Category: Dogs

Somebody forgot to tell the dogs!

A reminder about how dogs, just like their human masters, love an ordered life.

We live in a rural country village with some 500 people scattered around, and have the New Forest on our door step, so our two dogs, Millie and Summer, get lots of walks. They are nearly six now, and arrived here as puppies.

Like most dog owners, we are known because of the dogs. The dogs sit near the five-bar gate during the day waiting to see if anybody will pass by and talk to them. The normal routine when I am home is to go out shortly after 6am for a morning walk, then they get another walk later during the day.

Dogs really are smarter!

Fascinating research coming out of Duke University

This Post was stimulated by a link sent to me by Chris Snuggs, who will be joining the author’s team at Learning from Dogs in due course.

The link was to an article published in Time Magazine on September 21st and is available in their online version.

The article is about the extraordinary social skills that have been developed by dogs over the millennia that they have been associated with man. It featured Brain Hare (sort of seems an appropriate name!) Assistant Professor, Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke.

The article is also rather timely as only a few days ago, there was a Post on this Blog about the befriending of a man with a wild wolf, or was it the other way around!

Back to the Time magazine article,

“Understanding a pointed finger may seem easy, but consider this: while humans and canines can do it naturally, no other known species in the animal kingdom can. Consider too all the mental work that goes into figuring out what a pointed finger means: paying close attention to a person, recognizing that a gesture reflects a thought, that another animal can even have a thought.”

Dogfighting

John Goodwin of HSUS teams up with an unlikely partner in the battle against dogfighting.

Thanks to Trish for pointing the Blog to this article in Yahoo Sports. It concerns a surprising success.

Maybe it was one of the times John Goodwin found a more receptive audience while lobbying politicians

John Goodwin

for stricter sentencing against dogfighting.

Maybe it was one of the times a law enforcement training session was packed with police.

Maybe it was while he was riding along on what is an increasing number of raids on dogfighting operations.

Whenever it was, there was a moment over the past two years that Goodwin, the anti-dog fighting expert at the Humane Society of the United States, realized that of all the unexpected things, a silver lining had formed in the ugly clouds of the Michael Vick scandal.

Read the full article here. More on John Goodwin here.

By Paul Handover

What not to say

John Lewis joins Learning from Dogs

On September 3rd, a Post was published about John. Anyone who read that Post will understand the pleasure that both John and I got from being re-connected. Subsequent chats since that Post have shown that there are many parallels in the way that we think, see the world, and speculate as to what, really, is going on! It was inevitable that I would ask John to join Learning from Dogs and, when I did, John’s immediate ‘yes’ was proof indeed that this was the right thing for us. A strong desire to do something is always important.

John’s first Post shows that he will be welcomed by all who read this Blog.

Paul

Read John’s first Post

Help save 5,000 pets in one week!

Let’s help Pilot’s N Paws achieve something wonderful.

Unless one is familiar with this fine organisation, you may be scratching your head wondering how is it that 5,000 pets can be rescued in a week.

The Pilots N Paws 5000 will take place during the week of September 12th through the 20th. This event was conceived as a means to draw public attention to three issues. The first and most important message that needs to be conveyed is that we have a serious problem in this country and as a result about 4,000,000 animals or more are euthanized annually.
This would not be the case if there were more and better spay and neuter programs and laws regarding owners’ responsibility for their animals.

The second issue is that because the problem is primarily regional a lot of these innocent animals could find permanent “forever” homes if they could be transported from high kill regions to areas with homes available. To accomplish this we desperately need more pilots to help with transports.
The final issue is that while aviation has proven to be a successful way to transport animals to safety, general aviation in this country is threatened. The threats range from onerous Homeland Security directives to crippling and expensive fees imposed on general aviation. We want to see general aviation perceived by the public accurately as a driving force in our economy, and one that contributes far more than its economic impact would suggest. We want to see general aviation free of these threats.

Their website has a special section devoted to PNP 5000, so do read more. The home page has a link where you can donate to support this excellent cause.

Let’s face it, rescuing these animals is only returning the favour.

Rescue dogs

By Paul Handover

German Shepherds

This is just self-indulgence!

This is not my dog but it brings out the same feelings in me as if I was looking at my German Shepherd.

More of this self indulgence!

Love lyrics

Our love for dogs!

One of my favourite Blogs is Baseline Scenario. It is hugely popular especially since it was started only in September 2008. The vision of the Blog is “The Baseline Scenario is dedicated to explaining some of the key issues in the global economy and developing concrete policy proposals.”

However, one of the founders of the Blog, James Kwak, recently had his dog, Dauber, pass away and published a Post in memory of the guy.

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