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.

The second fascinating contribution from a guest author.

On Monday I mentioned that I had been approached by two authors who wanted to share their articles with the readers of Learning from Dogs and on that day I published a guest post from Dr. Jane Brackman.  Today, I’m delighted to share with you the thoughts of the second of those authors, Kylie Dunning, who describes herself as a writer who holds a strong passion for Psychology, especially in the field of Forensics.  She is a lover of animals and an avid hiker in her spare time.

Trainer Julio Simuel (left) watches as his student “Walker” gets congratulations from admirers following a graduation ceremony at Nash Correctional Institution last Wednesday.

Here now follows Kylie’s essay,

Psychology of Healing: Dogs and Inmate Rehabilitation

In 1981, Sister Pauline Quinn envisioned  a prison pet partnership program where inmates would train dogs for people with disabilities. Designed to benefit unwanted dogs, the inmates, and the future dog owners, the program was initiated in the Washington state prison for women. The success of the program led to dog training programs in prisons all over the country and has since become part of the material in forensic psychology programs and criminal rehabilitation programs.

Male and female inmates train anywhere from three to fifty dogs at a time for adoption into new families, as service animals, and sometimes for specialized purposes such as bomb-sniffing. There are other benefits. The prisoners who worked as trainers hope to find jobs in animal care as soon as they leave prison. Others, serving longer sentences, are given a sense of purpose and an improved outlook. Psychologically, having a dog to care for serves as a form of therapy and decreases depression, and it brings out good qualities in the inmates, even improving their attitude toward each other.

The Nash Correctional Institution in North Carolina has a program called “New Leash on Life,” in partnership with Southern Siberia Rescue, which pays for all the food and medical treatment for the dogs. Three dogs at a time are trained for eight weeks, then offered for adoption. Jerome Peterson, who has served 19 years for a second-degree murder charge, is one of the trainers. He says that teaching the dogs has taught him compassion and made him a better man. “You have to be patient with the dogs,” he explained. “Some have been abused, and some were left stranded.” He says that though only six of the inmates train the dogs, all 980 of the inmates at the medium-security prison benefit from the program. “A lot of guys wake up mad at the world for no reason,” he said. “When they see the dogs, they get happy — excited. Their whole demeanor just changes.”

Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas, a combined medium- and maximum-security prison, has a population of 2,500 criminals. Their Safe Harbor Prison Dog Program rescues dogs from death row. About 50 of them are trained by about 100 inmates on any given day. So far, about 1,200 dogs of all breeds and ages have found new homes under the program. Inmate Jerry McMullin trains his dogs in 15-minute intervals four times a day, rewarding them with treats he buys for 45 cents a pound at the canteen (out of the dollar a day he earns at his prison job—prisoners aren’t paid for training the dogs). “You don’t want to work with them too long or they stop paying attention. They get bored,” he says. “I use no force or fear, positive reinforcement only.” Inmates like Pete Spencer will go to lengths to help troubled dogs. “I had one who was so physically abused, he had no trust in humans,” Spencer says. “I slept on the floor with him for a month to get his trust and then I taught him commands.”

The inmates can see positive changes from working with dogs. Spencer says of his fellow inmate, “When I first met (McMullin), he was … well, pretty grouchy,” Spencer says. “Now he’s more open and alive and he has a positive outlook.” Other work programs can help prepare inmates for a job after release, but working with dogs may psychologically be a more effective way to rehabilitate them. With prison populations stressing already taxed resources, and the more and more animals in need of homes, the use of dog training programs in prisons is more than a happy accident. It is a creative way of using state resources to do real and lasting change in society.

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Well what another wonderfully interesting guest post.  Thank you, Kylie.  More please!

Using details in Kylie’s article, it was very easy to find this video, plus the photograph at the head of the article came from the Southern Siberian Rescue website.

Homeless dogs are getting special help from inmates.  The Columbia County Sheriff’s Office has launched their own “New Leash on Life” program that benefits inmates at the Columbia County Jail and the dogs.

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.

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.

A remarkable story about two very clever men and an equally clever dog!

Five days ago, I received an email from a Richard Hake quite out of the blue!  This is what it said,

Dear Paul Handover,

I’m taking the liberty of cc’ing this to Tim Pennings since he may be interested in your blog “Learning from Dogs.”
As founding author of the great blog “Learning from Dogs”, I thought you might be interested in the work of Tim Pennings.
Paraphrasing from the Hope College website:

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Tim Pennings is a professor of mathematics at Hope College and owner of a famous Welsh Corgi dog, Elvis, who knows calculus. He has given over a hundred talks – including several speaking tours – based on his papers “Do Dogs Know Calculus?” [Pennings (2003)] and “Do Dogs Know Bifurcations?” [Minton & Pennings (2007)]. Articles about Elvis are easily found on Google and Youtube. For example:
1. “A Dog, a Ball, and Calculus” Ivars Peterson’s MathTrek,
2. “Calculating Dogs” Ivars Peterson’s MathTrek ,
3. “Dog Plays Fetch With Calculus” YouTube (see below)
4. “Elvis The Calculus Dog at Roanoke College” Vime0 Videos.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Regards,

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands
President, PEdants for Definitive Academic References which Recognize the Invention of the Internet (PEDARRII)

Well what fun!

Let me start with that YouTube video mentioned above:

Tim Pennings of Hope College in Madison, Wisconsin takes a look at the mathematics his dog Elvis uses to play fetch.

And here are a number of wonderful pictures of Elvis from which comes this one:

Elvis: Professor Tim Pennings' dog.

More may be learnt about Tim Pennings from here, from which I quote:

I am a professor of mathematics at Hope College. My areas of research and writing include dynamical systems (the shadowing property in particular), mathematical modeling, and the infinite. I have directed the Mathematics REU Site since 1995 and have mentored research students almost every year since 1990. A complete list of published papers, talks, and other professional activity is included in my vitae.

My interest in infinity stems from my intrigue with the rich stuff that lies in the confluence of mathematics, physics, philosophy, and theology. My paper, “Infinity and the Absolute: Insights into Our World, Our Faith, and Ourselves” is the backbone of my senior seminar course, Pondering the Big Questions. Several other math-theology papers, published in Perspectives include “A Life Lesson from Calculus” and “Haggai, Mathematical Dynamics, and the Nature of Good and Evil”.

I have a famous Welsh Corgi dog, Elvis, who knows calculus. Here are some pictures of us. We have given over a hundred talks – including several speaking tours – based on our papers “Do Dogs Know Calculus?” and “Do Dogs Know Bifurcations?” (written with Roland Minton) both published in the The College Mathematics Journal of the MAA. Articles about Elvis are easily found on Google and Youtube.

Finally, the author of the email, Richard Hake, is no slouch!  Here’s Richard’s Blog Hake’sEdStuff and information on his academic background.

Thanks, Richard, for getting in touch!

How lady luck brought joy for a ‘down-and-out’ Londoner and a cat called Bob!

I was chatting with my son yesterday and he happened to mention that perhaps I should write about a cat for a change!  Alex mentioned a book recently published in the UK called A Street Cat Named Bob: How One Man and His Cat Found Hope on the Streets.

This is how the book is described on Amazon (UK site),

When James Bowen found an injured, ginger street cat curled up in the hallway of his sheltered accommodation, he had no idea just how much his life was about to change. James was living hand to mouth on the streets of London and the last thing he needed was a pet. Yet James couldn’t resist helping the strikingly intelligent tom cat, whom he quickly christened Bob. He slowly nursed Bob back to health and then sent the cat on his way, imagining he would never see him again. But Bob had other ideas. Soon the two were inseparable and their diverse, comic and occasionally dangerous adventures would transform both their lives, slowly healing the scars of each other’s troubled pasts. A Street Cat Named Bob is a moving and uplifting story that will touch the heart of anyone who reads it.

A quick web search found volumes of material, so let’s start with this video,

The local London newspaper the Islington Tribune wrote this back in 2010,

Two cool cats… the Big Issue seller and a stray called Bob

Inseparable: musician James Bowen with Bob

Down-on-his-luck musician teams up with ‘wonderful loyal friend’ he rescued from streets

Published: 24 September, 2010
by PETER GRUNER

NOT since the legendary Dick Whittington has a man and his cat become such unlikely celebrities on the streets of Islington.

Big Issue seller James Bowen and his docile ginger cat Bob, who go everywhere together, have been attracting comments since they first appeared outside Angel Tube station.

The story of how they met – widely reported in blogs on the internet – is one of such extraordinary pathos that it seems only a matter of time before we get a Hollywood film.

James, 31, who lives off Seven Sisters Road, Holloway, is a musician who has fallen on hard times.

He ekes out a basic living selling the homeless people’s magazine Big Issue at Angel and Covent Garden.

Bob was a stray discovered by James outside his accommodation one day.

The cat was limping after apparently being attacked by another animal, possibly a fox.

After failing to discover the cat’s owner, James took him to the RSPCA hospital at Finsbury Park, which prescribed a course of antibiotics.

“I kept him for two weeks until he was well enough to go on his way,” said James. “But when I opened the front door to let him out Bob wouldn’t move. He seemed to me to be saying: ‘I want to stay with you.’

“Now we go everywhere together. I even have a cat harness when we go out and Bob gets really excited when I show it to him.”

Read the rest of the article here and if you want more information, a web search on Bob the Cat will finds loads more.

It’s a fabulous story with a great message of hope for not just for James and Bob but for all of us that find ourselves ‘up a creek without a paddle’ at points in our lives.

Here’s how the newspaper The Daily Mail wrote about it on their website,

[last half of the story]

But then Bob started following him and it became increasingly difficult to shoo him away, especially as there were dangerous roads to be crossed. One day there was nothing for it but to put Bob on a makeshift lead and take him along. Bob travelled sitting on James’s shoulders.

The trouble was, so many cat-mad passers-by stopped him to stroke the animal that James arrived late at his pitch, secretly cursing Bob for thereby costing him some of his usual £25-a-day takings. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Within minutes, people who would normally have walked by without giving James a second glance were lingering to make a fuss of the cat sitting sedately in his guitar case, and most made a donation. By the end of the day, he’d racked up more than £60.

It was the beginning of a phenomenon as tourists and commuters befriended Bob and James, many bringing titbits for the cat. People were amazed at how placidly Bob would sit all day, quite happily watching the world go by while James earned a living. Not that it was always without a hitch; on a couple of occasions Bob bolted when startled, leading to a frantic chase through the crowded streets.

Bob’s popularity continued when James switched from busking to selling the Big Issue, the magazine produced and sold by homeless people. This change in direction was part of James’s growing sense of a need to get his life in order, which he puts down to the responsibility of looking after Bob, and the example the cat offered of the possibility of a second chance.

It enabled James to make the final push to end his drug dependency, going through the necessary cold turkey to get off heroin substitutes, and to mend broken contacts with his family. The final result of Bob’s influence came when a literary agent who passed the duo every day and had seen them on YouTube suggested James tell their story in a book. The result is this heart-warming tale with a message of hope that will appeal especially to the many cat obsessives out there.

Read the full story here.

Let me close with another video, this one from a recent UK This Morning TV show with James Bowen and his cat being interviewed by Eamonn and Ruth.

Thank you, Alex; great story!

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!