Too adorable for words!
Was first seen as a Rumble video and then it came up on YouTube.
Published on Feb 24, 2017Jude the French Bulldog refuses to give up trying to bring his stick inside, but soon victory is all his. Well done little guy!
Category: Core thought
Another life-saving dog!
There’s no end to how dogs protect us!
Last Tuesday, I published a guest post that had been sent to me by my sister, Eleanor, who lives in Johannesburg in South Africa.
Then a day later I read on the Care2 site about a therapy dog that alerted a group of schoolchildren to potentially very unsafe drinking water. I must share that with you as well.
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Therapy Dog Helps Alert School District to Lead in Water
A therapy dog belonging to a San Diego elementary school teacher proved to be a potential lifesaver – but not for what you might think.
When the teacher filled his bowl with water from the classroom sink on Jan. 26, the dog refused to drink it. The teacher took a good look at the water in his bowl and noticed a sheen on its surface. Concerned, she notified school officials.
After testing samples from around Emerson-Bandini Elementary and the San Diego Co-Operative Charter School 2, which share a campus, results showed the water was contaminated with lead, exceeding the allowable level in the state of California.
School officials contacted the City of San Diego Public Utilities Department, which supplies the water. Because that therapy dog that refused to drink it, the city is now testing the water at each of the school district’s 187 campuses.
The tests, however, won’t begin until April 4, San Diego Unified Chief Operations Officer Drew Rowlands announced last week. In the meantime, students are getting bottled drinking water.
A notice sent to the schools’ staff and parents said the water is safe for handwashing. Since cafeteria meals aren’t prepared on campus, they’re not affected by the contaminants in the water, according to the notice.
The testing of the water, which is expected to be completed by the end of the school year in June, will take place early in the morning, before school starts. At each campus, up to five samples will be taken from water fountains and cafeterias where food is prepared. The test results will be posted online.
If excessive lead is discovered, the contamination source will be determined and school district staff will take “appropriate action on a case-by-case basis,” said San Diego Unified Chief Operations Officer Drew Rowlands. Those appropriate actions could include replacing plumbing fixtures and making repairs.
Making Drinking Water Safe for Schoolchildren
Coincidentally, just one month before the therapy dog refused to drink the San Diego school’s water, the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) Division of Drinking Water launched a program that requires water providers to test for lead in the drinking water at all K-12 schools in California.
“Recent events in the United States have shown that lead in drinking water remains an ongoing public health concern, particularly for children,” the SWRCB stated on its website.
How does lead end up in school water fountains? Although lead rarely occurs naturally in California’s drinking water sources, it can contaminate water that flows through old plumbing fixtures or the solder connecting them. It’s less likely that the water came from a contaminated source, as was the case in Flint, Mich.
Children younger than six are especially susceptible to the effects of lead poisoning. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), about half a million children between the ages of one and five have blood lead levels above 5 micrograms per deciliter, the level at which the CDC recommends the initiation of public health actions – although no “safe” blood lead level in children has been identified.
A problem with lead poisoning is that there are no obvious symptoms. By the time children show the signs, such as weight loss, irritability and lack of appetite, dangerous amounts of lead may have accumulated in their bodies.
This is a compelling reason for more states to follow California’s lead and require water to be tested in schools. Thanks to a teacher’s therapy dog, students at two San Diego schools got a jump start on having safer water available.
Photo credit: Irisdepiris
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There is no end to the way that dogs love us, protect us and make us better persons!
The Scent Angels
The endless miracles of having dogs in our lives.
I have two sisters: Elizabeth and Eleanor. Elizabeth lives in Tokyo, Japan and Eleanor lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. They are both dear sisters and we all love each other as brothers and sisters should!
Anyway, Eleanor’s husband, Warwick, has a brother and this story is about Warwick’s brother’s step-daughter, Stacey Maguire.
It was Eleanor who sent this story to me to be published in this place.
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My dog saves my life every day
Stacey Maguire’s life is always in danger.
A severe Type 1 Diabetic, her body doesn’t produce the insulin it needs to control her blood sugar, leaving her vulnerable to catastrophic changes in sugar levels. But as long as her dog, Gretchen, is around she has nothing to fear. For Gretchen is a trained Diabetic Assist Dog (DAD).
Gretchen is a Swiss Shepherd who saves her owner’s life on a daily basis by warning her whenever her blood sugar is at a dangerous level. Incredibly, Gretchen does this by smell.
Stacey’s chronic condition is so severe that she’s on the best monitoring technology in South Africa. But before Gretchen came into her life, and even with that monitoring technology, Stacey still experienced hypoglycemic episodes and seizures at least once a week when changes in her blood sugar levels weren’t detected in time.
Thus when Gretchen arrived from America her sole objective was sniffing out the problem as fast as possible. And Gretchen does that – a full hour ahead of that best available technology!
Her method? An urgent paw to the knee, followed by a bark. Gretchen takes no nonsense, delivering the testing kit to Stacey’s hand if her response is sluggish. If anything goes wrong Gretchen, as a trained service animal is taught to so do, sounds an alarm or alerts the nearest person to the danger. Stacey couldn’t ask for better care.
Stacey is the first South African to benefit from a Diabetic Assist Dog. Stacey Maguire’s dream is to start a facility to train more dogs to help diabetics like her. That’s something South Africa can get behind.
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Eleanor also added the following by way of background:
We found a phenomenal lady called Diane Marquette in Minnesota who agreed to train a dog for export – her first time for such an undertaking.
A three-year-old white Swiss Alsatian called Gretchen made the grade for the initial training after which Di started the diabetic training. In preparation, whenever Stacey felt unwell she spat into cotton-wool and put these samples into the freezer. When Stacey had collected a bundle she sent them via courier to Di who then trained Gretchen on Stacey’s scent.
This process took ten months. Then Stacey flew to Minnesota to meet Gretchen, to be bonded with Gretchen, to be trained and, finally, to sit and pass a very stringent exam before being allowed to bring Gretchen back home. Ten days later we met them at Cape Town International, after twenty-one hours of flying for Stacey with Gretchen at her feet in the aeroplane. SA’s first DAD had landed!
In an email to me, Eleanor included:
Stacey and Gretchen have now been together for several years with their bond just strengthening and strengthening! Gretchen alerts Stacey continuously and in recent times has started alerting at night too. Thus even accounting for the fact that, as with all dogs, Gretchen sleeps at night coinciding, unfortunately, with when Stacey is most vulnerable to shocking lows, this fabulous dog maintains awareness of Stacey’s body scents during the night hours.
Stacey’s wish is to bring trainer Di of Scent Angels to Cape Town to train trainers, and then to roll this life-saving program out to fellow diabetics.
Eleanor also included the link to the website for Scent Angels. I shall pass on the link to this post to Diane Marquette with the request that she might allow me to share some more stories of these incredible dogs with you all.
In the land of the blind!
On the Problem of Good: A book review.
As is the way of the Internet and Blogging it is inevitable that connections are made in all four corners of the globe. Some connections are transient, others become long-term. The connection between author John Zande and this blog fits the latter description.
If, dear reader, you have read my posts of the last two days, then that connection between John and me will be clear.
So on to John’s latest book: On the Problem of Good.
Now despite the fact that I awarded the book five stars on Amazon I can’t tell you that it is an easy read. Nor, to that fact, is it a comfortable read.
For John’s book played around with my head in so many ways that I am still far from returning to a settled mind. Indeed, I have a sneaky suspicion that On the Problem of Good represents another one of those turnstiles in life where once through the ‘gate’ there is no returning to the past way of seeing things.
It played with my mind in the sense of forcing me, albeit with a very small ‘f’, to truly comprehend the consequences of unanticipated outcomes. You know that old saying: “Never underestimate the power of unanticipated consequences“.
Here’s an example.
In 1889 a total of 26 road deaths were recorded in the United States. By 2013 that number had exploded to approximately 35,500. Globally, the number stands at 1.24 million and the World Health Organisation predicts the body of carnage will grow to 1.9 million by 2020. (p.44)
That is just one of the many examples that John uses to support his premise that “good simply does not exist”.
But it goes deeper than that. For John reveals the incalculable, unstoppable force of evolution. Going right back to the very origins of matter. How hydrogen fused into the more complex helium that, in turn, fused into the still heavier and more complex carbon, then along came the fusing of helium and carbon to make oxygen. Then the journey of evolution of atoms. From single atoms to simple compounds, binding to produce double compounds and on to molecules. Then the marriage between molecules to produce amino acids, and on and on to proteins and enzymes and … well, you get the idea!
That continuum from simple to complex organisms and on and on to air-breathing animals (including wolves and then dogs!) and all the way to the likes of yours truly sitting in front of a modern computer writing the review of another person’s book.
All the time, since 13.82 billion years ago, the evolutionary force being a one-way street. A one-way street where John, with some degree of persuasiveness, demonstrates that everything that might, at that time, be seen as a good is not fundamentally a good because it is inextricably connected to a resulting evil.
The Problem of Good is a word problem. It is a lexical glitch, a squabble in temporal, fleshy definitions, and nothing more.
There is no disagreement or antipathy because there is no problem.
Good does not exist. (p.29)
See what I mean about this not being a comfortable book to read!
Nevertheless, you are waiting to hear from me as to whether or not you should read this book?
In answer, here’s a part of what I wrote for my review of the book on Amazon:
If you ever pause for a moment and wonder about the meaning of life, better written as The Meaning of LIFE, then this book is for you. More than that. For if you never ponder about the meaning of life then this really, really is the book for you.
Because for most of us, for most of the time, we live in the land of the blind.
So, thank goodness, that from time to time along comes a person who is the one-eyed King.
Thank you, John Zande.
The Owner of All Infernal Names.
A republication of my review of John Zande’s book back in October, 2015.
More than a book review,
a whole new way of looking at you and me, and the rest of humanity.
Back on September 16th, I published the post Of paradoxes, and headaches! It included the fact that I was about 20% of the way through John Zande’s book The Owner of All Infernal Names.
On Tuesday evening of this week, I finished the book and, without doubt, I shall be publishing a review on Amazon books by the end of the week. First, I wanted to share a longer reflection of Zande’s book with all of you dear readers.
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One of the many five-star reviews of this book that has been published on the relevant Amazon page opens simply: “This is a beautifully written, terribly uncomfortable book to read.” I couldn’t better that summary. This is, indeed, a beautifully written book. Yet it is also a book that will forever change the way you think about species: Homo sapiens.
Zande offers a powerful argument that, “Following then the Principle of Sufficient Reason, the observer concludes with a level of argued certainty that a Creator must exist.” Then sets out to demonstrate that this Creator, far from being an expression of universal love, is fundamentally an expression of universal suffering. Reminding the reader that, “This world was never good. It was never peaceful, and never without suffering.”
For the first time in my life, Zande’s words had cause for me to reflect on something that, hitherto, had never dawned on me. That if there is a God, why have I, and countless others, assumed that this God be necessarily benevolent. The evidence presented in Zande’s book is comprehensive: that there was an evil origin to the universe and, more directly, that the deep, and growing, suffering of the pinnacle of evolution, us humans, can be traced back to that evil origin. Better than that, frequently the book is almost scientific. And in the best of scientific traditions, Zande adopts the position of a neutral witness.
Whether or not you are relaxed about that previous paragraph, and I suspect many readers will not, it is impossible not to be in awe of the beauty, the power, and the eloquence of Zande’s words. Take this opening paragraph of Zande’s chapter titled A SIGHTLESS CREATION.
It is a basal vagary, a question that screams for attention and if left unresolved – if left problematic – could invalidate all practicalities of a functioning Creation lorded by a maximally wicked Creator: Would sentient, attentive, self-respecting life choose to live in a world underwritten by evil? Could self-aware life endure a thoroughly hopeless reality?
Whether one is a believer in a religious god or not, it will also be impossible not to have one’s deepest emotions and beliefs about the nature of humankind stirred very deeply around. No-one who reads this book will be left unchanged.
If you have ever pondered about the way the world is heading, or more accurately put, about the way that we humans are managing our existence on Planet Earth, then you need to read this book. Period!
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So my review of John Zande’s latest book is being published tomorrow.
John Zande
A stirrer of brain cells!
I have just finished reading John’s recently published book On the Problem of Good. I am writing a review of the book that, fingers crossed, I will publish on Friday. But many of you that are recent converts to this blog (you poor, lost souls!) will not remember my review of John’s first book and my reaction to that book when I was only just into it.
So, for both today and tomorrow I am republishing two blog posts. Today, one that was originally published on the 16th September, 2015, and tomorrow the post that was first published on 1st October, 2015.
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Of paradoxes, and headaches!
The interconnectedness of everything – even beyond our wildest imagination.
A while ago John Zande signed up to follow Learning from Dogs. Naturally, I went across to John’s blog to thank him. There I discovered that John is an animal lover and an author. For he states, referring to his book, that, “BUY IT. ALL PROCEEDS GO TO ANIMAL RESCUE AND SHELTER IN BRAZIL”. Fabulous!
(I did buy the book, am about 20% through it and finding it very stimulating, – if you would like to buy it then click the image of the book on John’s home page.)
Anyway, a few days later we watched the BBC Horizon programme on multiple universes. Here’s how the BBC introduced the programme:
Which Universe Are We In?
Horizon, 2014-2015 Episode 17 of 19
Imagine a world where dinosaurs still walk the earth. A world where the Germans won World War II and you are president of the United States. Imagine a world where the laws of physics no longer apply and where infinite copies of you are playing out every storyline of your life.
It sounds like a plot stolen straight from Hollywood, but far from it. This is the multiverse.
Until very recently the whole idea of the multiverse was dismissed as a fantasy, but now this strangest of ideas is at the cutting edge of science.
And for a growing number of scientists, the multiverse is the only way we will ever truly make sense of the world we are in.
Horizon asks the question: Do multiple universes exist? And if so, which one are we actually in?
Horizon is always great to watch but this episode was incredibly stimulating and interesting. Later, in a exchange of comments to one of John’s posts, where I referred to that programme, John wrote:
The mulitverse is actually the more reasonable explanation for why there is something, and although I don’t understand the maths, the people who do say its simplistically beautiful. Matt Rave is an associate professor of physics and comments here regularly. He has a great book on it all, Why is There Anything?
That lead me to purchasing Matthew Rave’s book that, likewise, is a most fascinating and unusual approach to this topic. His Amazon author’s page reveals that, “Dr. Matthew Rave is an assistant professor of physics at Western Carolina University, in the mountains of North Carolina. His research interests include interpretations of quantum mechanics, the geometric phase, solid state physics, and physics education.” Matthew Rave’s blogsite is here.
Matthew Rave’s book further illustrates the paradox, to my mind, that comes from thinking about why are we here, are we here and, if so, how do we know we are here?
So if that isn’t enough for you and me, then very recently The Conversation blogsite published the following from Geraint Lewis who is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sydney. It is republished here within the terms of The Conversation. Did I mention paradoxes and headaches!
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We are lucky to live in a universe made for us
Geraint Lewis, University of Sydney
To a human, the universe might seem like a very inhospitable place. In the vacuum of space, you would rapidly suffocate, while on the surface of a star you would be burnt to a crisp. As far as we know, all life is confined to a sliver of an atmosphere surrounding the rocky planet we inhabit.
But while the origin of life on Earth remains mysterious, there are bigger questions to answer. Namely: why do the laws of physics permit any life at all?
Hang on, the laws of physics? Surely they are a universal given and life just gets on with it?
But remember that the universe is built of fundamental pieces, particles and forces, which are the building blocks of everything we see around us. And we simply don’t know why these pieces have the properties they do.
There are many observational facts about our universe, such as electrons weighing almost nothing, while some of their quark cousins are thousands of times more massive. And gravity being incredibly weak compared to the immense forces that hold atomic nuclei together.
Why is our universe built this way? We just don’t know.
But what if…?
This means we can ask “what if” questions. What if the electron was massive and quarks were fleeting? What if electromagnetism was stronger than the nuclear strong force? If so, what would that universe be like?
Let’s consider carbon, an element forged in the hearts of massive stars, and an element essential to life as we know it.
Initial calculations of such stellar furnaces showed that they were apparently inefficient in making carbon. Then the British astronomer Fred Hoyle realised the carbon nucleus possesses a special property, a resonance, that enhanced the efficiency.
But if the strength of the strong nuclear force was only fractionally different, it would wipe out this property and leave the universe relatively devoid of carbon – and, thus, life.
The story doesn’t end there. Once carbon is made, it is ripe to be transmuted into heavier elements, particularly oxygen. It turns out that oxygen, due to the strength of the strong nuclear force, lacks the particular resonance properties that enhanced the efficiency of carbon creation.
This prevents all of the carbon being quickly consumed. The specific strength of the strong force has thus resulted in a universe with an almost equal mix of carbon and oxygen, a bonus for life on Earth.
Death of a universe
This is but a single example. We can play “what if” games with the properties of all of the fundamental bits of the universe. With each change we can ask, “What would the universe be like?”
The answers are quite stark. Straying just a little from the convivial conditions that we experience in our universe typically leads to a sterile cosmos.
This might be a bland universe, without the complexity required to store and process the information central to life. Or a universe that expands too quickly for matter to condense into stars, galaxies and planets. Or one that completely re-collapses again in a matter of moments after being born. Any complex life would be impossible!
The questions do not end there. In our universe, we live with the comfort of a certain mix of space and time, and a seemingly understandable mathematical framework that underpins science as we know it. Why is the universe so predictable and understandable? Would we be able to ask such a question if it wasn’t?
Our universe appears to balance on a knife-edge of stability. But why?
One of a multiverse
To some, science will simply fix it all. Perhaps, if we discover the “Theory of Everything”, uniting quantum mechanics with Einstein’s relativity, all of the relative masses and strengths of the fundamental pieces will be absolutely defined, with no mysteries remaining. To others, this is little more than wishful thinking.
Some seek solace in a creator, an omnipotent being that finely-tuned the properties of the universe to allow us to be here. But the move from the scientific into the supernatural leaves many uncomfortable.
There is, however, another possible solution, one guided by the murky and confused musings at the edge of science. Super-strings or M-theory (or whatever these will evolve into) suggest that the fundamental properties of the universe are not unique, but are somehow chosen by some cosmic roll of the dice when it was born.
This gives us a possible explanation of the seemingly special properties of the universe in which we live.
We are not the only universe, but just one in a semi-infinite sea of universes, each with their own peculiar set of physical properties, laws and particles, lifetimes and ultimately mathematical frameworks. As we have seen, the vast majority of these other universes in the overall multiverse are dead and sterile.
They only way we can exist to ask the question “why are we here?” is that we happen to find ourselves in a universe conducive to our very existence. In any other universe, we simply wouldn’t be around to wonder why we didn’t exist.
If the multiverse picture is correct, we have to accept that the fundamental properties of the universe were ultimately dished out in a game of cosmic roulette, a spin of the wheel that we appear to have won.
Thus we truly live in a fortunate universe.
Geraint Lewis, Professor of Astrophysics, University of Sydney
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
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How to follow that, eh?
Let me give way to Hariod Brawn and part of an extensive comment she left back then:
John Zande is most certainly one of the most thoughtful, perceptive, well-informed and sharp-witted bloggers I have ever come across, and I wish him well with his book, which by the way, appears so far to have been met only with a deluge of 5-star reviews on Amazon. I daresay that you and I will both lengthen that list.
Here! Here!
The ‘Dog Lady’.
The story of Paloma
Just want to go straight to what Jeannie wrote and I published back in January, 2014. There will be more memories of Paloma coming along on Monday.
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Preface.
Before I met Jean in December 2007, she had been rescuing feral dogs in the Mexican beach town of San Carlos for many, many years. Over those years, Jean must have rescued and found homes for 60 dogs or more. In the month that I met Jean, she had 12 dogs and 6 cats at her home. Ten months later, in September 2008, I flew out to be permanently with Jean with my German Shepherd, Pharaoh – that’s him on the home page of Learning from Dogs – taking the total up to 13 dogs.
When we moved up to Payson, Arizona in February, 2010 we brought all 13 dogs and 6 cats with us, much to the amazement of the US Immigration officers at the US-Mexican border town of Nogales! Indeed, our particular officer left his booth excitedly to explain to his colleagues that our dogs and cats represented a border crossing record! Paul.
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Paloma
By Jean Handover 30th January, 2014
The old white dog padded down the dusty pavement. Sway-backed and dull-eyed, her teats, heavy with milk, grazed the ground. An anonymous creature in a cruel world. The pavement sizzled in the afternoon Mexican summer sun blistering her tired feet, but she could not hurry. She had to conserve her energy. Her pups were soon coming and finding a safe place to give birth to them was her priority. The beach that had been her home was not a good place. .. needed cool shelter. She would find it.
She was alone among a sea of human legs in this scruffy Mexican beach town. No-one noticed her plight. No-one cared. She was used to it. She had long been adept at finding dried fish, discarded tortillas, sometimes a tasty morsel thrown by a tourist sunning in front of the big hotel.
This would be her eighth litter and she was very tired. As a puppy she belonged to a family with small children. There were plenty of leftovers. But when she became pregnant they drove her to the beach, threw her out and left her to fend for herself.
Her babies were always beautiful. She had Labrador in her genes donating a coat that was pure white. Humans always took her pups; she could only ever hope their fate was always a better one than hers.
Anonymity. She had perfected the art; never make eye contact, move low to the ground, escape the stray kick with a quick sideways leap.
She remembered at the very end of the long beach there was a house with a pool. Plenty of water. Onward she padded.
The lawn surrounding the pool was moist with sprinklers and the hibiscus hedge close to the house made a safe nest. Soon she had dug into the damp earth a big enough hole to curl into; it was cool under the canopy of red flowers.
A human voiced shouted, “Carlos, get that dog out of the hedge.” Then the long hose filling that tempting pool was turned on her and a burst of water hit her in the face. She uttered a low growl. Carlos, the gardener, backed away, “Señor, the dog, she is having babies.”
The owner of the house turned abruptly and went inside. He picked up his phone, made a call to the local English lady who over the years had acquired the nickname ‘Dog Lady’. He practically shouted down the phone, “I have a dog in my hedge having pups. You had better do something about it or I shall dispose of them, and I won’t be pretty about it!”
‘Dog Lady’ was used to this. Had been many years since she took on the practically impossible task of rescuing Mexican feral dogs and she was well-known for never turning a dog away. In less than 15 minutes, she had walked to the fine house overlooking the beach and quietly looked under the hedge. As anticipated, the dog was incapable of being moved, her focus entirely now on the safe birth of her pups. With appropriate feminine wiles, the white dog’s human saviour persuaded the disgruntled owner to allow the mother dog a stay of a few days. ‘Dog Lady’ promised that she would take them away as soon as possible.
“She’s a mean and wild dog, you’ll never tame her,” came the angry response from the house owner.
‘Dog Lady’ just smiled and said nothing.
But every day she took food to the white dog then sat quietly close by on the grass reading her book. The white dog had just the one pup, which ‘Dog Lady’ called Solovino, the Spanish for ‘comes alone’. The mother dog she called Paloma, Spanish for ‘Dove’. Many white dogs in Mexico were called Paloma and maybe years earlier that was what the children named her as the name did seem to resonate with this gentle dog.
Patiently, ‘Dog Lady’ moved closer and closer until Paloma would take meat from her hand, rapidly followed by allowing her ears to be caressed. Ten days later, while Paloma was eating, ‘Dog Lady’ picked up the little Solovino and put him into her car. Paloma’s response was immediate; she frantically ran to her child, her mothering instinct so great that she leapt without hesitation into this strange vehicle. Paloma and Solovino were safe.
The house owner graciously admitted that he had been taught a lesson in empathy and how sorry he was for being so rude and cruel.
Back at ‘Dog Lady’s’ home, a quiet sanctuary for so many dogs over the past years, Paloma and Solovino were quickly settled into a cool room. Paloma soon utterly trusted her ‘Dog Lady’ human companion and became the tame and loving dog she always wanted to be. Her shining eyes embraced her new world and she even regained her figure! Solovino grew quickly and found a wonderful family home in Tucson, Arizona.
Now some 6 years after ‘Dog Lady’ rescued Paloma from under that hedge, she is a beloved part of the Handover family. Indeed, she travelled in peace in February 2009 with her twelve dog friends from her sanctuary in San Carlos, Mexico to this dog paradise in the Arizonan forest just outside Payson.
Paloma will never want again.
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Paloma never ever did want again.
Dogs: Aren’t They Incredible!
The love and admiration for this beautiful animal goes on and on!
It seems as though it is almost on a weekly basis that new and incredible facts about our dear, dear dogs come to the surface.
So what prompted this from me today!
Only a wonderful article that was originally published in New Scientist but then was carried by The Smithsonian. I am hoping that by fully linking this post to both the New Scientist article and the essay in The Smithsonian I am at liberty to republish it for all you good people.
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Dogs Use Deception to Get Treats, Study Shows
When a human partner withheld tasty snacks, the dogs got sneaky
By Brigit Katz smithsonian.com
March 10, 2017
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that dogs, in addition to looking adorable in sweaters, possess fairly sophisticated cognitive abilities. They recognize emotion, for example, and respond negatively to antisocial behavior between humans. Man’s best friend can also get pretty tricksy when it comes to scoring snacks. As Brian Owens reports for New Scientist, a recent study found that dogs are capable of using deceptive tactics to get their favorite treats.
The study, published in the journal Animal Cognition, was led by Marianne Heberlein of the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Experimental Studies at the University of Zürich. Heberlein told Owens that the idea for the study was born when she observed her pet pooches engaging in deceptive behavior; one sometimes pretends to see something interesting outside, prompting the other to give up his sleeping spot.
To find out if dogs engage in similar shenanigans with humans, Heberlein and a team of researchers paired 27 dogs with two different partners, Stanley Coren explains in Psychology Today. One of these partners would repeatedly go to the bowl of a given dog, fish out a treat, and give it to the pup. The other would show the treat to the dog, and then put it in her pocket. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the dogs began to show a preference for the more generous partners, and would approach them spontaneously.
Once one partner had been established as co-operative, the other as competitive, the dogs were taught to lead their partners to one of two boxes, both containing food, with the command “Show me the food.” And the same pattern was repeated: when the dogs led the co-operative partner to a treat, they got to eat it. The competitive partner withheld the treat.
Researchers then showed the dogs three covered boxes. One contained a sausage, the second contained a less-yummy dry biscuit, and the third was empty. Once again, the process of treat giving and withholding was repeated, but this time with a twist: when the dog was reunited with its owner, the owner asked it to choose one of the boxes. If there was a treat inside the box, the dog was allowed to eat it. But “if the dog chose the box which had been opened before,” Coren explains, “the owner just showed the empty box to the dog.”
Over the course of a two-day testing period, the dogs were repeatedly presented with this conundrum. They had been trained to lead both partners to boxes containing food, but they knew that the competitive partner would not let them eat the snacks. They also knew that if any snacks remained inside the boxes once they were reunited with their owners, they would get a chance to eat them. So the dogs got a little devious.
Researchers observed the pooches leading the co-operative partner to the box containing the sausage more often than expected by chance. They led the competitive partner to the sausage less often than expected by chance. And here’s where things get really interesting: the dogs took the competitive partner to the empty box more frequently than the co-operative partner, suggesting that they were working through their options and engaging in deliberate deception to maximize their chances of getting both treats.
“It is as though the dog is thinking, ‘Why should I tell that selfish person where the best treat [is] if it means that I will never get it?’,” writes Coren.
“These results show that dogs distinguished between the co-operative and the competitive partner,” the authors of the study write, “and indicate the flexibility of dogs to adjust their behaviour and that they are able to use tactical deception.”
Rest assured, dog lovers: your pooches may be sneaky, but they still love you more than cats.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dogs-use-deception-get-treats-study-shows-180962492/#5r1vc6gkyLQoIQaL.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
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The article from Brigit opened up with a picture of a pair of eyes; a pair of dog’s eyes.
I don’t know about you but some dogs have eyes that reach out and seem to illuminate one’s soul.
Our Oliver has just that set of eyes. I will close today’s post with a photograph of Oliver’s eyes that was taken yesterday afternoon.
Talk about the power of non-verbal communication!
No shortage of love and caring.
For that most treasured pet companion: The Dog
What with one thing and another this has been a bit of a week.
So when recently I came across a wonderful story on the Care2 site of how a Fire Department put so much energy into saving a dog’s life it seemed an automatic action to share it with all you good people out there.
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How Rescuers Freed This Dog From a Tire Truck Rim
By: Laura S. March 1, 2017
Any fire chief will tell you that a fire department’s role is not just fighting fires, but sometimes helping community members out of a tight spot. And for the McDowell County Rescue Squad in North Carolina, that form of service required a delicate touch last week when they were called upon to free a dog named Sadie from the grips of a truck tire rim.
Sadie’s family told rescuers that they believe she may have been chasing another animal when she got wedged inside the Ford F-350 tire rim.
Sadie was taken to the Animal Hospital of Marion where she showed everyone her new necklace with her characteristic charm. But for her own safety, Sadie would have to be sedated.
“The tire rim probably weighed 20 or 30 pounds so she couldn’t even lift her head up when she came in,” hospital staffer Kristi Sisk said.
“We used hydraulic cutters as well as a couple of other power tools,” McDowell County Rescue Squad Captain Jordan Harrell told Fredericksburg.com. “It was a lot of trial and error. It was very big, it was a tough metal, and not the text book type extrication.”
“Thank you so much McDowell rescue squad and volunteers that showed up, took their time, and put the animals safety first getting this tire rim off!” Sisk said. “Happy to say miss Sadie had a happy ending. Went home tail wagging. I love my job!”
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Time and time again, we see how dogs bring out so much good in us!
The Cave of Crystal Giants
This will take us away from the daily beat of life!
On the 18th. February the BBC News website carried an article that I found incredible. It was the story of Naica’s crystal caves in Mexico.
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Naica’s crystal caves hold long-dormant life
By Jonathan Amos, BBC Science Correspondent, Boston, 18 February 2017.
It is a remarkable discovery in an amazing place.
Scientists have extracted long-dormant microbes from inside the famous giant crystals of the Naica mountain caves in Mexico – and revived them. [Ed: my emphasis]
The organisms were likely to have been encased in the striking shafts of gypsum at least 10,000 years ago, and possibly up to 50,000 years ago.
It is another demonstration of the ability of life to adapt and cope in the most hostile of environments.
“Other people have made longer-term claims for the antiquity of organisms that were still alive, but in this case these organisms are all very extraordinary – they are not very closely related to anything in the known genetic databases,” said Dr Penelope Boston.
The new director of Nasa’s Astrobiology Institute in Moffett Field, California, described her findings here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
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I was delighted to find more details in many other places on the ‘web’.
Such as this one on the National Geographic website:
PUBLISHED February 17, 2017
Boston, Massachusetts
Creatures that thrive on iron, sulfur, and other chemicals have been found trapped inside giant crystals deep in a Mexican cave. The microbial life-forms are most likely new to science, and if the researchers who found them are correct, the organisms are still active even though they have been slumbering for tens of thousands of years.
If verified, the discovery adds to evidence that microbial life on Earth can endure harsher conditions in isolated places than scientists previously thought possible. (See “Life Found Deep Under Antarctic Ice for First Time?”)
“These organisms have been dormant but viable for geologically significant periods of time, and they can be released due to other geological processes,” says NASA Astrobiology Institute director Penelope Boston, who announced the find today at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “This has profound effects on how we try to understand the evolutionary history of microbial life on this planet.”
Then there’s another article on that NatGeo website: (Apologies for some duplication in the message.)
By Neil Shea, National Geographic Staff
In a nearly empty cantina in a dark desert town, the short, drunk man makes his pitch. Beside him on the billiards table sits a chunk of rock the size of home plate. Dozens of purple and white crystals push up from it like shards of glass. “Yours for $300,” he says. “No? One hundred. A steal!” The three or four other patrons glance past their beers, thinking it over: Should they offer their crystals too? Rock dust on the green felt, cowboy ballads on the jukebox. Above the bar, a sign reads, “Happy Hour: 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.”This remote part of northern Mexico, an hour or so south of Chihuahua, is famous for crystals, and paychecks at the local lead and silver mine, where almost everyone works, are meager enough to inspire a black market. “Thirty dollars.” He leans in. “Ten.” It’s hard to take him seriously. Earlier in the day, in a cave deep below the bar, I crawled among the world’s largest crystals, a forest of them, broad and thick, some more than 30 feet long and half a million years old. So clear, so luminous, they seemed extraterrestrial. They make the chunk on the pool table seem dull as a paperweight.
Nothing compares with the giants found in Cueva de los Cristales, or Cave of Crystals. The limestone cavern and its glittering beams were discovered in 2000 by a pair of brothers drilling nearly a thousand feet below ground in the Naica mine, one of Mexico’s most productive, yielding tons of lead and silver each year. The brothers were astonished by their find, but it was not without precedent. The geologic processes that create lead and silver also provide raw materials for crystals, and at Naica, miners had hammered into chambers of impressive, though much smaller, crystals before. But as news spread of the massive crystals’ discovery, the question confronting scientists became: How did they grow so big?
It takes 20 minutes to get to the cave entrance by van through a winding mine shaft. A screen drops from the van’s ceiling and Michael Jackson videos play, a feature designed to entertain visitors as they descend into darkness and heat. In many caves and mines the temperature remains constant and cool, but the Naica mine gets hotter with depth because it lies above an intrusion of magma about a mile below the surface. Within the cave itself, the temperature leaps to 112 degrees Fahrenheit with 90 to 100 percent humidity—hot enough that each visit carries the risk of heatstroke. By the time we reach the entrance, everyone glistens with sweat.
That article continues here.
Finally, lose yourself in this video. (If the voice doesn’t get to you!)
How to close today’s post?
Both by embracing the power of the natural order of things, life and death, and by reminding us all that there are in the order of over two billion stars in this universe.
That universe must be teeming with life, current and dormant, and the day when we truly confirm that will put everything into perspective!
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Talk about synchronicity!
For yesterday, around 10am PST, the BBC News website carried this big news item: Earliest evidence of life on Earth ‘found’.
Here’s how that article opens:
Earliest evidence of life on Earth ‘found’
By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News
Scientists have discovered what they say could be fossils of some of the earliest living organisms on Earth.
They are represented by tiny filaments, knobs and tubes in Canadian rocks dated to be up to 4.28 billion years old.
That is a time not long after the planet’s formation and hundreds of millions of years before what is currently accepted as evidence for the most ancient life yet found on Earth.The researchers report their investigation in the journal Nature.
As with all such claims about ancient life, the study is contentious. But the team believes it can answer any doubts.
The scientists’ putative microbes from Quebec are one-tenth the width of a human hair and contain significant quantities of haematite – a form of iron oxide or “rust”.
Matthew Dodd, who analysed the structures at University College London, UK, claimed the discovery would shed new light on the origins of life.
Do read the full article including viewing some wonderful photographs.
Learning from Dogs 