

With grateful thanks to Alanna B. for sending me the details of this tragic case!

DOG FOR  SALE:

New home needed for this wonderful animal.

A guy is driving around the back streets of Bristol, England.

He sees a sign in front of an unkempt terraced house: ‘Talking Dog For Sale‘, so he rings the bell and the owner appears and tells him the dog is in the garden.

The guy goes into the backyard and sees a nice looking Labrador retriever sitting there.

‘You talk?‘ he asks.

‘Yep,’ the Lab replies.

After the guy recovers from the shock of hearing a dog talk, he says ‘So, what’s your story?‘

The Lab looks up and says, ‘Well, I discovered that I could talk when I was pretty young.. I wanted to help the government, so I told the SAS.   [Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army, Ed.]

In no time at all they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping.‘

‘I was one of their most valuable spies for eight years running…

But the jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn’t getting any younger so I decided to settle down. I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security, wandering near suspicious characters and listening in. I uncovered some incredible dealings and was awarded a batch of medals.’

‘Then I got married, had a load of puppies, and now I’m just retired.‘

The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.

‘Ten quid,’ the guy says.

‘Ten quid? This dog is amazing! Why on earth are you selling him so cheap?‘

‘Because he’s a liar. He’s never been out of the garden all his life!’

It's the way I tell 'em!

The arrival of Cleo brings us back to eleven dogs.

Way back in 2003 when I became the proud ‘Dad’ of Pharaoh, my German Shepherd dog that you see on the home page of Learning from Dogs, Sandra Tucker who ran the GSD Breeders Jutone, where Pharaoh was born, gave me some advice.  Sandra said that when Pharaoh was getting on in life, then bring in a German Shepherd puppy.  Apparently, there were two solid reasons why this made sense.  The first was that Pharaoh would teach the new puppy many of the skills and disciplines that Pharaoh had learnt as a young dog and, secondly, the puppy would keep Pharaoh active.

Now we know this to be true because years later when Pharaoh had his own mini pack here in Payson, we introduced a new ‘rescue’ puppy called Sweeny.  Pharaoh took an instant like to him and became very tolerant to Sweeny’s ‘games’.

Hi! I'm Pharaoh, going to be my buddy? (February, 2011)

But as adorable as Sweeny is, Jean understood the deep reasons why I always wanted a German Shepherd in our lives.  So when a chance encounter in Payson Feed Store between Jean and Brendon S. revealed that Brendon had a litter of German Shepherd puppies for sale, just a couple of miles outside Payson, the temptation was irresistible!

Thus a few days ago, Jean and I went round to Brendon’s home and spent a couple of hours mingling with the puppies and their GSD mother.  They all looked excellent dogs and a review of their blood lines showed that their genetic background included German stock not too far back.  It was difficult to select any one pup as they were all wonderful animals.  But one youngster seemed to catch Jean’s eye.

Little bit of bonding going on!

Then the next test was to introduce Pharaoh to the puppies.  That took place last Friday and it was wonderful to see how well he coped with the onslaught of puppies!

More puppies that one could shake a stick at!

In the end, we ran out of reasons not to follow Sandra’s advice from all those years ago and we agreed terms on a young female GSD that, inevitably, was christened Cleopatra (Cleo) by Jean!

Cleo meet your new Mum!

Then yesterday, Saturday, we went back round to collect young Cleo, meeting Brendan’s wife Ebony in the process.  The following photographs record some of the key moments.

Homeward bound to a new life!

Next step is to meet the gang!

Welcome, young lady. I'm the boss around here!

It's my pool but you can use it!

Hey Sweeny, fancy having one's own woods to play in!

She'll do! Nice addition to my family!

So there we are.  Back up to eleven dogs, five chickens, six cats, and a fish!

Finally, a big thanks to Sandra of Jutone for her guidance in the last few days.