Category: Innovation

This day a year ago.

What was posted exactly one year ago?

I was working outside all day yesterday and only sat down to think about today’s post after 5pm. Plus our evening meal was going to be served at 6pm.

So as I have previously done in these situations I decided to repost what was published here on Learning from Dogs one year ago to the day.

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Part One of a stunningly interesting essay from Professor Marc Bekoff.

As a newbie yet-to-be published author I am technically at the stage of having a completed draft that Jeannie and a close friend are proof-reading. Then after corrections, it is going to be released to some ‘beta’ readers who will give me some early feedback. (Too scary to even think of just now!)

OK, with that admission out of the way, let me move on to my ‘draft’ chapter on play; in Part Four of the book. In researching what is known about the way that dogs play and what lessons there are for us humans, I came across an essay by Marc Bekoff, Ph.D. Marc is Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His essay had been published in May on the website of Psychology Today. It was incredibly interesting and full of material for the book!

Within a few minutes of me sending Professor Bekoff an email requesting permission to include quotations in my ‘draft’ chapter, he had responded in the affirmative. I had also sought his permission to publish the essay here on Learning from Dogs. Again, a very quick, positive reply.

Thus with Marc Bekoff’s generous permission, here is his essay in full. (I’ve taken the decision to split this long essay into two parts.)

Finally, Professor Bekoff includes numerous ‘html’ links within his essay to other materials. I’ve cheated by saving quite some time adding those links but have underlined the linked phrase in question, apart from the very early chapters that do have ‘html’ links. Please go to the site of the original essay to explore further those links.

Marc Bekoff and friend.
Marc Bekoff and friend.

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Butts and Noses: Secrets and Lessons from Dog Parks (Part One)

Dog parks are gold mines of information about the behavior of dogs and humans

Post published by Marc Bekoff Ph.D. on May 16, 2015 in Animal Emotions

I love going to dog parks. So, too, do dogs and their people. Dog parks are a fascinating recent and growing cultural phenomenon. Indeed, I go rather often to what I call my field sites, for that’s what they are, to study play behavior and other aspects of dog behavior including urination and marking patterns, greeting patterns, social interactions including how and why dogs enter, become part of, and leave short-term and long-term groups, and social relationships. I also study human-dog interactions and when I study how humans and dogs interact I also learn a lot about the humans. For example, I often hear how happy people are that their dogs are free to run here and there or free to be dogs when they’re at the dog park. Often, they say this while they’re constantly calling them back to them even when the dog is simply sniffing here or there or looking for a friend. They also call them to break up play when they think it’s gotten out of hand. You call this free?

Two works to which I often go when thinking about social dynamics at dog parks are Matthew Gilbert’s book titled Off the Leash: A Year at the Dog Park and Sonoma State University’s Patrick Jackson‘s essay called “Situated Activities in a Dog Park: Identity and Conflict in Human-Animal Space.” Linda Case writes about Dr. Jackson’s study and she is not a fan of dog parks because she feels they’re not safe and because “Dog park people frequently behave badly by not being responsible dog owners and by being inconsiderate and uncaring towards other people and their dogs.” We really need empirical studies on the safety issue. After having spent countless hours at dog parks I’ve never entertained drawing this conclusion, but there aren’t any detailed data on this topic of which I’m aware. However, on occasion, but hardly regularly, I’ve marveled at just how inconsiderate a very few people can be. But, as part of the gossip network among the other people, I often hear that a given person behaves like this even in non-dog park situations. On a few ocassions I’ve had a rather inconsiderate person ask me why their dog has bad manners and rather than get involved I call attention to some interesting dog-dog interactions.

Most people realize that “dogs are in” and countless scientific and popular essays (see also New Directions in Canine Behavior, Julie Hecht’s “Dog Spies,” and essays written for Psychology Today by writers including Mark Derr, Stanley Coren, Jessica Pierce, and yours truly) and books have been published in the past decade or so about these fascinating mammals. The bottom line is that a plethora of detailed data — and the database is rapidly increasing — clearly show that dogs are thinking, clever, and feeling sentient beings, and viewing them as sort of robotic machines is incredibly misleading and academically corrupt (please see this essay). This does not mean that they are “doggy Einsteins,” however, ample data from numerous different research groups around the world clearly show that dogs are rather complex and incredibly interesting mammals who deserve a good deal of further study. Perhaps even René Descartes would consider changing his views on nonhuman animals (animals) as unfeeling machines given the enormous amount of empirical evidence on sentience in animals.

Why do dogs do this and that? Canine confidential

“Why do dogs do this and that?” The purpose of this short essay, that can be conceived as a field guide to the extremely interesting and largely unknown world of the fascinating dogs with whom we share our lives, is to provide some lessons in dog behavior from observations and questions arising from visits to various dog parks, especially around Boulder, Colorado where I live. I see myself as “a naturalist in a dog park” and aim to show here, via a series of questions, what we know and don’t know about many different aspects of dog behavior. Dogs are often called social catalysts – icebreakers or lubricants — for social interactions with other dogs and they often open the door for pretty frank and wide-ranging conversations among familiar and unfamiliar humans. It always amazes me how dogs free up humans to talk about things they might be more reluctant to share in other venues including what they really think about their human “BFF’s — best friends forever” — and the infamous “3 p’s,” namely, pee, poop, and puke. Often when I get home and look at my notes I view them as “canine confidential.” So, what follows is a sampler of many “why” questions, including why dogs hump, why they sniff butts, genitals, and ears, why they play, and why they organize themselves the ways they do. There are also many “what” questions such as “What do they know?”, “What are they thinking?”, and “What are they feeling?” in different contexts. The list of questions is endless and I’m sure those that follow can easily mutate in many, many more.

People who are lucky enough to share their world with a dog often think they know it all. And, while they do know a good deal about what their canine buddy is thinking and feeling and what they want and need, there really are large gaps in the scientific database. As I mentioned above, there are numerous anecdotes about why dogs do this or that, and, taken together, they form their own pool of data. However, while the claim that “the plural of anecdote is data” applies in some cases, many mysteries still loom in what we actually know about the world of dogs.

Furthermore, often there is no single “right” answer to a question — even some of the most commonly asked queries — and that’s just fine. Dogs compose a highly variable group of mammals — I often say “the dog” doesn’t really exist — so it’s not surprising that just when we think we have a solid handle on what they’re thinking and feeling and why they do what they’re doing an exception or three arises. Surely, the early experience of individual dogs influences their later behavior. So, while we know a lot, people are often amazed by how little we know and that hard and fast answers can’t be given to some common questions.

Visiting dog parks can be wonderful educational experiences. Visits, some lasting hours on end each and every day, can be myth breakers and icebreakers, and also provide information about why dogs are doing this or that. People are always asking questions about why their dog is doing something and really want to know what we know. They also freely offer advice to other people about why their dog is doing something and how they can treat various problems such as shyness, aggressiveness, and why dogs ignore what their human is asking them to do. And, as I wrote above, dogs also are icebreakers – “social catalysts” the academics call them — and get people to talk with one another and to talk about things.

The questions below range from interests about basic dog behavior such as why do dogs stick their noses where they do, and why they play, bark, pee, eat turds, and roll on their back, to more lofty questions about whether dogs have a theory of mind and whether they know what they look like and if they know who they are. A good number of questions deal with dogs’ butts and noses, hence the title of this brief essay (motivated, of course, by the famous rock group, Guns N’ Roses). Butts and noses — including other “private parts” – figure into a number of the questions below. We all know dogs put their noses in places where we couldn’t imagine there would be anything of interest, and also place their active snouts, often on their first introduction, to other dogs and humans, in places that make us rather uneasy. We don’t greet friends or strangers by immediately licking their mouth or with a genital sniff or slurp. There also are many general questions that don’t center on anatomical features that figure largely in the world of the dog. I’ll answer each question briefly with what we know from various types of research, with some stories where they’re available, and note where we really need more information. It’s entirely possible that I have missed a given study (or studies) and I apologize for the oversights and look forward to hearing from readers.

While we know a lot about dogs, there are holes in the database, so the future is chock full of exciting research. Readers will discover that what we often take to be the gospel about dog behavior frequently isn’t all that well supported by published empirical research or even detailed observations. While good stories are interesting and can serve to stimulate more “controlled” research, in and of themselves they don’t constitute “data” as do detailed and more focused studies (I’ll suggest below that studies in dog parks may be more “ecologically relevant” than studies in laboratories and help to settle on-going debates among different research groups). In some ways, then, this essay is sort of a myth-buster and a fun way not only to learn about dogs but also to stimulate further research about dogs and dogs and humans. So, here we go.

(See the concluding part tomorrow.)

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Clearly in this last year the book was published!

For readers who haven’t read Mark Bekoff’s essay before I will repost the concluding part tomorrow.

Into the Future.

These are deeply interesting times.

Among the many impressive qualities of the dog is one that we humans must envy so much at times.

I’m not speaking of a dog’s ability to seek out food or, at the other end of things, the dog’s way of keeping it’s backside clean! 😉 No, I’m referring to the way a dog lives in the present. Presumably unworried as to what the future might mean.

We humans, however, as hard as we try to be rooted in the ‘here and now’ also depend on assessing the future and determining the best way to respond to that uncertainty. I’m sure that assessing and managing risk is one of the ways that have made us such a successful species.

In terms of voicing these uncertain times I really was drawn to a comment from ‘John D’ over on Richard Murphy’s Tax Research UK blogsite. I’m going to republish that comment in full before moving on to the central theme of today’s post: Into the Future.

John D says:
June 10 2016 at 4:58 pm
Paul, I share your apprehension. I believe ‘the world’ has entered a cycle of almost unprecedented uncertainty. So many issues. So few solutions being articulated in the mainstream. However, shift happens and Richard is right to say that there is always opportunity for change. Gramsci, an underrated theorist, summed it up in his ‘Prison Notebooks'(1929-35) writing: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

The stranglehold Neo-liberalism has exercised on orthodox economics for the past 40 years is difficult to understand but, given that its major protoganists have held all the aces, it’s not really surprising. Under Reagan there was a major ‘re-education’ programme in the Universities where any heterodox economic teaching was eliminated from the ‘Economics 101’ curriculum. Acording to Richard Wolff an entire generation of students graduated from the major universities without ever having studied Marx in any context.

(For anyone interested here’s a succinct history of Neo-liberalism – http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/a_short_history_of_neoliberalism_and_how_we_can_fix_it).

The good news is nothing lasts forever. The seeds of change have already been sown and will eventually blossom, possibly in unexpected locations. Sadly, as Ivan says, there has been irretrievable damage to lives and livelihoods in the US, UK and many EU countries. Michael Hudson recently spelled out its negative effects – http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/07/the-wages-of-neoliberalism-poverty-exile-and-early-death.

Like many, I don’t think radical change will come about until enough people are hurting enough. Maybe a real property crash will be a wake-up call. However, in or out of the EU isn’t going to trigger a change in the economic agenda any time soon. Personally I believe that a vote for Brexit (ominously a possibilty) will set-back any fundamental reforms, especially in the UK. But I don’t want to open up that can of worms again here!

The perennial question is ‘what to do?’. And the answer is always the same: ‘do something, anything, to nurture the seeds into saplings’. Every little helps! It’s going to be a rough ride, not without some collateral damage in terms of still more unnecessary deaths. Usually I’m not as optimistic as Richard but because it’s Friday afternoon and the sun is shining I feel the beginning of the end is within our grasp. I so hope so. Back to Gramsci – the immediate worry is what will fill the intervening vacuum. Happy weekend!

The seeds of change have already been sown and will eventually blossom, possibly in unexpected locations.

The perfect introduction to an email that Dan Gomez sent me on Thursday.

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Below  is a summary by Udo Gollub of the findings at a recent futurist conference in Germany. This’s  – they predict – is how the world will operate in 10 to 20 years time.

For those of us who are about to amble into the sunset on our Zimmer frames, this is simply interesting. We inhabited a world where people used cosy concepts like pension, nest egg, job security, promotion in the work place and other reassuring socio economic terms.

For those who are in mid career or are only entering the world of (non) work now, this makes for scary/exciting reading – depending on how ready you are to change in mid air  — if it is at all possible.

And for the generation still in their nappies … well, it is a matter of how parents prepare them for an unimaginable world when they enter the world of ‘work’ in 20 years time.

GERT CLAASSEN
Hermanus
Into the future
By Udo Gollub at Messe Berlin, Germany

I just went to the Singularity University summit. Here are the key points I gathered.

Rise and Fall. In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they were bankrupt. What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years – and most people don’t see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again?

Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore’s law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became superior and mainstream in only a few short years. This will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, self-driving and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs.
Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution.  Welcome to the Exponential Age. Software and operating platforms will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

Uber is just a software tool. They don’t own any cars, but they are now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected. In the US, young lawyers already don’t get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice, (so far for more or less basic stuff), within seconds. With 90% accuracy, compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So if you are studying law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer generalist lawyers in the future; only specialists will be needed. ‘Watson’ already helps nurses diagnose cancer, four times more accurately than doctors. Facebook now has pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. By 2030, computers will have become ‘more intelligent’ than humans.

Cars: In 2018 the first self driving cars will be offered to the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don’t want to own a car anymore. You will call a car on your phone; it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and you can be productive whilst driving. Our kids will never get a driver’s licence and will never own a car. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars for our future needs. We can transform former parking spaces into parks. At present,1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 100,000 kms. With autonomous driving, that will drop to one accident in 10 million km. That will save a million lives each year.

Electric cars will become mainstream around and after 2020. Cities will be cleaner and much less noisy because all cars will run on electricity, which will become much cheaper.

Most traditional car companies may become bankrupt by tacking the evolutionary approach and just building better cars; while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will take the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels. I spoke to a lot of engineers from Volkswagen and Audi. They are terrified of Tesla.

Insurance companies will have massive trouble, because without accidents, the insurance will become 100 times cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.

Real estate values based on proximities to work-places, schools, etc. will change, because if you can work effectively from anywhere or be productive while you commute, people will move out of cities to live in a more rural surroundings.

Solar energy production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but only now is having a big impact. Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. The price for solar will drop so much that almost all coal mining companies will be out of business by 2025.

Water for all: With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter. We don’t have scarce water in most places; we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if everyone can have as much clean water as they want, for virtually no cost.

Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year – a medical device (called the “Tricorder” from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and your breath. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any diseases. It will be cheap, so in a few years, everyone on this planet will have access to world class, low cost, medicine.
3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from 18,000$ to 400$ within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies started printing 3D shoes. Spare airplane parts are already 3D-printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to need in the past.
At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home. In China, they have already 3D-printed a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that’s being produced will be 3D-printed.

Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to enter, ask yourself: “in the future, do you think we will have that?” And if the answer is yes, then work on how you can make that happen sooner. If it doesn’t work via your phone, forget the idea. And any idea that was designed for success in the 20th century is probably doomed to fail in the 21st century.

Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear that there will be enough new jobs in such a short time.

Agriculture: There will be a 100$ agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their fields instead of working in them all day. Aeroponics will need much less water. The first veal produced in a petri dish is now available. It will be cheaper than cow-produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces are used for rearing cattle. Imagine if we don’t need that space anymore. There are several start-ups which will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labelled as “alternative protein source” (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).

Apps: There is already an app called “moodies” which can tell the mood you are in. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where we know whether the participants are telling the truth and when not!

Currencies: Many currencies will be abandoned. Bitcoin will become mainstream this year and might even become the future default reserve currency.

Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span was 79 years, now it is 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than a one-year increase per year. So we all might live for a long, long time, probably way beyond 100.

Education: The cheapest smartphones already sell at 10$ in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smartphone. That means everyone will have much the same access to world class education. Every child can use Khan Academy for everything he needs to learn at schools in First World countries. Further afield, the software has been launched in Indonesia and will be released in Arabic, Swahili and Chinese this summer. The English app will be offered free, so that children in Africa can become fluent in English within half-a-year.

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Interesting times, indeed!

You all have a very good weekend!

The magic of touch!

At all levels and in so many ways it is life-giving.

dt14Animals must see touch as a natural way of living. We humans are less natural about touch especially with people that we don’t know so well. Not everyone, of course, but as a general statement it is probably not wrong.

The topic of touch has come to me today as a result of a recent item read over on The Conversation blogsite; specifically about the importance of touch between a doctor and his or her patient. Here it is republished within the terms of The Conversation:

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Touch creates a healing bond in health care

May 23, 2016 8.23pm EDT

Touch is a powerful tool in medicine. Hands via www.shutterstock.com
Touch is a powerful tool in medicine. Hands via http://www.shutterstock.com

In contemporary health care, touch – contact between a doctor’s hand and a patient – appears to be on its way out. The expanding role of CT and MRI imaging is decreasing reliance on touch as a way of making diagnoses. Pressures to move patients through the system more quickly leave health professionals with fewer opportunities to make contact. Our experience suggests that when doctors spend fewer minutes with patients, less time is available for touch.

Yet despite the rise of scanners, robots and other new medical technologies, the physician’s hand remains one of medicine’s most valuable diagnostic tools. Touch creates a human bond that is particularly needed in this increasingly hands-off, impersonal age. Medical practice is replete with situations where touch does more than any words to comfort and reassure.

The USC psychologist Leo Buscaglia, whose habit of hugging those he met soon earned him the sobriquet “Doctor Love,” bemoaned our neglect of touch in his book, “Love,” in these terms:

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

For thousands of years, touch has been recognized as an essential part of the healing arts. Native American healers relied on touch to draw out sickness, and kings and queens were long believed to possess the “Royal Touch,” through which the mere laying on of hands could heal. The Bible contains numerous stories of the healing power of touch.

Touch is an essential part of our well-being

An indication of our need for touch can be found among our primate relatives. Psychologists have observed that many such species spend upwards of five hours of each day touching one another, partly through grooming. For many human beings, however, the daily dose of touching would be measured not in hours but minutes, perhaps even seconds.

Lack of touch can be hazardous to health. In experiments with primates some 60 years ago,

A young mother participates in a ‘Kangaroo Mother’ program at the National Maternity Hospital in El Salvador. Luis Galdamez/Reuters
A young mother participates in a ‘Kangaroo Mother’ program at the National Maternity Hospital in El Salvador. Luis Galdamez/Reuters

researcher Harry Harlow demonstrated that young monkeys deprived of touch did not grow and develop normally. Mere food, water and shelter are not sufficient – to thrive, such creatures need to touch and be touched.

The same can be said for human beings. During the 20th century, wars landed many babies in orphanages, where their caretakers observed that no matter how well the infants were fed, they would fail to thrive unless they were held and cuddled on a frequent basis. Touch offers no vitamins or calories, yet it plays a vital role in sustaining life.

More recent studies have corroborated these findings. “Kangaroo care,” using papoose-like garments to keep babies close to their mothers, decreases the rate at which they develop blood infections. Touching also improves weight gain and decreases the amount of time that newborns need to remain in the hospital.

Touch creates a bond between doctor and patient

Novelist and physician Abraham Verghese has argued that touching is one of the most important features of the patient-physician interaction. When he examines a patient, he is not merely collecting information with which to formulate a diagnosis, but also establishing a bond that provides comfort and reassurance.

The notion that touch can reassure and comfort has a scientific basis. Ten years ago researchers used MRI scans to look at the brains of women undergoing painful stimuli. When subjects experience pain, certain areas of the brain tend to “light up.” The researchers studied subjects when they were alone, when they were holding a stranger’s hand, and when they were holding their husband’s hand.

They found the highest levels of pain activation when the women were alone. When they were holding a stranger’s hand, the pain response was decreased. And levels of activation were lowest of all when they were holding their husband’s hand. Interesting, the higher the quality of subjects’ marriages, the more pain responses were blunted.

Touch from parents helps kids in intensive care

We have been studying this phenomenon in our own institution, looking at the effect of touch not only on patients but on the parents of patients admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit.

The project, called ROSE (Reach Out, Soothe, and Embrace), sought to determine whether increasing opportunities to touch patients could promote parent well-being without compromising patient safety.

Instead of merely determining whether patients could be taken off the ventilator or fed, we also identified patients who could be safely touched and even held in their parents’ arms. When a patient was deemed safe to hold, a magnet bearing the image of a red rose embraced by two hands was placed on the door to the patient’s room.

While we are still analyzing the results and further study is needed to fully delineate the health benefits of touch, several findings are already clear.

First, increasing opportunities for touch does not compromise patient safety. Second, the subjective well-being of family members is enhanced when touching is encouraged. Third, promoting touch empowers family members to become more involved in their child’s care.

To be sure, inappropriate and unsafe touching can be harmful. But when touch is encouraged in the right ways and for the right reasons, it is good for patients, family, friends and health professionals alike. Touch is one of the most fundamental and effective ways to create a sense of connection and community among human beings.

In the words of the 20th-century theologian Henri Nouwen, who wrote in his book, “Out of Solitude”:

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.

So next time you find yourself confronted by a person in distress, remember the power of touch. Medicines and words both have healing power, but so does touch, and it is perhaps the most widely available, financially responsible and safest tool in the healing arts. When we touch, we connect, and when we connect, we create a healing bond for which there is simply no substitute.

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“When we touch, we connect, and when we connect, we create a healing bond for which there is simply no substitute.”

P1140965
Jean with my mother back in July, 2014.

P1150928The healing touch!

Or to repeat the elegant words of Leo Buscaglia:

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

3175758.largeWho have you given a hug today?

Hazel’s sonogram.

Nothing life-threatening found!

I’m writing this post at 5pm yesterday (Tuesday) shortly after we returned home from collecting Hazel from Lincoln Road Vet Clinic following her earlier examination by Dr. Parker using his mobile sonogram.

Hazel at the clinic shortly before she was taken in by the staff.
Hazel at the clinic shortly before she was taken in by the staff.

The good news is that Dr. Parker did not find any sign of trauma or life-threatening illnesses in Hazel’s body especially focusing on her abdomen.

Dr. Parker to the left being assisted by clinic staff as he examines Hazel ultra-sonically.
Dr. Parker to the left being assisted by clinic staff as he examines Hazel ultra-sonically.

(I should be quick to say that I left my camera with one of the technicians and wasn’t present. Indeed, Jean and I did not get to meet Dr. Parker.)

Dr. Parker, who is a board-certified veterinarian doctor, came to the conclusion that the most likely cause of Hazel’s illness was the fungal lung infection, as Dr. Codd and the radiologist supposed.

Nothing frightening seen!
Nothing frightening seen!

To try and narrow down the exact fungal infection a further blood sample was taken and the lab results should be known in three or four days time.

Dr. Codd, in his briefing to Jean and me when we collected Hazel late afternoon, said that his recommendation based on the lack of any notable findings from the scan could be summarised as follows:

  • Regard treating the fungal infection as the number one priority,
  • Hold off from treating the tick fever in the interim,
  • Dose Hazel with 100mg of Fluconazole twice a day even if she is eating hardly anything,
  • The measure is whether Hazel, with a very small food intake, can take that dosage without vomiting,
  • Add a B12 tonic to her diet with immediate effect,
  • Give Hazel appetite stimulant medicine,
  • Consider the hemp oil (as queried by me) if the proper dosage can be determined.

(Petspeopleandlife: Hazel’s current weight is 53 lbs (24 kg). Any advice?)

Back home again albeit still feeling a little drowsy!
Back home again albeit still feeling a little drowsy!

Thus while we have not yet got to the bottom of what precisely is the nature of Hazel’s infection at least we know there isn’t anything else silently killing her.

Thank you so much, dear readers, for taking so much interest in Hazel and for sending your love and caring wishes – it’s working! 🙂

Reaching out with love.

Giving back, in so many different ways, is fundamental to who we are, and to whom we must be!

I introduced yesterday’s Earth Day post with the sub-heading, “A fabulous example of how we reach out to others across the internet!” Today’s post is another fabulous example.

Not that long ago, Sue Dreamwalker, a great friend of this place, posted an article that she introduced, thus:

I just had to share this lovely post with you all from a beautiful friend. You have to explore her blog to see all the transformations she does when she gives a new lease of life to furniture. And her home.. What is even more remarkable, and I hope Lois will not mind me mentioning this is that Lois does all of this work from the confines of a wheelchair..

I hope you visit and see just how generous a nature she has ..
Love and Blessings

Sue

Curious, I went across to Lois’s blog Living in Denim and to the particular post that Sue had spoken about. Without hesitation I asked if I might republish that post here and share it with you all. Lois was delighted to offer me such permission.

Read it and you will see why I asked so quickly.

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Giving Back: A Yard Sale Redo for a Deserving Child

Published on April 18, 2016

We had a beautiful weekend, if I didn’t know it was April I could have easily believed this was summer. I headed outside thinking I would finally get some work done on the exterior of the house when my phone rang.

The caller wanted to know if I could redo and paint a dresser for a foster child that has been placed with her family long term. I took that to mean, can you fix then paint a dresser.   My answer was probably.  A few minutes later this was delivered

dresser-beforeThe family shared many of the details surrounding this little eight-year old child’s placement with them. I was informed they were trying really hard with limited funds to give her a room personalized for her so she would feel welcome and comfortable.

How could I say no?

When asked how much I would charge, I ignored the question by changing the subject and asked if the foster parent was looking for a grown-up dresser (aka Pottery Barn painted look) for the child or something more whimsical an eight-year old would like now. I was informed I could do whatever I wanted and they were concerned with giving the child a dresser she would love today not a few years down the road.

dresser-before1With permission I asked a few questions of the child to see what her likes were. I was careful in how I phrased my questions and took it slow to see how open she was.  I began with her favorite colors. She was outgoing and friendly, happy to answer.  Her favorite colors were (in order) blue, red and black. Not good, I don’t have those colors in any significant quantity on hand. Then she added white. That I had.

My next question was the most sensitive.  Foster care children often are taken from their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs but I needed to know what she liked. Instead of asking what her favorite toys were, afraid to bring up feelings of loss, I asked What she liked to do for fun.

She stumbled and admitted she didn’t know.

dresser-before2I decided to turn my attention to the family member who brought the dresser to me to give the child a moment to think. I asked a bit about the rest of the child’s room. Was there a theme or color scheme when suddenly the child mentioned she liked swimming pools and flowers.

Now I had something to work with.

I didn’t give my house or the work I’d planned to do a second thought, my poor house was abandoned for this dresser.

The dresser is circa 1960. It’s a cheap laminate that the family picked up for $5 at a yard sale.  I shouldn’t be too judgemental the dresser has lasted for more than 50 years.  The knobs and pulls had to go. The pulls were so close to the drawer faces that I couldn’t get a finger in to pull the drawers open.  My fingers are rather small, being that I comfortably wear size 5 rings and when I glanced at the child’s hands I thought her fingers could have been a bit bigger than mine, I knew the pulls wouldn’t work.

You can see here how the laminate was assembled on to a wooden frame.

dresser-before3I repaired a couple of the drawers by adding glue and screws to keep the sides attached. Then came the sanding. I didn’t get far when the neighbor boy stopped to ask if he could help.   I explained how he would have to have a very gentle touch and then we were hard at work.

dresser2The moment I saw the dresser the first thought that crossed my mind was that I wanted to white wash it.  I’ve worked on several of these types of laminate dressers from this period but never tried a white wash.  When the child told me she liked swimming pools I knew a white-washed finish was perfect. It would give that beach-y, driftwood look that would become my background.

dresser4
Comparison of what the finish looked like before and after a good sanding.

I mixed equal parts white satin latex paint and water, then wearing gloves soaked a rag in the paint and rubbed it on to the dresser.

dresser5You must apply the paint in the same direction, with the grain of the “wood” for the best results. It took 2-3 coats of paint to get the desired effect. When the dresser was dry I added two coats of polycrylic to seal the finish, but I’m getting ahead of myself a bit.

I was told flowers were important to this child. As I sanded the dresser down I contemplated the best way to add flowers to the piece.  At first I thought maybe I’d sketch grass using green milk paint to the lower drawer then stems up the drawer fronts to use the knobs as the center of the flowers and sketch around them different colored flowers.  This didn’t feel right to me but still I played with the idea.

Then I realized I didn’t have enough colors of paint to do this.  I briefly considered heading to the store to purchase an assortment of different colored permanent markers, but again I dismissed this.  I worked until I lost daylight on Saturday and woke with an idea.

For months now my granddaughters and I have enjoyed coloring Patricia Zapata’s Flower Nook. Patricia is a well-known blogger at A Little Hut. I’ve already removed some of the completed pages to frame for the girl’s room upstairs, now I would remove more and use them on the dresser.

flower-nookI added three designs to the drawers and one to the top of the dresser.

Top of the dresser.
Top of the dresser.

These are the designs I used on the drawer fronts.

dresser-after2The most time consuming part of this was trimming the designs to remove the excess white paper.  I laid them out and when I was happy with the placement decoupaged them on and sealed the entire drawer fronts with polycrylic.

In questioning the little girl I learned she liked gold over silver so I headed to my hardware stash and pulled out all the heavy substantial gold knobs. I toyed around with using two knobs on the left with one pull on the right, the way the drawers were to begin with. In the end I didn’t have enough gold pulls I liked and decided to use only knobs.  I used wood filler to fill in the holes from the original pulls then drilled new holes.  I kept the distance from the side of the drawer for the new knobs the same as the existing knobs on the other side and then centered them on the fronts.

dresser-after
Once I took this photo I saw that I hadn’t painted the very bottom and did go back and paint them, if you were wondering.

The top drawer I simply used a permanent marker, I have a couple in the house, and a four inch stencil to add her first initial.

By Sunday at 3pm I called to let the family know the dresser was ready to pick up.  They arrived with the little girl and a friend of hers. I wish I could show you their faces, but I can’t.  The girls didn’t miss a thing. They spotted the little girl on the middle drawer, they loved the heavy gold knobs and the white washed paint effect.

dresser-comparisonI know a little about this foster parent, I know she adopted a previous foster child and raised him as her own even though she has very little disposable income. She herself is on disability. She loves these children and has given this little child so much love that when the question arose again as to how much they owed me, I informed her the child’s expression was well worth the work and I wanted to make this a gift from me to them. Thankfully, the family accepted my gift as long as I promised to call if there is ever anything they can do for me.

Tonight I am tired and even sore. I did get a bit of work done outside after all but while I thought getting more accomplished on the house would perk me up, in reality it was the dresser that made the weekend a success for me.

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Reaching out in love, indeed!

Earth Day 2016

A fabulous example of how we reach out to others across the internet!

A week-and-a-half ago in came an email to me:

Hi Paul,

Just came across a post of yours for Earth Day 2014.

Absolutely love the fact that you’ve written about a “Green” topic!
In fact, I wanted to reach out and let you know that in honor of this year’s Earth Day (April 22), I just finished designing an infographic about 14 easy ways dog owners can become more environmentally friendly people.
Would it be okay with you if I passed it along? I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!
Best,
Mike

Mike was Mike Shannon, about which more at the bottom of this guest post. Of course, I was delighted to receive his lovely guest post and infographic. Over to Mike.

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In its 46th anniversary to date, Earth Day is bound to continue to do what it has always succeeded in doing, help raise awareness among† individuals from all across the globe about environmentally-friendly topics so they work together to make this† world a better place to live in for the future generations to come.

In honor of this year’s Earth Day, which happens to be on Friday, April the 22nd, Ultimate Home Life have designed an info-graphic† that explains the most important 14 steps you can take as of today to go green with your dog.

This topic is certainly nothing to be taken lightly, and most certainly nothing of the impossible. Just look at the statistic provided at the beginning of the info-graphic – nearly 50% of families in the United States alone have a dog at home, which makes for more than 70 million dogs!

Let’s kick off our “going green” mission this year by making our dogs greener, one dog at a time.

If you have any tips for going green with your dog, make yourself heard in the comments!

Infographic Courtesy Of Ultimate Home Life

Bio: Michael is the creator, editor, webmaster – alright, let’s just say he runs the show over at UltimateHomeLife.Com! He regularly blogs about anything and everything dog related, with an emphasis on trying to cover all questions that dog owners tend to worry about. So, hop over and give him a bark!

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What a fabulous and highly pertinent post for these times.

Happy Earth Day to all of us and our wonderful dogs right across this magnificent planet.

Reflections on the internet.

An interesting item that recently crossed my ‘screen’.

I make no apologies for cutting corners for today’s post. Because the last few days of looking after, and worrying about, Hazel have soaked up so much of our time and energy that I just couldn’t find the creative impulse to do much more than ‘copy and paste’.

That’s not to downplay the great interest of this article that appeared over on The Conversation blogsite a few days ago.

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Why the Internet isn’t making us smarter – and how to fight back

April 15, 2016 5.58am EDT

Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan

Disclosure statement: David Dunning has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Templeton Foundation in the past.

In the hours since I first sat down to write this piece, my laptop tells me the National Basketball Association has had to deny that it threatened to cancel its 2017 All-Star Game over a new anti-LGBT law in North Carolina – a story repeated by many news sources including the Associated Press. The authenticity of that viral video of a bear chasing a female snowboarder in Japan has been called into question. And, no, Ted Cruz is not married to his third cousin. It’s just one among an onslaught of half-truths and even pants-on-fire lies coming as we rev up for the 2016 American election season.

The longer I study human psychology, the more impressed I am with the rich tapestry of knowledge each of us owns. We each have a brainy weave of facts, figures, rules and stories that allows us to address an astonishing range of everyday challenges. Contemporary research celebrates just how vast, organized, interconnected and durable that knowledge base is.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that our brains overdo it. Not only do they store helpful and essential information, they are also receptive to false belief and misinformation.

Just in biology alone, many people believe that spinach is a good source of iron (sorry, Popeye), that we use less than 10 percent of our brains (no, it’s too energy-guzzling to allow that), and that some people suffer hypersensitivity to electromagnetic radiation (for which there is no scientific evidence).

But here’s the more concerning news. Our access to information, both good and bad, has only increased as our fingertips have gotten into the act. With computer keyboards and smartphones, we now have access to an Internet containing a vast store of information much bigger than any individual brain can carry – and that’s not always a good thing.

Better access doesn’t mean better information

This access to the Internet’s far reaches should permit us to be smarter and better informed. People certainly assume it. A recent Yale study showed that Internet access causes people to hold inflated, illusory impressions of just how smart and well-informed they are.

But there’s a twofold problem with the Internet that compromises its limitless promise.

First, just like our brains, it is receptive to misinformation. In fact, the World Economic Forum lists “massive digital misinformation” as a main threat to society. A survey of 50 “weight loss” websites found that only three provided sound diet advice. Another of roughly 150 YouTube videos about vaccination found that only half explicitly supported the procedure.

Rumor-mongers, politicians, vested interests, a sensationalizing media and people with intellectual axes to grind all inject false information into the Internet.

So do a lot of well-intentioned but misinformed people. In fact, a study published in the January 2016 Proceedings of National Academy of Science documented just how quickly dubious conspiracy theories spread across the Internet. Specifically, the researchers compared how quickly these rumors spread across Facebook relative to stories on scientific discoveries. Both conspiracy theories and scientific news spread quickly, with the majority of diffusion via Facebook for both types of stories happening within a day.

Making matters worse, misinformation is hard to distinguish from accurate fact. It often has the exact look and feel as the truth. In a series of studies Elanor Williams, Justin Kruger and I published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2013, we asked students to solve problems in intuitive physics, logic and finance. Those who consistently relied on false facts or principles – and thus gave the exact same wrong answer to every problem – expressed just as much confidence in their conclusions as those who answered every single problem right.

For example, those who always thought a ball would continue to follow a curved path after rolling out of a bent tube (not true) were virtually as certain as people who knew the right answer (the ball follows a straight path).

Defend yourself

So, how so we separate Internet truth from the false?

First, don’t assume misinformation is obviously distinguishable from true information. Be careful. If the matter is important, perhaps you can start your search with the Internet; just don’t end there. Consult and consider other sources of authority. There is a reason why your doctor suffered medical school, why your financial advisor studied to gain that license.

Second, don’t do what conspiracy theorists did in the Facebook study. They readily spread stories that already fit their worldview. As such, they practiced confirmation bias, giving credence to evidence supporting what they already believed. As a consequence, the conspiracy theories they endorsed burrowed themselves into like-minded Facebook communities who rarely questioned their authenticity.

Instead, be a skeptic. Psychological research shows that groups designating one or two of its members to play devil’s advocates – questioning whatever conclusion the group is leaning toward – make for better-reasoned decisions of greater quality.

If no one else is around, it pays to be your own devil’s advocate. Don’t just believe what the Internet has to say; question it. Practice a disconfirmation bias. If you’re looking up medical information about a health problem, don’t stop at the first diagnosis that looks right. Search for alternative possibilities.

Seeking evidence to the contrary

In addition, look for ways in which that diagnosis might be wrong. Research shows that “considering the opposite” – actively asking how a conclusion might be wrong – is a valuable exercise for reducing unwarranted faith in a conclusion.

After all, you should listen to Mark Twain, who, according to a dozen different websites, warned us, “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”

Wise words, except a little more investigation reveals more detailed and researched sources with evidence that it wasn’t Mark Twain, but German physician Markus Herz who said them. I’m not surprised; in my Internet experience, I’ve learned to be wary of Twain quotes (Will Rogers, too). He was a brilliant wit, but he gets much too much credit for quotable quips.

Misinformation and true information often look awfully alike. The key to an informed life may not require gathering information as much as it does challenging the ideas you already have or have recently encountered. This may be an unpleasant task, and an unending one, but it is the best way to ensure that your brainy intellectual tapestry sports only true colors.

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The way the world now communicates, for good and bad, using the internet is staggering. As the website Internet Live Stats reveals: (as of this moment today)

3,352,197,085 Internet Users in the world

1,016,623,500 Total number of Websites

2,060,120 Blog posts written today

So with that last figure in mind, I’ll send this for posting without delay! 😉

Two-wheeling dog!

As shown by my sister, Eleanor, on her Facebook page.

There once was a dog named Dog and this dog rode a motorcycle complete with goggles.

Travel safely however you and your dogs do it!

Repeat of the Meet Molly post

Three years ago today.

I was working outside until late afternoon and didn’t leave myself sufficient time for a new post for today. So, as I do on these occasions, I pick one from previous times. Like Meet Molly from this day three years ago.

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A most heart-warming story! Beats the heck out of murders, politics and terrorists!

This was sent in by John Hurlburt for Jean who has been a bit of a ‘horse lady’ in her times and is devoted to the two miniature horses we have here in Oregon.

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Meet Molly

molly1Molly is a gray speckled pony who was abandoned by her owners when Hurricane Katrina hit southern Louisiana . She spent weeks on her own before finally being rescued and taken to a farm where abandoned animals were stockpiled. While there, she was attacked by a dog and almost died. Her gnawed right front leg became infected and her vet went to Louisiana State University (LSU) for help.

However, LSU were overwhelmed and Molly became a ‘welfare’ case. You know where that goes, don’t you!

Then surgeon Rustin Moore met Molly and changed his mind. He saw how Molly was careful to lie down on different sides so she didn’t seem to get sores. He saw how Molly allowed people to handle her. She protected her injured leg. She constantly shifted her weight and didn’t overload her good leg. She was a smart pony with a serious survival ethic.

Surgeon Moore agreed to remove her leg below the knee and a temporary artificial limb was built. Molly walked out of the clinic and, in a very real sense, that’s where her story really begins.

“This was the right horse and the right owner!” Moore insisted.

Molly happened to be a one-in-a-million patient. She’s tough as nails, but sweet, and she was willing to cope with pain. She made it obvious she understood that she was in trouble. The other important factor, according to Moore , is having a truly committed and compliant owner who is dedicated to providing the daily care required over the lifetime of the horse.

Molly’s story turns into a parable for life in Post-Katrina Louisiana. The little pony gained weight and her mane finally felt a comb. Then, amazingly, a prosthesis designer built her a leg.

The prosthetic has given Molly a whole new life, Allison Barca DVM, Molly’s regular vet, reports:

And she asks for it. She will put her little limb out and come to you and let you know that she wants you to put it on. Sometimes she wants you to take it off too. And sometimes, Molly gets away from Barca. “It can be pretty bad when you can’t catch a three-legged horse,” she laughs.

Most important of all, Molly has a job now. Kay, the rescue farm owner, started taking Molly to shelters, hospitals, nursing homes, and rehabilitation centers. Anywhere she thought that people needed hope. Wherever Molly went, she showed people her pluck. She inspired people, and she had a good time doing it.

“It’s obvious to me that Molly had a bigger role to play in life,” Kay said. “She survived the hurricane, she survived a horrible injury, and now she is giving hope to others.”

Allison Barca concluded, “She’s not back to normal, but she’s going to be better. To me, she could be a symbol for New Orleans itself.”

This is Molly's most recent prosthesis.
This is Molly’s most recent prosthesis.

Wherever Molly goes, she leaves a smiley hoof print behind. Literally as well as metaphorically.

The photo shows the ground surface that she stands on has a smiley face embossed in it!
The photo shows that the bottom flat surface of the prosthesis has a smiley face embossed in it!

Leave you with that wonderful feeling of love for Molly? Feel free to share it with all the animal lovers that you know.

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See you tomorrow!

The certainty of uncertainty

Just wanted to share this with you.

There seems to be so much going on in the world that creates uncertainty. In browsing the web looking for some inspiration for today’s blog post, I came across this short video of the late Richard Feynman and just wanted to share it with you.

The Richard Feyman website explains:

This web site is dedicated to Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988), scientist, teacher, raconteur, and musician.  He assisted in the development of the atomic bomb, expanded the understanding of quantum electrodynamics, translated Mayan hieroglyphics, and cut to the heart of the Challenger disaster.  But beyond all of that, Richard Feynman was a unique and multi-faceted individual.

Find out about Feynman, what he was and why he remains one of the most celebrated and revered scientists of modern times.

Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman

Now to the video. The Uncertainty of Knowledge

“If you expected science to give all the answers to the wonderful questions about what we are, where we are going what the meaning of the universe is and so on then I think you can easily become disillusioned and then look for some mystic answer to these problems. How a scientist can take a mystic answer I don’t know because the whole spirit is to unders…well never mind that, anyway I don’t understand that…but anyhow…if you think of it though…I..the way i think of what we are doing is, we are exploring, we are trying to find out as much as we can about the world.

People say to me, “Are you looking for the ultimate laws of physics?” No I am not. I am just looking to find out more about the world. And if it turns out there is a simple ultimate law that explains everything so be it. That would be very nice discovery. If it turns out it’s like an onion with millions of layers and we just sick and tired of looking at the layers then that’s the way it is! But whatever way it comes out it’s nature, it’s there, and she’s going to come out the way she is. And therefore when we go to investigate we shouldn’t pre-decide what it is we are trying to do except to find out more about it. If you said…but..the problem is why we do you find out more about it, if you thought that you are trying to find out more about it because you are going to get an answer to some deep philosophical question you may be wrong and may be that you can’t get an answer to that particular question by finding out more about the character of the nature.

Hope you find this inspiring!

If you want to find out more about this amazing person then do go across to that website.