Please watch this! It ‘s amazing, beautiful, and may take your breath away.
These are the words that John H., from here in Payson wrote, when he sent me the email that included the following video. Thanks John.
Here’s that video, Saving Valentina,
Now, while you are still ‘out there’ with the whales, go here and read,
Protecting blue whales along the California coast
The Great Whale Conservancy (GWC) Blue Whale Protection Program
Our Goal
To protect blue whales along the California coast from ship-strike caused injuries and death.
The Facts
The blue whale is the largest animal species to have ever inhabited the Earth. The global population prior to human predation has been estimated at 350,000 individuals. Today that number is ~10,000. Blue whales inhabit every ocean but one of the largest subpopulations is the Northeast Pacific group. These whales transit four favored areas: the California Bight (south of Point Conception,) the west coast of Baja California, the Sea of Cortez, and the Costa Rica Dome. By far the largest number of blue whales congregates in the California Bight between June and October where food availability is very high. This area is also one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, with over 6000 cargo ships/year transiting the Santa Barbara Channel to and from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The Problem
Blue whales are most vulnerable to strikes by cargo ships, tankers, cruise ships, and other large vessels at night while feeding on krill, transiting, or resting. During the day krill descend hundreds of feet into the water column, but every evening the whale’s photosensitive prey re-concentrate near the surface. The whales follow the krill back to the dark surface waters, and may not react quickly enough to avoid the large ships. A ship collision usually ends in injury or death for these giants of the seas. The documented number of blue whales killed by ships along the coast of California has been as high as 5 whales in a year. The actual number of mortalities is unknown and is suspected to be many times higher because blue whales are negatively buoyant – they sink when they die. The total number of ship-strike kills represents a survival threat to this subgroup and the worldwide population.
The Solution
Despite their size, California’s blue whales are for the most part unseen, which to a great degree is why they remain unprotected. The GWC will utilize media-generating tools such as web-based videos and public presentations and actions involving life-size blue whale floats to inform the public, focus attention on state and federal agencies and ship owners, and force a strengthening of the rules and operational policies for vessels transiting critical blue whale habitat. We will not turn the corner on this issue until the general public becomes aware of the problem and begins to “speak for the whales.” We must succeed – it would truly be a tragedy to lose this magnificent species forever.
It took decades to institute strong protections, including adjusted shipping lanes, ship speeds, and the establishment of protected areas for North Atlantic right whales, despite 60 years of “protected status” and the knowledge that 1/3 of the known mortalities every year resulted from ship strikes. The survival of the right whale population still hangs by a thread. We can’t afford to negotiate for decades on protecting blue whales in the Pacific.
Learning from Dogs first saw the light of day two years ago.
It all started on July 15th, 2009, during a very hot summer down in San Carlos, Mexico where I was first living with Jean.
Now, some 1,000 posts later life is very different. Jean and I are now married and living incredibly happily, with our twelve dogs and six cats, in Payson, Arizona, some 80 miles NE of Phoenix, up at 5,000 feet on the fringe of the world’s largest Ponderosa Pine forest.
Ponderosa pine forest
So apologies if today’s Post is partly reflective on the last two years. It also seems appropriate to revisit the reasons why so many articles on the Blog aren’t about dogs.
I feel the need to do that because the number of new readers now is just staggering.
The first full month was August 2009. Wordpress stats reveal that there were 1,172 unique viewers of the Blog. The last full month was, of course, June 2011. Wordpress figures were 31,664 unique viewers! That’s over a 1,000 viewers a day, and the trend is still upwards!
I am, of course, deeply moved by this response. Thank you, one and all!
In writing Learning from Dogs, I have tried to stay close to the theme that dogs are a metaphor for change for mankind. But that doesn’t mean that this is a doggy Blog.
As I wrote on the Welcome page, “Dogs live in the present – they just are! Dogs make the best of each moment uncluttered by the sorts of complex fears and feelings that we humans have. They don’t judge, they simply take the world around them at face value.”
Learning from Dogs is a Blog about the fundamental truths that we need to be reminded of, for our long-term survival. Dogs teach us the importance of integrity, of faith and loyalty and of unconditional love.
But just as importantly, dogs are a reminder that our evolution to Neolithic man may have been an evolutionary mistake. Stay with me for just a while.
Dogs were domesticated a mind-numbing number of years ago. There is good evidence that dogs were co-operating with man 30,000 years ago. However, one might speculate why the DNA of the dog separated from the grey wolf approximately 100,000 years ago. Was it because they evolved even that far back as domesticated companions to man? Science can’t tell us that yet.
But 30,000 years ago man was most definitely a hunter-gatherer. Archaeologists have pondered whether the domesticated dog allowed man to be so successful as a hunter-gatherer that, in time, man was able to evolve into farming which, of course, we describe more accurately as the Neolithic Revolution.
The “Neolithic” Revolution is the first agricultural revolution—the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and settlement. Archaeological data indicate that various forms of domestication of plants and animals arose independently in six separate locales worldwide ca. 10,000–7000 years BP (8,000–5000 BC), with the earliest known evidence found throughout the tropical and subtropical areas of southwestern and southern Asia, northern and central Africa and Central America.
However, the Neolithic Revolution involved far more than the adoption of a limited set of food-producing techniques. During the next millennia it would transform the small and mobile groups of hunter-gatherers that had hitherto dominated human history, into sedentary societies based in built-up villages and towns, which radically modified their natural environment by means of specialized food-crop cultivation (e.g., irrigation and food storage technologies) that allowed extensive surplus food production.
These developments provided the basis for concentrated high population densities settlements, specialized and complex labor diversification, trading economies, the development of non-portable art, architecture, and culture, centralized administrations and political structures, hierarchical ideologies and depersonalized systems of knowledge (e.g., property regimes and writing).
There’s one sentence that just jumps off the ‘page’. It’s this one. “During the next millennia it would transform the small and mobile groups of hunter-gatherers that had hitherto dominated human history”
Here’s a quick bit of history about Homo Sapiens, from here,
Neanderthal man: from 230,000 years ago
Around 250,000 years ago Homo erectus disappears from the fossil record, to be followed in the Middle Palaeolithic period by humans with brains which again have increased in size. They are the first to be placed within the same genus as ourselves, as Homo sapiens(‘knowing man’).
By far the best known of them is Neanderthal man — named from the first fossil remains to be discovered, in 1856, in the Neander valley near Dusseldorf, in Germany. The scientific name of this subspecies is Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. The Neanderthals are widely spread through Europe and the Middle East, and they thrive for an extremely long period (from about 230,000 to 35,000 years ago). Bones of animals of all sizes, up to bison and mammoth, and sophisticated stone tools are found with their remains.
Thus as a species we, as in H. sapiens, survived for approximately 200,000 years as hunter-gatherers!
Now after just 12,000 years, give or take, as ‘farmers’ we are facing the real risk of extinction. Go back to that WikiPedia extract above and re-read “concentrated high population densities settlements, specialized and complex labor diversification, trading economies, the development of non-portable art, architecture, and culture, centralized administrations and political structures, hierarchical ideologies and depersonalized systems of knowledge (e.g., property regimes and writing)“.
If you want to fully comprehend the mess we, as in man, have got ourselves into, then watch the stunning movie What a Way To Go: life at the end of the empire. That movie website is here or you can watch it from here. (I will be reviewing the film on Learning from Dogs in the next couple of weeks.)
The filmmakers, Tim Bennett and Sally Erickson, towards the end of the film muse if mankind must go back to some form of hunter-gatherer society, not literally, of course, but ‘back’ to a form of society that is fundamentally sustainable with the world upon which we live. As successful as Neanderthal man. Here’s where dogs may have critically important lessons for mankind.
Dogs form small packs, up to a maximum of 50 animals
They have a simple hierarchy within the pack; the alpha female (who has first choice of breeding male and makes the very big decisions about whether the pack should move to a better territory), the beta male (always a dominant male that teaches the young pups their social skills and breaks up fights within the pack – my Pharaoh, as seen on the home page, is a beta GSD), and the omega dog (the clown dog, male or female. whose role is to keep the pack happy through play).
They survive through an extraordinary relationship with humans but if they have to revert to the ‘wild’ they survive as hunter-gatherers.
Maybe humans, at heart, also share certain similar characteristics:
We are happiest in social groups of less than 50
We much prefer simple methods of group order, where rules and discipline are managed within the group. (Think about how easily we form all sorts of local clubs and groups.)
A ‘local’ approach to survival through deep and extensive group co-operation would be so much more effective than what most of us presently experience in our societies.
That’s why so many of the articles that appear on Learning from Dogs focus on the madness of what we experience so often in our present enormous, faceless, distant societies.
Back to Sally Erickson, one of the film makers mentioned earlier. Here’s what she wrote in her Blog
Our world is in need of healing at every level. We as a species aren’t going to survive, the way we are going. If we don’t heal ourselves, evolve a new consciousness, and fundamentally change the way we live, human beings won’t make it.
Where’s it all heading? Who knows? I am reminded of that wonderful quote attributed to Niels Bohr but, more likely, from an unknown author (although Mark Twain is often suggested), “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”
Happy Birthday, Learning from Dogs. Thank you to all of you that have supported this venture over the last two years.
Just a few recent items to underline what a strange species we are!
This is being written on the 8th, not too many hours after the successful launch of the very last Shuttle space flight. Forget the [valid] question of cost, this launch sufficiently inspired nearly a million people to travel to the Kennedy Space Center to watch this historic flight. That adventuring drive is a wonderful aspect of mankind.
Now to another view of mankind.
Washington’s Blog of the 3rd July, 2011 has an in-depth review of how “the Japanese government, other governments and nuclear companies have covered up the extent of the Fukushima crisis.” In that excellent piece, there is a reference to material in the British Guardian newspaper (I’m taking the liberty of re-publishing quite a long extract from Washington’s Blog).
British Shenanigans
It’s not just the Japanese. As the Guardian notes:
British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.
Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse…
Officials stressed the importance of preventing the incident from undermining public support for nuclear power.
***
The Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith, who sits on the Commons environmental audit committee, condemned the extent of co-ordination between the government and nuclear companies that the emails appear to reveal.
***
The official suggested that if companies sent in their comments, they could be incorporated into briefs to ministers and government statements. “We need to all be working from the same material to get the message through to the media and the public.
***
The office for nuclear development invited companies to attend a meeting at the NIA’s headquarters in London. The aim was “to discuss a joint communications and engagement strategy aimed at ensuring we maintain confidence among the British public on the safety of nuclear power stations and nuclear new-build policy in light of recent events at the Fukushima nuclear power plant”.
Other documents released by the government’s safety watchdog, the office for nuclear regulation, reveal that the text of an announcement on 5 April about the impact of Fukushima on the new nuclear programme was privately cleared with nuclear industry representatives at a meeting the previous week. According to one former regulator, who preferred not to be named, the degree of collusion was “truly shocking”.
The release of 80 emails showing that in the days after the Fukushima accident not one but two government departments were working with nuclear companies to spin one of the biggest industrial catastrophes of the last 50 years, even as people were dying and a vast area was being made uninhabitable, is shocking.
***
What the emails shows is a weak government, captured by a powerful industry colluding to at least misinform and very probably lie to the public and the media.
***
To argue that the radiation was being released deliberately and was “all part of the safety systems to control and manage a situation” is Orwellian.
And – as the Guardian notes in a third article – the collusion between the British government and nuclear companies is leading to political fallout:
“This deliberate and (sadly) very effective attempt to ‘calm’ the reporting of the true story of Fukushima is a terrible betrayal of liberal values. In my view it is not acceptable that a Liberal Democrat cabinet minister presides over a department deeply involved in a blatant conspiracy designed to manipulate the truth in order to protect corporate interests”. -Andy Myles, Liberal Democrat party’s former chief executive in Scotland
“These emails corroborate my own impression that there has been a strange silence in the UK following the Fukushima disaster … in the UK, new nuclear sites have been announced before the results of the Europe-wide review of nuclear safety has been completed. Today’s news strengthens the case for the government to halt new nuclear plans until an independent and transparent review has been conducted.” -Fiona Hall, leader of the Liberal Democrats in the European parliament
It’s us, all of us, that create the systems, the political and government systems that are at the heart of this approach to life.
But it’s also us, all of us, that ‘write’ such beautiful stories as this one from NPR Music.
Paul Simon has brought joy to so many for so long, but on this night he made Rayna Ford’s dream come true. During a show in Toronto on May 7, Rayna Ford, a fan from Newfoundland, called out for Simon to play “Duncan,” and said something to the effect that she learned to play guitar on the song. In a moment of astonishment and disbelief, Paul Simon invited her on stage, handed her a guitar and asked her to play it for the crowd. When she strapped on the guitar, the audience went crazy. In a few strums, the band played along, tears ran down Rayna Ford’s cheeks and Simon stood by her side in smiles.
It was an absolute moment of sobbing joy for Ford and for the crowd. It was a moment so beautiful, so human, it could almost be a story in a Paul Simon song. Excuse me while I wipe my own tears. Go Rayna and all the Raynas out there with dreams. As the song says:
Oh, oh, what a night
Oh, what a garden of delight
Even now that sweet memory lingers
I was playing my guitar
Lying underneath the stars
Just thanking the Lord
For my fingers,
For my fingers
Two recent videos highlight the mystery and fascination of determining what, exactly, is consciousness.
Before I get started, it crossed my mind that some readers on Learning from Dogs might struggle finding any link between the the title of the Blog and such esoteric topics as consciousness. Let me try and explain. On the home page of this Blog is written,
But 10,000 years of farming the planet’s plant and mineral resources have brought mankind to the edge of extinction, literally as well as metaphorically.
Dogs know better! Time again for man to learn from dogs!
Here’s a recent comment I made to an article on Naked Capitalism,
In a much broader sense, it feels to me as though we have been partying on the edge of a global volcano for years and years. Greece is surely a metaphor for the craziness of so many countries.
Continuing that broader sense, the period that we are in, from political, economical, societal, environmental and ethical perspectives, seems bust. Good will eventually come out of this transition, of that I have no doubt, but what a fascinating period in which to be alive!
I firmly believe that the period we are presently living through is a transition between the last, say 30 years (in a sense, many more decades than that) and a more aware, sensitive period where mankind embraces a deeper, sustainable, relationship with the planet that is home and life to all of us. Frankly, there is no choice!
Thus the nature of consciousness, our awareness of self, is a crucial element of the future. The greater our self-awareness, the greater our self-understanding and from that better self-understanding comes all hope of recognising our attitudes and knowing that it is our attitudes that drive our behaviours.
So here follow two videos. Settle back and be entranced!
The first is the last episode in a brilliant BBC series broadcast in 2007, probably one of the best TV series on psychology and neuroscience ever produced. The full series is on Top Documentary Films but the last episode called The Final Mystery is all about consciousness. Beware you are going to never see the world in quite the same way!
Here it is, The Final Mystery presented by neuroscientist Susan Greenfield.
The second video is from Season Two of the Through the Wormhole series. It is called Is there Life after Death? and also explores the deeper aspects of consciousness. As the introduction to the video says,
In the premiere episode of the second season of Through the Wormhole, Morgan Freeman dives deep into this provocative question that has mystified humans since the beginning of time.
Modern physics and neuroscience are venturing into this once hallowed ground, and radically changing our ideas of life after death.
Freeman serves as host to this polarized debate, where scientists and spiritualist attempt to define what is consciousness, while cutting edge quantum mechanics could provide the answer to what happens when we die.
Here’s the film; same health warning applies! You are going to see the world differently after watching this!
Finally, do you have a dog at home? If you do, ponder on how their conscious world engages them. If science can’t explain human consciousness then all we have is our own intuition with regard to animals. Not sure about you but when one is feeling a little low and a dog comes up and lays a head across you I feel a very strong conscious connection.
I suppose if you don’t have a dog it is hard to understand why anyone would be so upset (that isn’t an insult or a judgement just a statement of fact) and if you do there isn’t much need to explain.
As so often he’s spot-on. I remember in my teens a girlfriend walking through the door one Saturday morning and bursting into floods of tears – and it wasn’t the state of my room.
“What’s the matter ?”
“They’ve taken her to the vet to be put down!” – ‘her’ being the companion of her childhood, a thousand walks and a hundred days out in the country with parents. But I didn’t think like that at the time – I was properly sympathetic and held her till my shoulders were soaked in tears – but it was only a dog, a nice enough dog, but still a dog. At this distance memory fails, but I probably assumed it was just a girl thing, what with being more emotionally open and all that.
The same blindness afflicted me with regard to the effect of children, although I think I wasn’t alone in this. Our single lives were so endlessly fascinating, what friends were doing, who was with whom, the places to go, the people, the parties, that we looked on people who’d got children slightly pityingly, as if they’d been afflicted with a crippling disease (and it IS crippling to a wild social life, although I know a few exceptional people and couples who have just carried on – I’m just not exceptional) which not only curtailed their social life but made them talk about children an awful lot – as if that topic was of any interest at all compared to the important things.
You live and learn. Hopefully. Now I feel more that becoming a parent is gaining access to the secret heart of life and the long chain of familial links down the generations. Not that it doesn’t have its many, many drawbacks. Susan and I looked at each other one day after #2 had arrived and said “whatever did we do with all that time we had?”.
I digress. So I finally learned about why parents are interested in kids, but still didn’t get the dog thing. Our neighbours were childless but treated their dogs like their children – they slept upstairs and their doings were part of our everyday chats. Most odd, we thought.
Dog lovers …
I’d taken my firstborn up to visit his grandpa, and grandpa and I were out walking with grandpa’s dog and the pushchair plus baby. I loved that new dad bit, with bonny boy getting cooed over by all and sundry … the checkout queue turning into a little love fest … and he WAS a beautiful baby – he’s 21 now and six foot.
Lady approaching on the pavement, breaks into happy smile :
“Oh, what a beautiful …”
(Dad smiles modestly… he’s getting used to this …)
“Dog!”
(Smile vanishes instantly)
Then our youngest went off to Big School, and it left a bit of a gap in Susan’s life. Suddenly there were no babies to care for – and she likes caring for things. One day she went off and returned with this chap (and promptly had him snipped, to my horror). Apparently Labradors were very even tempered, good with children and an all round ideal first dog for a family with no dog-owning history on either side, at least since our great-grandparents were on the farm. What’s impressive is that AFAIK, apparently all dogs are descended from domesticated wolves. Just shows what breeding will do.
The kids were thrilled, promised to walk him etc., etc., – didn’t last and soon Mum and Dad were doing most of the walks. But the exercise is great – he and we usually get about three miles a day in – it’s good for an ageing chap with a desk job. I’ve learned most of the footpaths and circular routes round the house.
Labradors seem to eat anything – three week old bird carcases, stones, deer poo, sheep poo, horse poo – and they roll in fox poo, which is not a nice smell and means an hour shampooing him in the garden (then a shower and complete change of clothes). On the good side they love apples, blackberries, plums, the farmer’s turnips – healthy eaters.
He once found a rotting, rank dead rabbit inside a plastic bag, scoffed it, then sat in his crate in the kitchen and disgorged the lot some hours later. Not a nice clean-up job – the smell at close quarters was truly evil.
They’re meant to have more acid in their stomachs than humans to enable digestion of bad food – but ours pushes that way beyond the limits. The Muslims are right enough when they consider dogs unclean. They’re filthy, dirty creatures.
But they have a way of wrapping themselves round the heart. Always pleased to have human company, playful, cheery. All the family quickly grew to love him – even grandma, very much a non-dog person, has a soft spot.
October last year, grandma is round for Sunday tea/dinner, I’m just out in the garden using the last of the light at ten to six.
“Can he stay out here with you? ”
“OK”
The call for tea. I call him – he’s not anywhere in the garden. Round the house – no sign.
“Has he come in?”
“No”
“He’s not in the garden”
Poor grandma. She was left alone in the house while everyone emptied into the darkening garden, calling, then after a quick conference and grabbing of mobiles, two cars head slowly in opposite directions, and the boys are in the local wood with torches. Daughter and I take the car across rough farm tracks, along the routes of his favourite walks, stopping, scanning the gloomy fields, calling him, on again, repeat.
Forty minutes later it’s pitch black and the cars are back. The boys have been right through the woods to the fields on the other side, which we’ve also scanned from the cars as best we could, then back again. Up and down the village – again – half expecting to see a limp form in the headlights. Not a sight or sound.
Tea at seven in almost total silence. The only thing I can compare it with was the first family Christmas without my grandmother.
Eight o’clock. He’s been gone two hours. We’ve been out in the garden and around the house again. Nothing. The feeling that he’s gone for good starts to solidify.
Nine o’clock. My daughter’s standing at the back door, calling his name. Nothing. I feel she’s wasting her time, but in solidarity I go to the side door to call. Open it – he’s standing on the step.
God knows where he’d been. One moment of tremendous pleasure – calling my daughter into the kitchen, without telling her who was there, then watching the ecstatic reunion – the boys hearing the noise and tumbling in, happy uproar. “For he was lost, and is found“.
Once again Mr Kipling has the words :
There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart to a dog to tear.
When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet’s unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find – it’s your own affair
But … you’ve given your heart to a dog to tear.
When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!)
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone – wherever it goes – for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.
We’ve sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we’ve kept ’em, the more do we grieve:
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-term loan is as bad as a long
So why in Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?
I find this utterly unacceptable – here’s the story
Jean Claude Juncker, lying for Europe!
I was talking to someone in the UK just a couple of days ago, Martin J., about investment matters and we were generally ‘slagging’ off the quality, or rather the lack of quality, of the statements of leading political persons in many fields of government. Martin then made the statement that Jean Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, and the head of the Eurogroup council of eurozone finance ministers had recently stated that “When it becomes serious, you have to lie,” I was staggered to hear this and asked Martin to supply the details. Here they are.
Mr. Juncker’s remark had been widely reported and I have chosen the Wall Street Journal’s report to quote from in Learning from Dogs.
MAY 9, 2011, 10:54 AM ET
Luxembourg Lies on Secret Meeting
By Charles Forelle
Is lying considered an appropriate mode of communication for euro-zone leaders?
We have to wonder after a strange episode on Friday evening. Here’s what happened:
Just before 6 p.m., German news magazine Spiegel Online distributed a report saying that euro-zone finance ministers were convening a secret, emergency meeting in Luxembourg that evening to discuss a Greek demand to quit the euro zone.
Calls from reporters flooded in to Guy Schuller, the spokesman for Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, the man who is the head of the Eurogroup council of euro-zone finance ministers.
In a phone call and text messages with two reporters for Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Schuller repeatedly said no meeting would be held. He apparently said the same to other news outlets; at least one more moved his denials on financial newswires.
Of course, there was a meeting–although not, apparently, to talk about Greece quitting the currency, which would be an extreme step to say the least. Mr. Juncker even said a few words to reporters who had hustled to Luxembourg to stake out the gathering.
In that article there is a YouTube video in which Mr. Juncker says “When it becomes serious, you have to lie.” You can hear it yourself, about 20 seconds into the video despite the sound level being a tad low.
So that’s official then! Politicians have to lie! Grand job. Talking about jobs, don’t suppose Mr. Juncker will lose his. Or that he will show that, deep down, he is an integrous man and resign his post.
Yes, of course we all understand that what high-profile people say can affect markets and that, at times, one must be careful in terms of what is said. But lying? Sorry, for me that will never, ever be acceptable!
What has this to do with dogs? Simply, dogs don’t lie.
Another example of the astounding bond between dog and man.
Regular supporters of Learning from Dogs will be aware that yesterday I wrote, under the heading of Paws of Love, about two examples of the most amazing bond that develops between the dog and man, one of them a very personal account.
Moving on.
We subscribe to the website, Top Documentary Films, and the other night we watched a 48-minute program about The Grim Reaper Dog. The link to the TDF programme is here. (It includes three separate films.)
Scamp
The Grim Reaper Dog is about Scamp, a little Schnauzer who resides at The Pine nursing home in Canton, Ohio. Like many live-in pets at nursing homes, Scamp brings companionship to the residents but he also does more than that. Scamp seems to have a gift that tells him when the end is near for one of the residents and he loyally stays with them during their final hours.
So if you want to watch the film in full within the TDF website, then go here.
If you want to watch it directly from YouTube then the three parts of the film are below – prepared to be amazed! Or perhaps those of you who live emotionally close to a dog will just find the film as confirmation of what you already know!
Think you have had a bad day/week/month/year/life? Want to see your life in perspective? Go here and reflect. This is one very brave and incredibly inspiring young woman.
Those of you who see this and are in the UK, do read Alice’s Bucket List and help if you are at all able. If not, just hold Alice and all her family, and Mabel, in your prayers.
It was back in March, the 8th to be precise, when I first wrote about Peter Russell. Well just over a week ago, I came across another article by Russell from the Huffington Post. It was then a moment’s work to find it on Peter Russell’s own website. (This links to various essays on the topic.)
Science has had remarkable success in explaining the structure and functioning of the material world, but when it comes to the inner world of the mind science falls curiously silent. There is nothing in physics, chemistry, biology, or any other science that can account for our having an interior world. In a strange way, scientists would be much happier if there were no such thing as consciousness.
David Chalmers, professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona, calls this the “hard problem” of consciousness. The so-called “easy problems” are those concerned with brain function and its correlation with mental phenomena: how, for example, we discriminate, categorize, and react to stimuli; how incoming sensory data are integrated with past experience; how we focus our attention; and what distinguishes wakefulness from sleep.
It would be wrong to publish anything more so if you are interested in more, then go here and pick away or better still buy the book!
If you have a quiet 30 minutes, settle down and watch these videos
Learning from Dogs 