Category: Dogs

Canada – Ellesmere Island

One of the most remote places on this Planet.

The reason I am choosing to write about Ellesmere Island is because of a recent BBC film: Snow Wolf Family and Me.

This video offers a great insight into the film:

Published on Dec 29, 2014

A new BBC film, Snow Wolf Family and Me, explores the lives and habits of arctic wolves, revealing the family secrets of one of our most feared predators. Ellesmere Island is one of the most remote and beautiful places on Earth. This is the only place in the world where wolves are naive to man and have no fear. It allowed wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan and scientists an unparalleled opportunity to form bonds with a wild wolf family, revealing the remarkable story of their relationships and behaviour.

Here series producer Ted Oakes talks about some of the highlights and challenges of being accepted by a wild wolf pack.

Snow Wolf Family and Me will be broadcast on 29th and 30th December 2014 at 21:00 on BBC Two.
Music by Jean-Marc Petsas. Photofilm produced by Dualtagh Herr.

Subscribe to BBC News HERE http://bit.ly/1rbfUog
Check out our website: http://www.bbc.com/news
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bbcworldnews
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bbcworld
Instagram: http://instagram.com/bbcnews

Family members back in England who did watch both episodes of the film said it was breath-taking, especially the scenes in the second episode where the wolves were filmed coming right up close to Gordon.

Gordon Buchanan and White wolf.
Gordon Buchanan and White wolf.

What captivated me, seeing how quickly the wolves acclimatised to Gordon and his two colleagues, was imagining that this must have been what it was like when, thousands of years ago, wild wolves bonded with early man providing the start of the glorious and beautiful relationship between canines and humans.  A wonderful relationship experienced by millions of us around the world today.

The next short video illustrates that the ancient lineage, from wolf to dog, still resonates between both species.

Ellesmere Island Expedition 2008 – Howling Good Time

Will Steger Foundation

Uploaded on Feb 21, 2010

After a long day of pulling, the dogs serenade the team with a round of howling.

Couple more pictures to close today’s post.

wolfdog

 

oooo

Another incredible photograph from Tanj
Another incredible photograph from Tanja Askani

The old ones take some beating!

A repeat posting of a wonderful joke from earlier times.

Good friend from my English days, Bob Derham, a few days ago sent me the well-known joke about the dog for sale. At first, I had forgotten that I had posted a slightly modified version back in April, 2012.  When I re-read it, I had to repost it today. It’s wonderful.

oooo

DOG FOR  SALE

New home needed for this wonderful animal.

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

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

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

‘You talk?‘ he asks.

‘Yep,’ the Lab replies.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Ten quid,’ the guy says.

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

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

It’s the way I tell ’em!

oooo

Really hope that many of you haven’t come across this wonderful joke before!

The tail of the dog!

Or should that be the tell of a dog!

In the funny way that items flow around the internet, I recently read an item that appeared on the daily email summary from EarthSky. It was entitled: Read the message your dog sends with his tail. That, in turn, had been prompted by an article published on the website ScienceDirect. It was a study announced in Current Biology and published on the 18 November 2013, (Pages 2279–2282). Here’s how that article opens (and go here to read the numbered references):

Seeing Left- or Right-Asymmetric Tail Wagging Produces Different Emotional Responses in Dogs
Marcello Siniscalchi, Rita Lusito, Giorgio Vallortigara, Angelo Quaranta

Summary

Left-right asymmetries in behavior associated with asymmetries in the brain are widespread in the animal kingdom [1], and the hypothesis has been put forward that they may be linked to animals’ social behavior [2 and 3]. Dogs show asymmetric tail-wagging responses to different emotive stimuli —the outcome of different activation of left and right brain structures controlling tail movements to the right and left side of the body. A crucial question, however, is whether or not dogs detect this asymmetry. Here we report that dogs looking at moving video images of conspecifics exhibiting prevalent left- or right-asymmetric tail wagging showed higher cardiac activity and higher scores of anxious behavior when observing left- rather than right-biased tail wagging. The finding that dogs are sensitive to the asymmetric tail expressions of other dogs supports the hypothesis of a link between brain asymmetry and social behavior and may prove useful to canine animal welfare theory and practice.

Graphical Abstract

Wagging tails

In terms of understanding for the non-scientific minded, then the EarthSky article is an easier read.

Read the message your dog sends with his tail

Tail-wagging is a reflection of what’s happening in your dog’s brain. Learn to read your dog’s tail signals, and you’ll know if he’s happy … or stressed.

Tail-wagging in dogs is the classic signal for happiness. But researchers have found that tail-wagging can mean that your dog is either happy or stressed.

Activation of the left-brain causes a dog’s tail to wag to the right. Activation of the right-brain causes a wag to the left. That’s not new knowledge. Scientists detected that difference seven years ago.

What is new is that, not surprisingly, other dogs can easily read the message your dog is sending with his tail. And so can you.

Researchers at the University of Trento in Italy tested 43 dogs of various breeds for their ability to distinguish between tail wags. They showed the dogs videos of other dogs wagging their tails (much like the one above) and monitored the dogs’ heart rates and reactions. How could they be sure that the dogs weren’t watching their canine buddies’ facial or body cues? The researchers also showed the dogs only a silhouetted version of a tail-wagging dog.

As it turned out, every dog responded the same way. Dogs watching other dogs wag their tails to the left looked anxious, and their heart rates increased. In other words, they, too, became stressed. But dogs watching others swing their tails to the right stayed calm and relaxed — an indication that right wags are an expression of companionship and confidence, according to these scientists.

Why study tail wags in dogs? The team said in the summary to their study, which was published in Current Biology last year:

The finding that dogs are sensitive to the asymmetric tail expressions of other dogs supports the hypothesis of a link between brain asymmetry and social behavior and may prove useful to canine animal welfare theory and practice.

Bottom line: A dog wagging his tail to the right is happy, but a dog wagging to the left is stressed, say researchers.

Let me finish off today’s post with the following video.

So here’s to dozens of people watching their dogs’ tails!

Nostalgia with wings!

Opening up the memory box.

Last Saturday, under the post title of The family flight, I wrote about the formation display given by five A350 XWB development aircraft.

That prompted a comment from Hariod Brawn:

He [my father] was an RAF pilot during the war and through to the early 1960’s. He test-piloted the Vulcan and Victor, though started on what he called ‘string bags’, by which he meant Tiger Moths. In between he flew the Spitfire, Lancaster, Meteor and specialised in flying in electrical storms, about which he wrote a manual for the RAF.

……

I took my father to see Vulcan XH558 fly what was then thought to be its final flight (it subsequently was overhauled and took to the skies again). It flew along the length of the runway at a 45 degree angle with its bomb bay doors open. On the inside of the doors in huge letters was the single word ‘farewell’. It was really quite an emotional experience both for my father and myself.

I thought it would be nice to include some video of XH558; that will be tomorrow’s post. For today, I wanted to reminisce from my own private flying days.

A K-7 two-seat glider.
A K-7 two-seat glider.

My first exposure to private flying was on the 7th June, 1981 when, at Rattlesden Gliding Club in Suffolk, I was taken up for two air-experience circuits in a two-seater glider known as a ‘K7’.  I was immediately hooked! Those experience flights leading to a 4-minute flight (flight number 46) on the 6th September, 1981 that has the remark in my pilot’s log book: Solo!  Now fast forward to October, 1984 and my log book shows me attending a gliding instructor’s course at Lasham, resulting in me being issued with a British Gliding Association (BGA) Assistant Instructor Rating on the 14th October. (105/84).

Over on the power side of things, in March, 1984, I started Private Pilot training at the Suffolk Aero Club at Ipswich Airport and gained my PPL on the 9th November, 1984.  Subsequently, gaining my Instrument Rating in July, 1999 when I was then operating from Exeter Airport and flying frequently for business purposes.  For that ‘serious’ flying I used a Socata TB20, a French retractable, single-engined aircraft, based at Exeter.  A very fine, long-distance aircraft.

TB20, G-BPAS, photographed at Compton Abbas airfield (EGHA).
TB20, G-BPAS, photographed at Compton Abbas airfield (EGHA).

But the aircraft that I had the most fun flying was a dear old Piper Super Cub.  Here’s the background to the aircraft.

Piper Super Cub, L-21B, R-151

A/C Construction No. 18-3841, Frame No. 18-3843

Original Engine, Lycoming 135 Type 0-290-D2, 54/2441

Romeo 151 was one of a batch of 298 L-21’s delivered in 1954. There were 584 L-21B’s produced by Piper for military use, the ‘L’ standing for Liaison. The L-21B’s were PA-18-135’s with civil Lycoming 0-290-D2 engines, glasswork as most L-21A’s and L-18’s and a gross weight of 1760 lbs.

This aircraft was delivered to Koninklijke Luchtmacht, Dutch Air Force, on the 1st July, 1954 and registered R-151. After various homes R-151 transferred to the Dutch civil register as PH-GER, 1st April 1976 with 4,458 hours and shortly thereafter was registered to Vlieclub Hoogeveen, Certificate Number 2380.

On the 27th March, 1981 the aircraft was delivered to the UK with a total time of 5,043 hours and in September, 1981 became G-BIYR; ‘YR’. In April, 1983 YR was the first of type to be given a Public Transport CofA (Certificate of Airworthiness) and was used for training at Tollaton. YR reverted to a Private CofA in January, 1984 when purchased by Mike and Barbara Fairclough. The aircraft had by then accumulated 5,120 hours.

In 1992, YR was re-engined with a Lycoming 150HP, 0320-A2B No. L49809-27A (zero hours). Finally on the 2nd June, 1995 the aircraft was repainted in her original Dutch insignia and given CAA (UK Civil Aviation Authority) permission to use the original call-sign: Romeo 151.

The aircraft was based at and flown from Watchford Farm airstrip in South Devon, England.

Now forgive the nostalgic photographic memories!

Approaching home in South Devon, England
Yours truly approaching Watchford Farm airstrip in South Devon, England
Flying in the French Alps, Mt Blanc in sight
Flying in the French Alps with Mont Blanc in sight
9,300 ft up in the French Alps
9,300 ft up in the French Alps!

Every time I went to the airfield with Pharaoh he always tried to climb into the cockpit.  So one day, I decided to see if he would sit in the rear seat and be strapped in.  As the next picture shows, there was absolutely no problem with that!

Come on Dad, let's get this thing off the ground!
Come on Dad, let’s get this thing off the ground!

My idea had been to fly a gentle circuit in the aircraft.  First, I did some taxying around Watchford’s large grass airfield to see how Pharaoh reacted.  He was perfectly behaved.

But then I thought long and hard about taking Pharaoh for a flight.  In the Piper Cub there is no autopilot so if Pharaoh struggled or became agitated it would have been almost impossible to fly the aircraft and cope with Pharaoh sitting in the seat behind me.  So, in the end, I abandoned the idea.  The chances are that it would have been fine.  But if something had gone wrong, the outcome just didn’t bear thinking about.

Thus we elected for taxying all around the airfield which, as the next picture shows, met with full doggie approval.  The date was July 2006.

That was fun!
That was fun!

So enough of my recollections for today – tomorrow the Vulcan XH558.

Picture parade seventy-six

A few memories of Christmas Day 2014

(Apologies if these are not widely appreciated but with all our families living thousands of miles away, this seemed like a convenient way of sharing a few pictures from our Christmas day.)

P1150298
There was no point in getting all dressed up before we had completed our ‘house’ duties, that included mucking out the stables.

Our ‘country’ look seemed to warrant a photograph!  Taken in front of the well-house.

P1150304

The morning forecast had rain and declining temperatures with the snow-line expected to be around 2,500 feet.  This picture was taken on Highway I5 as it heads South for the Siskiyou Mountain pass; where we pulled over being about 3,000 feet.

Together with our neighbours, Dordie and Bill, we had all decided to have a Christmas Lunch at Callahan’s Mountain Lodge on Old Highway 99 just off I5 Exit 6.

Callahan's Mountain Lodge
Callahan’s Mountain Lodge

oooo

P1150308

Looking out from the deck of Callahan’s Lodge showing clearly that we were above the snow-line.

P1150311

From L-R: Jean, yours truly, Dordie & Bill.

P1150321

Two lovely ladies!

P1150323

The Lodge’s dog, Blue, that happily wandered all about the place including among the diners!

P1150329

Later on in the afternoon, when Jean and I had returned home, it was time to open a few Christmas presents.

I trust that every one of you dear readers had as happy and pleasant a day as did Jean and me.  Because, for us, it was wall-to-wall smiles from the moment we awoke …..

P1150297

The Book! A way into our own soul

To my dear readers.

The final two parts of the book, How the dog offers us a way into our own soul, and, And show us the way to embrace death, are offered today and tomorrow.

I can’t tell you what it has meant to me to have the many ‘Likes’ and comments along the way; just take it from me that it has been enormously inspiring and motivational and part of me can’t believe that the project that started in November 2013 under the NaNoWriMo-2013 umbrella was completed this November just gone, for a draft word count of a little over 104,000 words!

Come the New Year and the real work starts, that of the Big Edit.

So let me close by just saying, once again, thank you!

oooo

Not forgetting:

How the dog offers us a way into our own soul

“Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.”

So wrote the philosopher Democritus. Democritus, born in 460 BCE, although according to some in 490 BCE. He acquired fame with his knowledge of natural phenomena, and preferred a contemplative to an active life, spending much of his life in solitude. The fact that he lived to beyond 100 suggests he lived out what he philosophised about!

Now the last thing I am going to attempt is any rational, or even semi-rational, explanation of the soul; of what it is; of whatever it is. Despite the familiarity of the word, especially within religious circles, the notion of the soul remains an enigma. Indeed, it reminds me of that very clever quotation attributed to the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger: “Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy”, that with a little poetic licence might be rewritten: “In making itself intelligible does the soul become soulless.”

Thus having ‘bared my chest’ in terms of failing the test of knowing what a soul is, in any rational manner, I shall, nonetheless, continue to use the word. Simply because there will be sufficient bonding between me writing the word ‘soul’ and those reading the word ‘soul’, for those same readers to sense where I am coming from.

I’m going to stay with this wonderful concept of soul for just a little longer before adding our beautiful dogs into the dream. Staying with it courtesy of the writer; John O’Donohue. John’s name is not one known to the masses. Yet his writings are, without fail, beautifully moving. John’s first book was called Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom., Anam Cara means ‘soul friend’ in Gaelic. The following passage, taken from Anam Cara, represents to my mind the most exquisite understanding of the human soul.

The secret heart of time is change and growth. Each new experience which awakens in you adds to your soul and deepens your memory. The person is always a nomad, journeying from threshold to threshold, into ever different experiences. In each new experience, another dimension of the soul unfolds. It is no wonder that from ancient times the human person has been understood as a wanderer. Traditionally, these wanderers traversed foreign territories and unknown places. Yet, Stanislavsky, the Russian dramatist and thinker, wrote: “The longest and most exciting journey is the journey inwards.”

There is a beautiful complexity of growth within the human soul. In order to glimpse this, it is helpful to visualise the mind as a tower of windows. Sadly, many people remain trapped at one window, looking out every day at the same scene in the same way. Real growth is experienced when you draw back from one window, turn and walk around the inner tower of the soul and see all the different windows that await your gaze. Through these different windows, you can see new vistas of possibility, presence and creativity. Complacency, habit and blindness often prevent you from feeling your life. So much depends on the frame of vision – the window through which we look.

Those are so wonderful words from John and a brilliant example of his exquisite creativity of thought. They also offer the most perfect ‘window’ to seeing how the dog offers us a way into our own human soul.
What do I mean by this?
When we have dogs in our lives there are many occasions when there is a link between us and our dog; a link that defies logical explanation. Let me offer some examples.

Let’s start with this one. As a human, that is you and me, out of the blue, with no rhyme or reason, you will surely experience finding your day a bit tough from time to time. The odds are that it doesn’t show to your loved ones and, you are pretty sure, that it is entirely an experience that is well hidden inside one. But you and I know you can’t hide it from your dog. You slump down in a chair and your dog comes over and lays its warm snout across your legs or offers a head for you to scratch. In any one of many familiar ways you have a caressing and loving contact with your dog. And you know, you know beyond doubt, that your dog is attracting the angst away from you.

Or how about the time when you might be standing somewhere in or around the house, trying to think how best to approach a task, and your dog comes up next to you and softly leans against you.

Or that most special of links between us and our dog. I have in mind the times when our dog links ‘eye-to-eye’ with us, when those beautiful, deep unblinking eyes of our dog look so deeply inside of us. Those are the times when you and your dog know, you both sense in a clear, unwritten language, the thousands of years of relationship, the very special relationship, that man and dog have had with each other. That at that moment of held eye contact there is a real, tangible connection between your two souls.
We know beyond doubt that dogs have emotions, that they are full of natural goodness and feelings, and that there is some part of a dog’s inner being that links to us and, in turn, that there is an inner being within us that links us back to our dog.

Let me return to the power of that eye-to-eye bond between us and a dog.

In humans, that part of the brain in which self-awareness is thought to arise is called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. That just happens to be located behind the eyes. Ergo, we learn[1] to associate the identity of others with our eyes. Then as we mature, our eyes take on more importance because we develop awareness and a better understanding of the social cues that other people convey with their eyes.

Therefore, is it any surprise that dogs, such intuitive creatures that they are, young and old, soon learn to read us humans and the feelings and emotions that we give out via our eyes. There’s a knowing in my mind, albeit an unscientific ‘knowing’, that dogs, too, give out emotions and feelings from their own eyes.

That loving a dog and, in return, being loved by that dog truly does offer us a way into our own souls.

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains un-awakened.“
~ Anatole France

1.089 words Copyright © 2014 Paul Handover

[1] Refer Christina Starmans and Paul Bloom of the Mind and Development Lab at Yale University.

Picture parade seventy-five

I saw the following images published over on the blogsite Decidingly Bob, that has the sub-heading of Life as I see it!  What was so perfect was that the ‘I’ is a dog! The post from which these images are taken, with Bob’s permission, was published on December 12th under the post title of “Bob’s Diary. ..I am not a Reindeer!”

They seemed perfect for the last Picture parade before Christmas Day!

ooOOoo

Bob’s Diary. ..I am not a Reindeer!

“After the Christmas Reindeer story, I thought I was safe for a few weeks. Life can be cruel can’t it?

I knew there was trouble brewing when Maria and Sara offered me jelly babies.”

bob-1

oooo

But I didn’t expect this …

oooo

No sir, I got to talk to Sir Bob about this…
No sir, I got to talk to Sir Bob about this…

oooo

I am not a reindeer….
I am not a reindeer….

oooo

I have the answer..
I have the answer..

oooo

Bob-6

I am a Superhero.

ooOOoo

Listen everyone, have a wonderful week and please be safe out there.

The Book! Part Five: Adaptability.

Thanks to the wonders of the modern dictionary, I am able to understand that about two-hundred years ago, sometime around 1790 to 1800, the word ‘able’ that I just used was added to the word ‘adapt’ to make the word ‘adaptable’. I read that the word is an adjective and that from that comes a related word, a noun: adaptability. That same dictionary informs me that the meaning of adaptability is: “capable of being adapted” or “able to adjust oneself readily to different conditions: an adaptable person.”

Now I would be the first to accept that the history of man, the long history of man, reveals a species, namely us, that is incredibly adaptable. Yet, (and you knew there was a ‘yet’ coming!) my sense of how adaptable any one person might be is inextricably wound up with change, and change is often a bitter fruit to taste.

You may recall that I closed the chapter on The process of change, in Part Four, with a snippet quotation from the film Interstellar: “We all want to protect the world, but we don’t want to change.”

That sentiment could be applied to so many aspects of our lives, especially to any form of change that heralded perceived uncertainty, or potential vulnerability; indeed anything that might be regarded as taking us outside our ‘comfort zone’. Granted not everyone, all of the time, yet not no-one at any one time.

Dogs, just like us humans, love routines. However, what strikes me from having lived for a number of years with a great many dogs in the home, variously from sixteen to the nine we have at present[1], is how amazingly easily a dog will adapt to new circumstances, both temporary and long-term changed circumstances.

Somewhere in my research, and I regret not being able to quote the reference, I came across a review of the author Jean Donaldson[2], in connection with her book Culture Clash. This book has shaped modern thinking about the behaviour of dogs and the relationship between dogs and humans.

The reviewer, in discussing the adaptability of dogs, proposes, “Maybe it’s the simple way they view their world. Each thing in their lives seems to fall neatly into its place in their world view. Things to seek out, things to avoid, things to keep, and things to leave behind.”

Then a couple of sentences later, the reviewer adding: “I would guess that scavengers need that kind of mind set. Take it as it comes, deal with it, and move on. Dogs seem to have developed a sense of adaptation. They see what needs to be done and simply find a way to do it no matter what the impediments might be.”

That last sentence describes an attitude towards adaptability that, in my opinion, would be very rare to find in a person.

I am going to devote the balance of this chapter to a true story. The true story about an Akita breed of dog that lived with its owner in Tokyo back in the first quarter of the 20th century. I included this account, despite the main theme of the story being about the extreme loyalty of the dog, because the dog’s ability to adapt is equally as impressive.

In 1924, Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo took in an Akita breed of dog as a pet and named him Hachikō. During his owner’s life, Hachikō not only saw Professor Ueno come out from the front door each morning but quickly learned to greet him at the end of the day by going to the nearby Shibuya Station. Hachikō continued this daily routine of going to the station until a day in May 1925, when that evening Professor Ueno did not return on his usual train. The reason being that the professor had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage at the university that day, had died and, therefore, never returned to the train station where his doggy friend was waiting.

Kind persons found Hachikō another home after his master’s death but he routinely escaped, showing up again and again at his old home. Eventually, Hachikō in some doggie manner realised that his master, Professor Ueno, clearly no longer lived at the house. So Hachikō went to look for his master at the train station, where he had accompanied him so many times before. Each day, Hachikō waited for Professor Ueno to return. And each day he did not see his friend among the commuters leaving the station.

Now almost a permanent fixture at the train station, Hachikō inevitably attracted the attention of other commuters. Many of the people who frequented the Shibuya train station had seen Hachikō and Professor Ueno together each day. They now brought Hachikō treats and food to nourish him during his long wait – Hachikō waiting at the train station at the end of every single day.

That same year, it happened that another of Ueno’s faithful students, who had become something of an expert on the Akita breed, saw the dog at the station and followed him when he went back to the home of the former gardener of Professor Ueno: Kikuzaboro Kobayashi. There the student learned the history of Hachikō’s life. Shortly after this meeting with Kikuzaboro, the former student published a documented census of Akitas in Japan. His research found only 30 purebred Akitas remaining, including Hachikō from Shibuya Station.

Professor Ueno’s former student returned frequently to visit the dog and over the years published several articles about Hachikō’s remarkable loyalty. In 1932, one of these articles, published in Tokyo’s largest newspaper, threw the dog into the national spotlight. Hachikō became a national sensation. His faithfulness to the memory of his master impressed the people of Japan as a spirit of family loyalty that all should strive to achieve. Teachers and parents used Hachikō’s vigil as an example for children to follow. A well-known Japanese artist rendered a sculpture of the dog, and throughout the country a new awareness of the Akita breed grew.

Hachikō was so loyal that every day for the next nine years he waited, sitting there amongst the town’s folk, appearing precisely when the train was due at the station.

Hachikō died on March 8, 1935. He was found on a street in Shibuya. His heart was infected with filarial worms and 3-4 yakitori sticks were found in his stomach. His stuffed and mounted remains are kept at the National Science Museum of Japan in Ueno, Tokyo. Hachiko’s legendary faithfulness became a national symbol of loyalty. There is a memorial statue of Hachikō in front of Shibuya Station.

This tale of Hachikō is an astounding tribute to the adaptability of the dog.

1,123 words. Copyright © 2014 Paul Handover

[1] December, 2014
[2] http://www.jeandonaldson.com

The smell of the North

The things science unearths!

Having nine dogs here at home and quite a few acres of land, you can easily imagine that one needs to keep a good lookout for the numerous ‘land mines’.

But as much as they are a common and familiar sight, especially around the house, never in a thousand years would I have noticed a magnetic alignment!

All brought to my awareness by a wonderful article over on the ZME Science website.

Are you a dog lover? Did you know this?

ooOOoo

Dogs can sense Earth’s magnetic field… while pooping

Jenny Ricken / Univ. of Duisberg-Essen via AFP – Getty Images
Jenny Ricken / Univ. of Duisberg-Essen via AFP – Getty Images

Every dog owner can attest that canines are remarkable navigators, like some sort of living, breathing compasses. For some time, researchers have suspected that they can sense Earth’s magnetic field and use it in turn for navigation. A recent study confirmed this as a fact, however the findings came after studying the dogs in one of their most intimate poses – while pooping. Apparently, in stable conditions, dogs always relieve themselves while facing either north or south.

Led by zoologist Hynek Burda of Germany’s University of Duisburg-Essen, the researchers closely followed 70 dogs of 37 breeds for two years. Initially, the dogs didn’t seem to follow any particular pattern while going on with their business. After taking in account, however, things like the time of the day, the position of the sun, wind direction and, of course, the slight daily variation in the Earth’s magnetic field a whole new level of appreciation was revealed.

“The emerging picture of the analysis of the categorized data is as clear as [it is] astounding: Dogs prefer alignment along the magnetic north-south axis, but only in periods of calm magnetic field conditions,” said Burda.

Alignment of a sampling of dogs while defecating during stable geomagnetic conditions. Photo: Hart et al. / Frontiers in Zoology
Alignment of a sampling of dogs while defecating during stable geomagnetic conditions. Photo: Hart et al. / Frontiers in Zoology

Poop compass

So, dogs will always poop or pee facing north or south during stable conditions. The study not only proves that dogs can sense the Earth’s magnetic field, but also exhibit specific behavior in response to natural magnetic field variations. To our current knowledge, they’re the only mammals that do this. Previously it was shown that cattle, deer, foxes and other types of mammals sometimes line up preferentially along Earth’s magnetic field lines.

To some, dogs’ “sixth sense” might not come as a surprise, while others may view the present study as a complete waste of grant money. While it’s still unclear how dogs use this skill, it may be too early to dismiss the practical applications of the findings. If anything, however, this research proves yet again that dogs are extraordinary animals.

“To many dog owners who know about the good navigation abilities of their protégés, the findings might not come as a surprise, but rather as an explanation for the ‘supernatural’ abilities—although it is not clear to the researchers what the dogs might use their magnetic sense for,” Burda said.

Next, the researchers plan on studying how dogs use this ability and how magnetic storms affect their ability to orient themselves. Findings were reported in the journal Frontiers in Zoology.

ooOOoo

To say that I’m just a tiny bit sceptical wouldn’t be a lie.  But, trust me, I shall be outside tomorrow morning with my compass and camera and will report the results!