Involving our dogs!
My apologies once again, I am late on parade and just have time to share this YouTube video with you. Mind you, it does appear to be a good video!
Best wishes to you all!
Category: Culture
Eating out with your ….
…. dog!
The last few days have been sidetracking me from writing the blog. Apart from editing my third book The One We Feed and dealing with critical fire conditions and hoping with all our hearts for the rain due on Friday night to materialise, and … You get the message!
Anyway, The Dodo came up with a lovely snippet on the 20th August. Here it is:
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Diner Spots A Guy Out On The Sweetest Date With His Dog
Relationship goals 💞
By Stephen Messenger, Published on the 20th August, 2021.
The other day, Gemma Colón stopped by a restaurant in New York City to grab a bite. But the visit ended up satisfying more than just her appetite.
“I was presented with one of the most unexpectedly heartwarming views,” Colón told The Dodo. “I noticed this dog seated across from his owner, perched up on a chair, acting like an absolute proper gentleman.”
The dog and his owner were apparently on a date.
Colón was fortunate enough to be seated in view of the adorable pair — basking the sight of the good thing they have going.
“[The man] was doing a crossword puzzle and sipping a glass of red wine with his meal. His date (the dog) was enjoying his own bowl of water, which he slurped politely,” Colón said. “It was really amazing how well-behaved the pup was. I saw better table manners displayed by this dog than I’ve seen from some humans.”
While the man and his dog dined, Colón saw other patrons smile at the sweet scene as well. No one had the heart to interrupt their meal to comment on their cuteness, but Colón did overhear an exchange with their server — revealing that this wasn’t just a one-off outing.
“I heard a waitress comment on how good the dog was at one point, and the man replied saying he brings the dog with him everywhere,” Colón said. “It definitely seemed like a very pleasant date, with lovely company.”
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This is really a delightful story but it isn’t surprising. Because dogs that are loved and cared for by us humans are so loving and caring in return. As the waitress heard the man brings his dog everywhere. He is never separated from the dog.
Perfect!
At last some hope!
Bill McKibben steps forward.
I heard yesterday from Erik Hoffner who is responsible for the Mongabay website that Bill McKibben is stepping up to the mark in wanting to take action regarding climate change.
I very quickly signed up and received the following email:
Dear Friend,
Many thanks for signing up to be a part—and we hope a big part—of Third Act.
My name is Bill McKibben, and I’m one of the volunteers helping to launch this effort for Americans 60 and older who want to build a fairer and more sustainable nation and planet.
We’re very much in the early days of this, and we need your help—especially if you’re good at the behind-the-scenes tasks like administration, development, and project management. If you’ve got some time to donate right now, write to us at info@thirdact.org.
And we will be back in touch as autumn rolls on, with some early campaigns focused on climate action and on ending voter suppression. As you can tell, we’re making this up as we go along. So it should be interesting, and also a little bumpy!
If you can assemble a sizable group of people, I’ll do my best to join you for a virtual talk to explain more about this idea. (And when the pandemic ends, we’ll try to do it in person!).
And if you can donate some small sum of money to help with the launch, here’s the place.
Thank you. This is our time to make some powerful change—we’ve got the skills, the resources, and the desire. So let’s try.
Thanks, Bill McKibben for Third Act
The website is here.
WELCOME TO YOUR THIRD ACT
We’re over 60—the Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation. We have skills, we have resources, we have time—and many of us have kids and grandkids. We also have a history. In our early years we saw remarkable shifts in politics and society; now, in our latter years, we want to see those changes made real and lasting.
We were there for the first Earth Day, and we’ve been glad to see cleaner air and water—but now we know that the climate crisis presents an unparalleled threat. The heat is on and we must act quickly to turn it down.
We watched or participated in the civil rights movement—and now we know that its gains were not enough, and that gaps in wealth have only widened in our lifetimes. We’ve got to repair divisions instead of making them worse.
We saw democracy expand—and now we’re seeing it contract, as voter suppression and gerrymandering threaten the core of the American experiment. We know that real change can only come if we all get to participate.
You are the key to this work. Maybe you’ve asked yourself: how can I give back on a scale that matters? The answer is, by working with others to build movements strong enough to matter. That’s why we hope you’ll join us.
Clearly I have signed up and I hope an enormous number of other people will do as well.
Because the time left is not very long and even me at the age of 76 fear for the near future if nothing is done urgently.
Please, please consider joining Third Act.
As the headline says: THIRD ACT — EXPERIENCED PEOPLE WORKING FOR A FAIR AND STABLE PLANET.
The way dogs think
They are incredibly intuitive but not in such a broad way as us humans.
On Friday morning Oliver got lifted up onto the bed. It’s a daily routine and one that Jeannie and I love.
On this particular early morning I decided to switch the lamp off next to me and snuggle under the covers for a bit more shuteye. At the moment the light went out Oliver moved from his regular position somewhere over my knees to the bottom of the bed in between me and Jean. He has never done that before.
Of all our dogs Oliver is the one that seems to sense what is happening. That is not to say that the other dogs are dumb, far from it, but that Oliver is extra intuitive.
So that’s why this from Science magazine is being republished today. Because it is right on the money, so to speak.
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Dogs Know When You’re Lying to Them
By the BEC Crew, 25th February, 2015
We all know that dogs can sense our emotions, whether happy, sad or angry, but now researchers have found that they can also tell when you’re lying, and will stop following the cues of someone they deem untrustworthy.
Researchers led by Akiko Takaoka from Kyoto University in Japan figured this out by using the old ‘point and fetch’ trick – a human points at the location of something, like a ball, a stick, or some food, and the dog runs off to find it. They wanted to figure out if dogs were just blindly following these cues, or if they were adjusting their behaviour based on how reliable they perceived the person giving the cues to be. And if they didn’t perceive this person as being reliable, how quickly would they learn to mistrust and disobey the humans who pointed in the wrong direction?
Working with 34 dogs, the team went through three rounds of pointing. The first round involved truthfully pointing out to the dogs where their treats and toys were hidden in a container. In the second round, after showing the dogs what’s in the container, they pointed out the location again, but this time, it was a trick – the container was empty. In the third round, the team pointed to the location of the box, which was filled with treats again.
They found that the dogs were following the age-old adage, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me,” because by round three, many of them were done believing the actions of the pointing volunteers.
A second experiment was performed in exactly the same way as the first one, except the person was replaced by an entirely new one. The dogs happily started the process all over again, and were fully open to trusting their new ‘friend’. “That suggests, says Takaoka, that the dogs could use their experience of the experimenter to assess whether they were a reliable guide,” Melissa Hogenboom writes for BBC News. “After these rounds, a new experimenter replicated the first round. Once again, the dogs followed this new person with interest.”
What’s going on here, the researchers report in the journal Animal Cognition, is that the dogs were ‘devaluing’ the reliability of the human when they experienced their lies. “Dogs have more sophisticated social intelligence than we thought,” Takaoka told Hogenboom. “This social intelligence evolved selectively in their long life history with humans.”
The experiment reaffirms what we know about the nature of dogs – they love routine, but they also love new things. In round one, they learnt how the activity goes: the human points, I sniff out something great. But in round two, the rules changed and the dogs became stressed out. But when round three came along, the human who broke the rules was replaced by a different human, and the dogs were happy to trust this one because of their love of trying new things.
“Dogs are very sensitive to human behaviour but they have fewer preconceptions,” Bradshaw told the BBC. “They live in the present, they don’t reflect back on the past in an abstract way, or plan for the future.” And they certainly don’t approach a situation by “thinking deeply about what that entails”, he said.
Something to think about when you consider inflicting the ‘fake tennis ball’ game on your dog. It might work a few times for hilarious effect, because your dog trusts you way more than the dogs in the experiment trusted the strangers they just met, but how long will it last?
It also explains why dogs are so unsure about magicians:
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So to all the dogs in the world I say this: “Keep on trusting us humans!” And to the millions of dog owners in the world, I say this: “Never lie, especially to a dog!”
The big question!
That I wonder if it will ever be answered?
For the first day of September I wanted to change the topic to an item that was recently published by The Conversation.
Space has always been fascinating to me. One of my enduring memories was standing on the roof of my Land Rover in 1969 during a long journey around the interior of Australia. We were in the Nullabor desert and it was flat, and lonely, for miles and miles. This particular night I clambered up onto the roof and just took in the night sky. There was not a single spot of human-caused light pollution and the night sky was beautiful beyond words.
Later on when I was sailing I used to regard the North Star as my friend.
Anyway, here’s a little question for this day.
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Does outer space end – or go on forever?
Jack Singal, University of Richmond
What is beyond outer space? – Siah, age 11, Fremont, California
Right above you is the sky – or as scientists would call it, the atmosphere. It extends about 20 miles (32 kilometers) above the Earth. Floating around the atmosphere is a mixture of molecules – tiny bits of air so small you take in billions of them every time you breathe.
Above the atmosphere is space. It’s called that because it has far fewer molecules, with lots of empty space between them.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel to outer space – and then keep going? What would you find? Scientists like me are able to explain a lot of what you’d see. But there are some things we don’t know yet, like whether space just goes on forever.
Planets, stars and galaxies
At the beginning of your trip through space, you might recognize some of the sights. The Earth is part of a group of planets that all orbit the Sun – with some orbiting asteroids and comets mixed in, too.
You might know that the Sun is actually just an average star, and looks bigger and brighter than the other stars only because it is closer. To get to the next nearest star, you would have to travel through trillions of miles of space. If you could ride on the fastest space probe NASA has ever made, it would still take you thousands of years to get there.
If stars are like houses, then galaxies are like cities full of houses. Scientists estimate there are 100 billion stars in Earth’s galaxy. If you could zoom out, way beyond Earth’s galaxy, those 100 billion stars would blend together – the way lights of city buildings do when viewed from an airplane.
Recently astronomers have learned that many or even most stars have their own orbiting planets. Some are even like Earth, so it’s possible they might be home to other beings also wondering what’s out there.
You would have to travel through millions of trillions more miles of space just to reach another galaxy. Most of that space is almost completely empty, with only some stray molecules and tiny mysterious invisible particles scientists call “dark matter.”
Using big telescopes, astronomers see millions of galaxies out there – and they just keep going, in every direction.
If you could watch for long enough, over millions of years, it would look like new space is gradually being added between all the galaxies. You can visualize this by imagining tiny dots on a deflated balloon and then thinking about blowing it up. The dots would keep moving farther apart, just like the galaxies are.
Is there an end?
If you could keep going out, as far as you wanted, would you just keep passing by galaxies forever? Are there an infinite number of galaxies in every direction? Or does the whole thing eventually end? And if it does end, what does it end with?
These are questions scientists don’t have definite answers to yet. Many think it’s likely you would just keep passing galaxies in every direction, forever. In that case, the universe would be infinite, with no end.
Some scientists think it’s possible the universe might eventually wrap back around on itself – so if you could just keep going out, you would someday come back around to where you started, from the other direction.
One way to think about this is to picture a globe, and imagine that you are a creature that can move only on the surface. If you start walking any direction, east for example, and just keep going, eventually you would come back to where you began. If this were the case for the universe, it would mean it is not infinitely big – although it would still be bigger than you can imagine.
In either case, you could never get to the end of the universe or space. Scientists now consider it unlikely the universe has an end – a region where the galaxies stop or where there would be a barrier of some kind marking the end of space.
But nobody knows for sure. How to answer this question will need to be figured out by a future scientist.
Jack Singal, Associate Professor of Physics, University of Richmond
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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“But nobody knows for sure. How to answer this question will need to be figured out by a future scientist.”
I wonder if that future scientist will ever be able to answer the question.
Then there’s the thought that the universe may be infinite. That is an astounding idea, that it goes on forever.
There’s only one way to close this post. With this photograph from Unsplash.
Perfect families!
What are the best dog breeds for families.
Again I am drawn to The Dodo and to an article that was published earlier this year. It is not a long piece but it seems to be full of common sense.
Have a read and tell me your thoughts.
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These Are Some Of The Best Dog Breeds For Families
And why you should find one at a rescue 🐶👪
By SAM HOWELL, Published on the 26th April, 2021
Adopting a dog is one of the most exciting ways to grow your family.
But you might be wondering if certain dog breeds are better for living with families than others.
The Dodo spoke with Iris Ulbrich, a behavior consultant and owner at Trust Your Dog in Los Angeles, who explained why you should actually pay more attention to a pup’s personality than his breed.
The best dog breeds for families
While there are some dog breeds that tend to be a bit more inclined for family life, it’s super important to remember that breed is not everything.
“Yes, there are characteristics that are tied to dog’s breed, but a lot has to do with the quality of breeding as well as the first few months of a puppy’s life,” Ulbrich told The Dodo.
What’s most important is an individual dog’s personality because, ultimately, that will determine whether or not he will work great in a family environment, regardless of his breed.
With that in mind, here are some dog breeds that — on average — tend to have traits that make them good family pets:
- Labradors
- Golden retrievers
- Collies
- Wheaten terriers
“Both [Labradors and golden retrievers] are very friendly, active, good with kids and eager to please,” Ulbrich explained.
As for wheaten terriers, they don’t shed. So if someone in your family has allergies, these terriers could be a good fit.
“Collies are very devoted family dogs and can be both very active but also know how to relax and be calm at home,” Ulbrich said.
That being said, these are just generalizations! There are some labs out there who are absolutely terrible with kids — and literally millions of individual dogs from breeds not on this list who are perfect family pets.
Which is why your best bet is to go to a rescue center, where adoption counselors can match you with a pup who has the exact personality you’re looking for.
Personality traits that make a dog the best fit for a family
Since personality is far more important than breed when finding your perfect pup, you should know which traits to look for in your family’s potential new addition.
After all, a rescue is going to help you find a dog that’ll vibe with you and your loved ones, since you’ll be able to pick a pup with a fully formed personality. If you get a puppy from a breeder, on the other hand, you’ll have no idea if he’ll grow up to be a good match for your family.
When it comes to finding the best dog for your family, here’s the personality traits Ulbrich recommends you look for.
“A healthy amount of energy in combination with eagerness to please their owner is usually a great combination,” Ulbrich said.
And since families are all different, it’s actually most important to look for a dog that’ll mesh with your family’s interests, hobbies and lifestyles.
“An active and outdoorsy family with slightly older kids that live in a house would pick a different dog to a family that lives in an apartment and has twin toddlers,” Ulbrich explained.
In those cases, both of those potential pups might not even be any of the breeds listed above, since it all boils down to each individual pup’s personality.
“A dog’s demeanor also plays a big role in [a] successful family integration,” Ulbrich said. “I try and recommend people ask a trainer to temperament test a puppy before making a final decision on breed and particular puppy within a litter.”
And since that individual temperament is so important, any dog breed can be the best dog breed for your family.
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I hadn’t thought of it before but Iris Ulbrich stating that personality was far more important than the breed of the dog. Of course! Perfect sense! And always take in a rescue dog!
Loving dogs!
Yet another article about a sweet dog! Keep them coming!
I know Jeannie and I are very biased but so are millions, literally, of other good folk around the world. I am speaking of people who love dogs. And thank goodness that is the case because The Dodo is just one of a number of doggie websites and in the absence of such websites Learning from Dogs would have never got started!
So I am pleased to present another story from The Dodo about Levi. Read on:
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Very Sweet Dog Always Welcomes Mom Home With A Gift
It’s the thought that counts 😂
By Lily Feinn, published on the 16th July, 2021
Levi knows to never greet someone empty-handed. The Lab mix gets so excited every time his mom comes home that he immediately has to find the perfect gift to show his love.
However, when it comes to Levi’s presents, his mom knows it’s the thought that counts.
“The very first thing that stands out was when he brought me an open, half-chewed box of screws,” Lori Eddins, Levi’s mom, told The Dodo. “So I took him to the vet for X-rays.”
Thankfully, Levi hadn’t snacked on any of the hardware and got a clean bill of health, but Eddins’ reaction to the “gift” encouraged Levi to start an adorable routine.
“I think my begging and baby-talking for him to surrender the box of screws might be what inspired his deliveries,” Eddins said. “He thought it was great!”
Now, the rescue dog always gives his mom something special when she comes home after a hard day’s work.
“He has brought everything from his toys, to bones and blankets, to clumps of grass, pieces of cardboard or paper (I call them ‘cards’) and landscape timber,” Eddins said. “My favorite was when he found where the flower bed had been cleaned out and he brought me flowers.”
“If he meets me at the gate empty-handed, I let him carry my keys to the door, and he is so proud,” she added.
Some of Levi’s gifts are not necessarily what Eddins would pick out for herself. Occasionally, he’ll bring her clumps of horse manure or try to pick up one of the chickens on the property to deliver to his mom.
Though Eddins’ chickens aren’t so fond of this gift-giving, Eddins is so grateful to have such a generous, happy-go-lucky dog bringing joy to her life — and she makes sure Levi knows it.
“I give him huge hugs and thank him as if he brought me the winning lottery ticket,” Eddins said. “Most things I give back to him, some end up in the trash. I did keep the flowers!”
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It is a delightful story and one that rings true for so many people. Lori knows the golden rule in the way that she praises Levi.
Always make a dog feel as though he or she is such a special animal that life wouldn’t work without that dog. Always praise them and when a dog does something negative do not punish them. Just don’t praise them.
Picture Parade Three Hundred and Ninety-Eight
Yet more from Unsplash!
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And one more from my own stable.
There you go for another week!
What is it that some dogs think of?
I love this item from The Dodo.
There are many things that we do not understand when it comes to dogs. Of course we love them but often we have no idea what they are thinking of.
That was accentuated in this recent story published by The Dodo.
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Dog Gets 350 Tennis Balls But Will Only Play With One Of Them
Published on the 18th December, 2020.
“She was so determined that there was something amazing at the bottom of the box, and couldn’t get to it quick enough.”
While Noora is a lazy bulldog at heart, she’s grown up around a bunch of Labs, so over time, she’s slowly become more and more fascinated with the concept of tennis balls.
“Noora has almost always had a tennis ball-obsessed Lab in the house with her, and while the concept of repetitively chasing a tennis ball makes no sense to her, she’s intrigued by the obsession with something she can’t eat,” Katie Swartout, Noora’s mom, told The Dodo.
Noora’s family definitely goes through a lot of balls, so when they recently found a great deal on a box of 350 tennis balls, everyone was pretty excited — including Noora.
“Noora LOVES when packages come,” Swartout said. “It started with BarkBoxes coming to the door, and the queen of the house deciding that every box that comes must be for her! When this box came, Noora immediately started crying for joy, and doing everything she could to get into the box!”
As her family opened the box, Noora got a little overexcited — and quickly dumped the entire box all over the living room floor.
Instead of excitedly playing with every single ball, though, Noora dug her way to the bottom of the box, and found the one ball that she had apparently been looking for.
“She was so determined that there was something amazing at the bottom of the box, and couldn’t get to it quick enough,” Swartout said.
Once Noora had picked out her ball, and subsequently spilled the rest of them onto the floor, she refused to play with any of the others. Out of the 350 balls, there was only one that was meant for her.
“For a few hours, Noora wanted nothing to do with any other ball or toy,” Swartout said. “She was very protective of ‘her ball’ and if any of the other dogs would come near, she made sure they were aware of who was boss!”
For some reason, that one ball at the very bottom of the box was the only one Noora wanted, and she was completely confident in that decision.
Eventually, though, Noora got bored of her coveted chosen ball and went on with her life — until she rediscovered the box. Then she got excited all over again.
“Noora has moved on to other toys, demonstrating she has the attention span of a 3-year-old, but when she sees the bin of tennis balls in the garage now, she still gets as excited as she did when the box first arrived,” Swartout said.
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You see! We don’t really know what Noora is thinking of but that doesn’t take away for one moment the joy that Katie gets from Noora’s behaviour!
Dogs are such wonderful creatures!
Part Two of the Spitfire and dogs!
To be honest this is more about the Spitfire! The Spitfire SX336.
Raymond was working on the design of his dog tags and to nail stuff about the way to make them, the material thickness, how to work with it (2MM thick brass) and how to stop them failing, when he turned to a contact he had who is a Spitfire Engineer. At that point Ian, the contact, was up the road from Hertfordshire at The Shuttleworth Collection, getting AR501 back in the air.
However, mid-2019 he moved across the airfield to Kennet Aviation. That’s the home of Spitfire XVII.
At that point Raymond was still pestering for help with a fair few aspects of the manufacturing, from working with the five-ton fly-press that was recommended (from a closed aircraft factory south of Birmingham) to using high-speed polishing tools, but – above all – the position of the hole in relation to the edge of the tag, which is the same distance rivets are from the edge of the wing in a Spitfire.
In return, Raymond offered to build a few websites, one for Kennet Engineering and one for Kennet Aviation. Both the same company really, the Engineering one to try and get more work for a few huge and expensive CNC machines they’ve recently acquired to make spitfire parts they couldn’t get hold of.
Anyway, it was when researching regarding the Spitfire that he, Raymond, came across my Spitfire content and obviously noticed the title of the website he was looking at: LearningFromDogs.com, saw I had a tremendous-looking book and thought ‘hang on a minute!’ this is all too much of a coincidence, he must say hello AND introduce me (Paul) to the SX336.
So Raymond finally said ‘hello’ and let me know there is indeed another Spitfire still flying somewhere in the world.
Here is an extract from that Shuttleworth website:
At approximately 3pm on Tuesday 25 April 2017 The Shuttleworth Collection’s Spitfire under restoration fired into life for the first time in 12 years.
A first stage engine run took place on the airfield with volunteers who have been working on the project watching with fingers crossed. The Spitfire has recently been fitted with new propeller and spinner, with testing on all systems from hydraulics, electrical, coolant and air being undertaken in the engineer workshop where visitors have been able to follow the project’s progress.
Project engineer Ian Laraman expressed his relief that all had gone to plan, saying, “With any engine being tested for the first time you always hope it will run smoothly, and happily today the Spitfire’s first engine run couldn’t have gone any better. Higher power runs will now follow, which will give us a better indication of how close we are to flight testing, but for now hearing this aircraft powered up again after all the work that’s gone into it has just been fantastic!”
The coolant systems will now be flushed out, and checks carried out on the oil filters in advance of further testing of the Spitfire’s 1,440hp Rolls Royce Merlin V12 engine in the next fortnight. To follow the progress of AR501 as it moves toward the end of its restoration come along to see the aircraft in the engineering hangar or follow The Collection’s Facebook and Twitter pages!
Here is a photograph of Spitfire SX336 from the Kennet Aircraft Collection website.
A real blast from the past!
I will finish the post be repeating the photograph that Raymond took at the Eastbourne Air Show.
Lulu loved an air show, going to several with us over the years. Here she is at Eastbourne air show, enjoying the Lancaster Bomber and a Spitfire from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
Learning from Dogs 
