My name is Noella and I am a writer and dog enthusiast from Portland, Maine. I am reaching out to you in hopes of contributing to Learning from Dogs as a guest blogger. I have an original, unpublished piece about Top Five Reasons to Pet a Pitbull Today, that I think would fit nicely with the current offering of blog topics you post. I would also be open to writing you a new piece, if there’s a specific topic you’d like covered.
Please let me know if you’d be interested in having a look at my piece and hopefully fitting it into your editorial calendar.
I hope to hear back from you soon!
Thanks,
Noella
Now to be honest, this type of writing offer is not that rare but almost without exception is connected to some form of commercial organisation seeking to advance their profile. My responses are ‘not interested’! Initially, that was my first impression of this email from Noella. But in reply to my query along that vein, Noella sent me this:
Paul,
You’re right, there will be revenue earned from dog friendly businesses that want to get involved and have ads featured on Harry’s Picks. As you can see, presently we have one dog bakery featured. The idea is to keep the website running and give back to the canine community. We are not affiliated with any brand or company.
Thank you,
Noella
Thus on that basis I was happy to go ahead with the guest post. Influenced in great part by the gorgeous temperament of our Casey, a Pit Bull that we adopted February, 2012 when we were still living in Payson, Arizona. Casey, as he was named, had been living in the Humane Centre for nearly a year with no-one taking a liking to him, and his days as a rescue dog were running out.
Jean loved Casey from first sight and in due course brought him home. He quickly settled into the most wonderful, caring and gregarious dog one could imagine. He continues to be a happy, warm dog with all of us here in Oregon.
Casey doing what dogs do so well – picking up scents of his new home. (28th February, 2012)
So with all that, let me turn to Noella’s guest post.
oooOOOooo
Top 5 Reasons To Love a Pittie
Sweet Addie.
This is Addie. She is my best friend. She is a Pit Bull mix and the sweetest dog I have ever known. I really didn’t know much about Pit Bulls when I adopted her. I hadn’t been spoiled by tales of their viciousness and I had not yet been brought into the fold by a devotee. So I had to learn fast!
Everything I know about Pit Bulls now has been through her or inspired by her.
Here are the top 5 things I love about Addie and Pit Bulls:
5) They are incredibly strong and athletic. They come in pretty small packages but they are dynamos. Addie can jump five feet straight up in the air from standing still. It’s awe inspiring to watch.
4) You will always be missed! They fuss when you come home. I’m sure lots of dogs do this, but I’ve noticed it in a lot of pitties. They whine and wiggle and snort in the most adorable way. They love people and are always ecstatic to see you. I’m lucky to get a raised eyebrow from my hound dog.
3) They love to play. Pitties are a very determined breed. They will play until you are completely worn out and they will be fully engaged and inquisitive the entire time.
2) THEY LOVE PEOPLE. In my experience Pit Bulls are the most affectionate breed. They are snuggle monsters and will use their gigantic noggins to nose their way into your personal space whether you are seeking their attention or not.
1) THEY NEED THE LOVE. Sadly Pit Bulls and Pit Bull mixes makeup 30%-40% of shelter intakes nationwide and that number goes up in urban areas (interesting article on the subject here). Pit Bulls are misunderstood and often times fall into the hands of the wrong people. They need good owners that have the love and patience to provide them solid training and safe homes.
Noella Schink, writes from Portland, Maine, where she lives and plays with her 3-year-old pit bull mix, Addie, 8-year old shih-tzu, Brutus, and 2-year old hound, Lula. For great tips and reviews about dog friendly businesses around the country, she recommends Harry’s Picks, a new online community for dog lovers.
I have often noticed how ideas come along and are then reinforced by other materials and comments. This struck me (again) as follows. In my post about the fabulous, loving bond between Jeff Guidry and his eagle Freedom one of the comments was from Patrice Ayme, and I quote:
Birds have completely different brains. Still, the smartest birds are more clever than most primates. And many parrots speak (although we have not learned their language yet).
Then going on to add:
Parrot language studies have progressed enough to tell us that there is something huge going on. They apparently use names, as dolphins do.
Certainly Jean would verify the amount of talking that goes on between our two budgerigars here at home!
Mr. Green and Mr. Blu!
Then in yesterday’s post The knowing of dogs, I referred to research that indicated that empathy between those that we know and trust, (a) can be measured, and (b) that “our minds are partly defined by their intersections with other minds.” I went on in that post to speculate that maybe dogs ‘reading’ the minds of humans that they know and trust wasn’t so far-fetched.
Wolves Howl Because They Care: Social Relationship Can Explain Variation in Vocal Production
Aug. 22, 2013 — When a member of the wolf pack leaves the group, the howling by those left behind isn’t a reflection of stress but of the quality of their relationships. So say researchers based on a study of nine wolves from two packs living at Austria’s Wolf Science Center that appears in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, on August 22.
The findings shed important light on the degree to which animal vocal production can be considered as voluntary, the researchers say.
“Our results suggest the social relationship can explain more of the variation we see in howling behavior than the emotional state of the wolf,” says Friederike Range of the Messerli Research Institute at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna. “This suggests that wolves, to a certain extent, may be able to use their vocalizations in a flexible way.”
Scientists have known very little about why animals make the sounds that they do. Are they uncontrollable emotional responses? Or do animals have the ability to change those vocalizations based on their own understanding of the social context?
At the Wolf Science Center, human handlers typically take individual wolves out for walks on a leash, one at a time. On those occasions, they knew, the remaining pack mates always howl.
To better understand why, Range and her colleagues measured the wolves’ stress hormone levels. They also collected information on the wolves’ dominance status in the pack and their preferred partners. As they took individual wolves out for long walks, they recorded the reactions of each of their pack mates.
Those observations show that wolves howl more when a wolf they have a better relationship with leaves the group and when that individual is of high social rank. The amount of howling did not correspond to higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
“Our data suggest that howling is not a simple stress response to being separated from close associates but instead may be used more flexibly to maintain contact and perhaps to aid in reuniting with allies,” Range says.
For those that want to read the original research paper then it is available over at Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.
Wolf Howling Is Mediated by Relationship Quality Rather Than Underlying Emotional Stress
We investigated the influence of social and physiological factors on wolf howling
Wolves howl more to keep contact with affiliated partners and with pack leaders
Howling is mediated by the social relationship not cortisol level of the howlers
This pattern indicates that wolves have some voluntary control of their howling
Summary
While considerable research has addressed the function of animal vocalizations, the proximate mechanisms driving call production remain surprisingly unclear. Vocalizations may be driven by emotions and the physiological state evoked by changes in the social-ecological environment [1,2], or animals may have more control over their vocalizations, using them in flexible ways mediated by the animal’s understanding of its surrounding social world [3,4]. While both explanations are plausible and neither excludes the other, to date no study has attempted to experimentally investigate the influence of both emotional and cognitive factors on animal vocal usage. We aimed to disentangle the relative contribution of both mechanisms by examining howling in captive wolves. Using a separation experiment and by measuring cortisol levels, we specifically investigated whether howling is a physiological stress response to group fragmentation [5] and whether it is driven by social factors, particularly relationship quality [6,7]. Results showed that relationship quality between the howler and the leaving individual better predicted howling than did the current physiological state. Our findings shed important light on the degree to which animal vocal production can be considered as voluntary.
So, don’t know about you, but it all seems to be suggesting how little we know about how animals communicate with the world around them.
A fascinating study on human empathy strikes a chord with man and dog, perhaps.
Let me start with a true account from the evening of Monday, 19th August.
That evening, at 7pm, I had an appointment with my doctor in Grants Pass. Jean stayed at home looking after our guests and preparing the evening meal.
The journey from the doctor’s clinic back to home, a distance of 20 miles, takes a little over half-an-hour. The last 3 miles are along Hugo Road; about 6 minutes including opening and closing the gate across our driveway.
Anyway, according to Jean shortly after 8pm Pharaoh sprang up barking and went across to put his nose against one of the windows that looks out over our front drive and garden. Jeannie looked at the clock on the kitchen wall and made a note of the time: it was 8:10pm. She also came over to the window that Pharaoh was looking out of and searched for any reason for his outburst of barking: squirrels, deer, any kind of wildlife or other distraction. There was none.
A little before 8:20pm Jeannie saw the headlights of my car pull up and moments later I came in through the front door.
It appeared that Pharaoh had sensed the point where I had turned into Hugo Road.
One could easily dismiss this, perhaps by thinking that Jean had unconsciously signalled to Pharaoh that I was on my way home. But Jean had only the vaguest idea of when I might be back.
Or one could be drawn to the research undertaken by Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, as this extract from a post back in May, 2011 explains.
What an amazing book this is.
Amazing!
I have written about Dr Rupert Sheldrake a few times on Learning from Dogs for pretty obvious reasons! You can do a search on the Blog under ‘sheldrake’ but here are a couple of links. Serious Learning from Dogs on January 10th, 2011 and Time for a rethink on the 14th April, 2011.
Anyway, I am now well towards the end of Sheldrake’s revised book, Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home and it is more than fascinating. Bit short of time just now so please forgive me if I do no more than show this video which sets out some of the background to the book. Sheldrake’s website is here, by the way.
Anyway, what’s this all leading up to?
I can’t recall where it was that I read about a report posted on the Forbes website about the new findings of the power of human empathy.
Study: To The Human Brain, Me Is We
A new study from University of Virginia researchers supports a finding that’s been gaining science-fueled momentum in recent years: the human brain is wired to connect with others so strongly that it experiences what they experience as if it’s happening to us.
This would seem the neural basis for empathy—the ability to feel what others feel—but it goes even deeper than that. Results from the latest study suggest that our brains don’t differentiate between what happens to someone emotionally close to us and ourselves, and also that we seem neurally incapable of generating anything close to that level of empathy for strangers.
The research revealed:
“The correlation between self and friend was remarkably similar,” said James Coan, a psychology professor in U.Va.’s College of Arts & Sciences who co-authored the study. “The finding shows the brain’s remarkable capacity to model self to others; that people close to us become a part of ourselves, and that is not just metaphor or poetry, it’s very real. Literally we are under threat when a friend is under threat. But not so when a stranger is under threat.”
The findings back up an assertion made by the progenitor and popularizer of “Interpersonal Neurobiology,” Dr. Daniel Siegel, who has convincingly argued that our minds are partly defined by their intersections with other minds. Said another way, we are wired to “sync” with others, and the more we sync (the more psycho-emotionally we connect), the less our brains acknowledge self-other distinctions.
Later in that Forbes article Professor Coan is reported:
“A threat to ourselves is a threat to our resources,” said Coan. “Threats can take things away from us. But when we develop friendships, people we can trust and rely on who in essence become we, then our resources are expanded, we gain. Your goal becomes my goal. It’s a part of our survivability.”
So if science is discovering that our subconscious minds are connecting “psycho-emotionally” with the minds of others whom we trust, then it doesn’t seem like too great a leap to embrace human minds psycho-emotionally connecting with the animals that we trust, and vice versa. Because for thousands upon thousands of years, the domesticated dog and man have depended on each other for food, protection, warmth, comfort and love.
Footnote.
References for those who wish to follow up on this article are:
Professor Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar, British anthropologist, evolutionary psychologist and a specialist in primate behaviour. His theory known as Dunbar’s Numberexplained here.
The widely reported but nonetheless wonderful story of a man and an eagle.
This was sent to me by Dan Gomez but I very quickly found information all over the ‘web’. After reading many accounts, I decided to use the version of the story that was in Dan’s email.
oooOOOooo
Freedom and Jeff Guidry
Love and trust across the species gap.
Freedom and I have been together 11 years this summer. She came in as a baby in 1998 with two broken wings. Her left wing doesn’t open all the way even after surgery, it was broken in 4 places. She’s my baby.
When Freedom came in she could not stand and both wings were broken. She was emaciated and covered in lice. We made the decision to give her a chance at life, so I took her to the vet’s office. From then on, I was always around her. We had her in a huge dog carrier with the top off, and it was loaded up with shredded newspaper for her to lay in. I used to sit and talk to her, urging her to live, to fight; and she would lay there looking at me with those big brown eyes. We also had to tube feed her for weeks.
This went on for 4-6 weeks, and by then she still couldn’t stand. It got to the point where the decision was made to euthanize her if she couldn’t stand in a week. You know you don’t want to cross that line between torture and rehab, and it looked like death was winning. She was going to be put down that Friday, and I was supposed to come in on that Thursday afternoon. I didn’t want to go to the center that Thursday, because I couldn’t bear the thought of her being euthanized; but I went anyway, and when I walked in everyone was grinning from ear to ear. I went immediately back to her cage; and there she was, standing on her own, a big beautiful eagle. She was ready to live. I was just about in tears by then. That was a very good day.
We knew she could never fly, so the director asked me to glove train her. I got her used to the glove, and then to Jesse’s, and we started doing education programs for schools in western Washington.
We wound up in the newspapers, radio (believe it or not) and some TV. Miracle Pets even did a show about us.
In the spring of 2000, I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I had stage 3, which is not good (one major organ plus everywhere), so I wound up doing 8 months of chemo. Lost the hair – the whole bit. I missed a lot of work. When I felt good enough, I would go to Sarvey and take Freedom out for walks. Freedom would also come to me in my dreams and help me fight the cancer. This happened time and time again.
Fast forward to November 2000.
The day after Thanksgiving, I went in for my last checkup. I was told that if the cancer was not all gone after 8 rounds of chemo, then my last option was a stem cell transplant. Anyway, they did the tests; and I had to come back Monday for the results. I went in Monday, and I was told that all the cancer was gone.
So the first thing I did was get up to Sarvey and take the big girl out for a walk. It was misty and cold. I went to her flight and we went out front to the top of the hill. I hadn’t said a word to Freedom, but somehow she knew. She looked at me and wrapped both her wings around me to where I could feel them pressing in on my back (I was engulfed in eagle wings), and she touched my nose with her beak and stared into my eyes, and we just stood there like that for I don’t know how long. That was a magic moment. We have been soul mates ever since she came in. This is a very special bird.
On a side note: I have had people who were sick come up to us when we are out, and Freedom has some kind of hold on them. I once had a guy who was terminal come up to us and I let him hold her. His knees just about buckled and he swore he could feel her power course through his body. I have so many stories like that..
I never forget the honor I have of being so close to such a magnificent spirit as Freedom.
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” Anatole France
This gorgeous video has been doing the rounds and came to me thanks to Suzann.
Enjoy!
Very Talented Russian Bear and His Awesome Friend
This unbelievably talented and cute Russian bear can roll over, play the trumpet, sit on a lawn chair, play the trumpet, you name it. Leave it to a random Russian guy to train such an awesome bear.
Jean and I have been involved in a research programme involving our own dogs here at home. So far, without much success. But it occurred to me that there may be readers who would like to participate. So here’s an email in response to my offer to post something in this place.
Companion Animal Research Group
Pam Smart and I are setting up a Companion Animal Research Group for people who would like to do research with their dogs, cats or other animals. If you have an animal that knows when you are coming home or who seems to respond to your thoughts and intentions telepathically, and if you would like to take part in a simple research project, please get in touch with Pam by email: p.e.smart (at) btinternet (dot) com She will send you further details.
Of course, if you do have such a telepathic animal then they will know about this post before you do! 😉
A beautifully written, soul-stirring account of strife, darkness, hope and, above all, love shared between dog and human.
Gracious, I don’t know where to start! Guess at the beginning.
Which was that a little over a month ago, I received this email:
Dear Paul:
I hope this note finds you well. We were in touch several years about Racing in the Rain, and I wanted to get in touch about another dog-related novel that may be of interest to you and your readers.
I am working with Forge Books to set up a blog tour for Andrea Thalasinos, whose novel Traveling Light hits bookshelves and e-readers on July 16th. Traveling Light is an inspiring story about fate, family, and healing; it also explores the special bond that exists between humans and canines.
Now I well remembered the book Racing in the Rain, writing about it in May 2011 and then a guest post from the author, Garth Stein, in September under the title of A game called Fetch.
Wiley included in his email a “flavour” of Andrea Thalasinos’ novel, as in:
Paula Makaikis is ashamed of her marriage. Driven out of their bedroom by Roger’s compulsive hoarding, she has spent the past ten years sleeping downstairs on her husband’s ratty couch. Distant and uninspired, Paula is more concerned with the robins landing on her office window ledge than her hard-earned position at the university. Until a phone call changes everything.
A homeless Greek man is dying in a Queens hospital and Paula is asked to come and translate. The old man tells her of his beloved dog, Fotis, who bit a police officer when they were separated. Paula has never considered adopting a dog, but she promises the man that she will rescue Fotis and find him a good home. But when Fotis enters her life she finds a companion she can’t live without. Suddenly Paula has a dog, a brand-new Ford Escape, an eight-week leave of absence, and a plan.
So Fotis and Paula begin the longest drive of their lives. In northern Minnesota, something compels her to answer a help-wanted ad for a wildlife rehabilitation center. Soon Paula is holding an eagle in her hands, and the experience leaves her changed forever.
Traveling Light explores what is possible when we cut the ties that hold us down and the heart is free to soar.
Of course, I wanted to read and review Andrea’s book. Wiley and I agreed that a review published on the 18th July, i.e. today, would be perfect. However, for reasons not entirely clear, the review copy of the book didn’t arrive until July 10th; just 8 days ago. That made it too tight for me to read in that time, so I gave the book to Jean for her to read first.
If I tell you that Jean devoured the book and had it finished in three days, you won’t get a better idea than that of how moving and captivating she found it. At the time of writing this post (9am yesterday) I was already up to page 160. So the review that follows a little later in today’s post is the combined feelings of Jean and me.
One of the other things that Wiley offered was for Andrea to write a guest post for Learning from Dogs. That now follows! I checked with Wiley: This is a true account from Andrea. (Trust me, you will be entranced!)
oooOOOooo
Andrea and Panda.
We’d come up to the edge of a wooden bridge that had almost as much space between the boards as the width of the boards themselves. Snow ordinarily covered the iffy-looking surfaces of such bridges, but the strength March’s early sun had melted clear down to the wood, leaving a full view of the snowy rocks in the creek bed below.
At the time, I didn’t know what my lead dog, Gorky, a red Siberian yearling (tiny in stature by Siberian standards) would do. From a puppy, she’d had more confidence in her furry little toe than I had in my whole body.
The dog positioned the team at the edge of the bridge and paused. She looked around, sniffing the wind, looking to the other side and then down through the slats into the creek bed below. I could tell she was thinking, calculating risks, odds and whether or not she had the moxie to cross. The other six dogs (including her father), were hooked up to the gangline behind her and by the set of their shoulders, their hedging and shirking back in their harnesses I could tell they were nervous.
It was a narrow trail, just wide enough for one dog team. Two more experienced teams were closing in from behind and I wondered what we would do. Rock walls butted up to either side of the trail, making it impossible to either turn around or move off the trail to let the others pass. I’d considered leading my dog team down into the gully, but the drop-off looked steep and as a rookie musher, I didn’t trust my skills to do so safely.
“Fifty bucks says she won’t take it,” the approaching musher called out from behind.
Thinking I’d be out the fifty before I could say boo, Gorky stepped up to the edge. Her body language changed. She’d committed to taking the bridge. As the red dog leaned into her harness, she gave the forward cue. The others fell in line, following her calm, forward gait with no signs of wavering.
After her first step I noticed that not once did Gorky look down, but rather kept her eye on the other side of the bridge as if she were already there.
Whenever I have to make difficult decisions, I think back to this moment. Sometimes I don’t have enough information or am waiting for some cosmic gut-affirmation that never seems to arrive when I need it. But one thing is clear. Like Gorky, once I set my mind on a course of action, I think of her and act.
Who knows if she was scared or not—she never said. The red dog lived to be 15 ½ and taught me more about not second-guessing than any person, place or thing I’ve come across since. Being brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared, it just means you do it anyway.
oooOOOooo
Traveling Light, a novel by Andrea Thalasinos
The opening of the book, In The Beginning, more of a prologue than anything else, firmly sets the context. For we read that the heroine of the story, Paula Makaikis, is tipped out of what is a highly unsatisfactory marriage into “the longest drive of her life” by a phone call from Celeste, Paula’s best friend.
The drive comes out of the tragic death of an old Greek man who pleads, in his last few breaths, that Paula takes his dog, Fotis, before the pound puts the dog to sleep.
If I tell you that by page 71, I had been brought to tears on two occasions then you will understand the depth of feeling that Andrea conveys: about life; about love; and the precious nature of a dog called Fotis .
This book, even as a work of fiction, seems to reach out to the reader, well to this reader anyway, with many messages of what life is all about. Take this for example, from page 104:
Paula few out of the Holland Tunnel into the early colors of the morning. Gas pedal depressed, windows open, her hair blowing, the faster she accelerated the better she felt. Getting up to eighty, then ninety, she thought maybe the wind would whisk her thoughts away.
Jersey was a blur except for periodic traffic congestion; Pennsylvania went on like a past life. The faster she drove, the clearer the sense that there was somewhere she needed to be. It wasn’t California or New York. It wasn’t a place. The map was nothing but lines, numbers, destinations. Wherever she was meant to be, she’d know it when she got there.
How many of us have shaken off our troubles as a dog shakes off water from its coat and ended up coming to a place and knowing that we were at the place we were meant to be!
In many ways, the book is a lovely fairy-tale, right up to the perfect ending. But in so many other ways the book is a reminder that we only have one life. Easy to say but less easy to embrace fully with heart and head. In fact, the book reinforces something that I wrote as a private letter to a family member in consequence of my sister’s recent death. I will share just a portion of that letter because I sense Andrea Thalasinos would love to see how her book reaches out to her readers.
Be clear about the purpose of life: your life. Do not put off what brings meaning, truth and happiness. Not even for a day. Live your beautiful life now; live it this day.
Thus for both Jean and me, this was the most beautiful of books and both of us have no hesitation in strongly recommending it.
Big thanks to Wiley Saichek for giving Jean and me the opportunity to read Traveling Light.
oooOOOooo
Now here’s an offer.
Wiley has offered a free copy of Andrea’s book as a ‘give-away’ from Learning from Dogs. Here’s the plan.
Would you like to write a story about any aspect of the relationship that dogs can have with humans?
Any length, truth or fiction; it doesn’t matter. Email your story to me (learningfromdogs (at) gmail (dot) com) to be received by the end of Wednesday, 31st July 2013, Pacific Daylight Time.
Then during the early part of August, I will publish every one received with some mechanism for readers to ‘score’ the stories and the winning author will be sent a free copy of the book.
It is our routine at home here in Oregon to let the kitchen group of dogs out first (Lily, Ruby, Casey & Paloma, with Sweeny tagging along) while Jean puts together our small breakfast. The time is around 6am to 6:30am and both Jean and I are usually wearing dressing gowns. Once this first group has been outside, then I let the ‘bedroom’ group out (Pharaoh, Cleo, Hazel and Dhalia).
Such as I did this morning, unusually a day starting dull with overcast cloud.
Suddenly, I heard the most awful squealing of an animal in pain over in the dense wooded area to the South-West of the property.
The wooded area in question.
In plastic slippers and dressing-gown only, I dashed into the woods and to my horror saw that Cleo, Hazel and Dhalia had cornered a young deer, and at least Hazel was nipping at a rear leg.
A not uncommon sight at home.
I screamed at the dogs, to no avail. They took not the slightest notice of me.
Then the young deer wriggled free and fled into the trees. The dogs recornered it and plunged in again. The deer broke free again, and so it went on. Eventually, after some ten minutes of the most dreadful hollering and chasing by me, the young deer jumped a fence and ran off with its mother who had been shadowing the terrible event. I prayed that it wasn’t badly hurt.
Gracious, I was so angry with the dogs! What disgusting behaviour towards this young, beautiful creature.
When I was back in the house trying to regain my breath, still so angry at the dogs, a thought came to my mind. Tens of thousands of years ago, this behaviour of the dogs was held in great esteem.
Early man evolved from a tribal hunter-gatherer existence to the pastoral life of farming about 10,000 years ago. If the DNA evidence shows, as it does, that the dog evolved from the wolf as a separate species around 100,000 years ago, then dogs were part of the life of hunter-gatherer man for something of the order of 90,000 years, possibly a couple of decades longer!
In fairness, the present lineage of dogs was domesticated from grey wolves only about 15,000 years ago. Despite fossil remains of domesticated dogs having been found in Siberia and Belgium from about 33,000 years ago, none of those lineages survived the Last Glacial Maximum. No fossil specimens prior to 33,000 years ago have indicated that they are clearly from the morphologically domesticated dog.
Even if, and it’s a very big ‘if’, the relationship between man and dog is only about 15,000 years old, one can only speculate how each species came to know the other, in every imaginable way.
Actually, we can go beyond speculation because in a study published by the PLOS ONE scientific journal in March 2013, Dr. Robert Losey, Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta and the lead author, explained that:
Dog burials appear to be more common in areas where diets were rich in aquatic foods because these same areas also appear to have had the densest human populations and the most cemeteries,
If the practice of burying dogs was solely related to their importance in procuring terrestrial game, we would expect to see them in the Early Holocene (around 9,000 years ago), when human subsistence practices were focused on these animals. Further, we would expect to see them in later periods in areas where fish were never really major components of the diet and deer were the primary focus, but they are rare or absent in these regions.
The PLOS ONE paper went on to report that researchers found that most of the dog burials occurred during the Early Neolithic period, some 7,000-8,000 years ago, and that “dogs were only buried when human hunter-gatherers were also being buried.”
So back to the morning’s drama between the dogs and the young deer.
The efficiency of the way the dogs cornered the deer was breath-taking. Had I not been coming at them in such a state of anger and agitation, and especially if I was one of a group of say, 2 or 3 humans, the odds are that the deer could have been grabbed and dispatched. In other words, those three dogs had demonstrated that 20,000, 40,000, 80,000 or more years ago, they were critically useful at helping early hunter-gatherer man feed himself.
Back to Dr. Losey’s view, “I think the hunter-gatherers here saw some of their dogs as being nearly the same as themselves, even at a spiritual level. At this time, dogs were the only animals living closely with humans, and they were likely known at an individual level, far more so than any other animal people encountered. People came to know them as unique, special individuals.”
Does make sense, doesn’t it.
“Oh look! We could have turkey for dinner tonight!”
A reflection on the history of the German Shepherd dog.
Yesterday’s account of getting to know GSD Duke a little better caused me to find a post that had been sitting in my Drafts folder for a couple of years. It was about a piece published in The New York Times, Sunday Review, October 8th, 2011 under the heading of Why German Shepherds Have Had Their Day.
Why German Shepherds Have Had Their Day
By SUSAN ORLEAN
SUCCESS can be a drag. You yearn for it, strive for it, and then, when it finally arrives, it sets off repercussions you never anticipated that sometimes undo that success.
Take the German shepherd. Originally bred to the exacting standards of a German cavalry officer, it became one of the 20th century’s most popular working breeds. But in recent years that popularity, and the overbreeding that came with it, has driven the German shepherd into eclipse: even the police in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, who had relied on the dogs for years, recently announced they were replacing them with Belgian Malinois, because the less-popular Malinois were hardier and more reliable.
But there is good news about this bad news, if you are a lover of the breed, because less visibility, especially in inspiring roles as public servants, is likely to mean less demand for the dogs. That means less reason to produce too many puppies, which is the best thing that can happen to any purebred dogs.
The article continued with the history of the breed. But rather than stay with the NYT piece, for more about the breed history I’m going to cross over to the website of the British charity, German Shepherd Dog Rescue (GSDR). They have a comprehensive account of the History and Origins of the Breed.
History and Origins of the German Shepherd Dog
A brief insight into the development of the breed
The German Shepherd breed appeared late at the end of the 19th century in Germany and they were first exhibited at a show in Hanover in 1882. They were not like German Shepherds as we know them today though being rough coated, short tailed and rather resembling mongrels. The German Shepherd Dog as we now know it didn’t really appear until after the Second World War.
The breed was actually created by the cross breeding of working sheep dogs from rural Germany by an ex cavalry officer called Max von Stephanitz whose aim was to create a working dog for herding which could trot for long periods.
A breed standard was drawn up and the first breed show took place in 1899 following which the GSD became firmly established across Germany. In 1906 the first dogs were exported to the USA .
Since then, the breed has grown enormously in popularity and is now one of the most popular pedigree breeds in the UK as a pet as well as being the favourite working breed for many forces, especially the police. They are widely used for security purposes because of their strong protective instincts.
Many people in the UK still call these dogs Alsatians which may partly be due to the fact that when they were first bred, the Alsace region of France, where these dogs were very popular, was part of Germany . I still get people who think that Alsatians are the traditional short coat black and tan dogs and that German Shepherds are the long coated dogs that have become popular.
GSD’s make wonderful family pets and will protect family and home.
These dogs are highly intelligent and will show undying devotion to their master but they are dogs that need company and stimulation to be at their best. It is however, important to remember that this is a working breed and that they do have certain characteristics that some people might find difficult to live with. The German Shepherd should be steady, loyal, self assured, courageous and willing and should not be nervous over aggressive or shy. Nervous aggression is something that we are now seeing more often as a result of bad breeding. It is sad but there has always been indiscriminate breeding of German Shepherds right from the start, which has lead to problems with temperament and health.
Before leaving the GSDR website, please read more about this important charity, “We are one of the longest standing and largest German Shepherd rescues in the UK.” and if there is any way at all that you can help, please, please, please! (And fellow bloggers, consider a post spreading the word about this wonderful charity and these most magnificent of dogs.)
So a few memories of German Shepherds closer to home.
Young Pharaoh 12th August, 2003 when he was just 10 weeks old.
We are friends for life! Each for the other.
Pharaoh, ten-years-old, and King of his Castle! Taken on the 3rd June, 2013 at our home in Oregon.
The arrival of young Cleo!
I suspect Pharaoh is explaining to Cleo that there’s only rule of the house – his rule!
Picture taken April 7th, 2012
From puppy to Big Dog! Cleo resting where she shouldn’t be! February, 2013.
Four years ago this day, the first post was published on Learning from Dogs. Here it is again:
Parenting lessons from Dogs!
Much too late to make me realise the inadequacies of my own parenting skills, I learnt an important lesson when training my GSD (who is called Pharaoh, by the way). That is that putting more emphasis into praise and reward for getting it right ‘trains’ the dog much quicker than telling it off. The classic example is scolding a dog for running off when it should be lots of hugs and praise for returning home. The scolding simply teaches the dog that returning home isn’t pleasant whereas praise reinforces that home is the place to be. Like so many things in life, very obvious once understood!
Absolutely certain that it works with youngsters just the same way.
Despite being a very dominant dog, Pharaoh showed his teaching ability when working with other dogs. In the UK there is an amazing woman, Angela Stockdale, who has proved that dogs (and horses) learn most effectively when being taught by other dogs (and horses). Pharaoh was revealed to be a Beta Dog, (i.e. second in status below the Alpha Dog) and, therefore, was able to use his natural pack instinct to teach puppy dogs their social skills and to break up squabbles within a pack.
When you think about it, don’t kids learn much more (often to our chagrin!) from other kids than they do from their parents. Still focusing on giving more praise than punishment seems like a much more effective strategy.
As was read somewhere, Catch them in the act of doing Right!
By Paul Handover.
As it happens, it feels a little like ‘what goes around, comes around’. Why do I say that?
Because just last Saturday, I sent off a selection of pictures and videos to Angela Stockdale. Stay with me for a while as to the reason why.
Angela trades under the name of The Dog Partnership and, frankly, what she doesn’t know about the behaviour of dogs isn’t worth bothering about!
Just take a peek at the page on her website under the heading of Teaching Dogs. Here’s a little of what Angela writes:
I consider myself so lucky for dogs alone to have been my teachers. I learnt from watching how my own dogs responded to another dog’s body language and vice versa their language. Watching, learning and working with Teaching Dogs was the only way I knew.
I was and always will be in awe of a Teaching Dog’s dogs ability to consciously adapt their body language in accordance to how the other dog was feeling. The result being, they could relax nervous dogs but at the same time maintain control of a problem situation. Remember, dogs talk dog far better than we do.
It came as quite a shock to me when I learnt about other approaches. It seemed foreign for people to have so much input in resolving what were described as ‘ behavioural’ issues. For me, working with these dogs was far more than resolving a behavioural issue. It was about improving the quality of lives of dogs who were not coping with everyday life. If they found dogs or people worrying, sometimes this was shown in displays of aggression. It is important to understand, these dogs were not aggressive, they simply displayed aggressive behaviour.
Now, I would like to introduce you to the world of Teaching Dogs and how these special dogs change the lives of less fortunate dogs, who never had the opportunity to really understand how to communicate with their own species.
Back to why those photographs and videos had been sent to Angela. A couple of weeks ago, we enjoyed an evening meal with friends of friends, so to speak. This other couple owned a beautiful-looking male German Shepherd dog: Duke. Duke was 4-years-old. Our hostess remarked that he was very boisterous and had nipped a couple of strangers who had called at the house. She added that he seemed difficult to control. Duke had been there for about a month and he was a rescue so they had little or no knowledge of past behaviour.
Well, I’m no expect with dogs, that’s Jean’s domain. But there was something about Duke that captivated me. Something in the way he looked at me, his eyes linking so directly with mine, allowing me to see a dog that offered an honest openness.
More or less on impulse I stood up, held my right arm up at 45 degrees, looked Duke in the face and said, “Duke! Sit!”
Duke held my gaze and sat back on his haunches.
I moved my arm in a complete circle, around to the right, and said, “Duke! Lie down!” Duke lay down.
H’mm, I thought. Fascinating. This dog has been professionally trained at some point in the past, using the same ‘command’ system of voice and arm signalling as I had learnt with Pharaoh way back in 2003/2004.
The food was now on the table. I grabbed a small piece of meat off my plate and returned to Duke who had, of course, resumed his pottering around the room. “Duke! Here boy!” Duke came over to me. “Duke! Lie down!” Duke did so. I placed the piece of meat on the wooden floor about three feet in front of him. Duke’s eyes were riveted on the meat. “Duke!” Duke’s eyes reluctantly engaged with mine. “Duke! Stay!” I repeated the Stay command a couple more times as I backed away about 6 or 8 feet.
“Go on, Boy. Take the meat!” Duke gleefully grabbed the piece of meat. Gracious, I thought, this dog is magnificent. I wonder ……..
I took another piece of meat, “Duke! Sit!” “Duke! Stay!” I then backed off that 8 feet again, got down on my knees and placed the piece of meat just between my lips. I knew this was potential madness with a dog I had only met some 30 minutes previously, but there wasn’t an ounce of doubt in my mind. I voiced in my throat for Duke to fetch the meat. Duke came straight over and confidently and carefully removed the meat from my lips.
What a truly fabulous dog! It was a wonderful evening and once home both Jean and I were eulogising about Duke.
Then two days later, our dinner hostess rang me. “You know, I have decided we can no longer keep Duke. He is too strong a dog, I can’t control him. Is there any chance of you finding a new home for Duke?”
Without question, Jean and I would have offered Duke a new home; in a heartbeat. The only thing stopping that was me wondering if this strong-willed, male German Shepherd might be a Beta dog, as Pharaoh was. Or just might be too dominant a male dog to fit in comfortably with our dogs, especially Pharaoh who was at the stage of life where the last thing that should happen is for his happiness and contentment to be disturbed.
I hadn’t a clue as to how to answer that question. But I knew someone who would know: Angela Stockdale.
I rang her, caught up on old times and then explained the background to Duke’s situation. Angela said to repeat the exercise that I had witnessed when I took Pharaoh to her all those years ago, when I wondered if Pharaoh was an aggressive dog. My uncertainty with regard to Pharaoh followed a number of times when walking him in a public area with other dogs and he had been very threatening, both in voice and posture, towards some of those other dogs.
This is what Angela arranged. I took Pharaoh up to her place at Wheddon Cross, near Minehead in Somerset. When we arrived, Angela was standing just by a gate into a fenced paddock, maybe a half-acre in size. In the far corner were two dogs.
Angela asked me to bring Pharaoh to the gate and let him off the leash. It was clear that Pharaoh was going to be let into the paddock. I cautioned that Pharaoh could be quite a handful with other dogs and, perhaps, it would be better that I walked him into the area still on his lead. Angela said that wouldn’t be necessary. So as she held the gate open sufficient for Pharaoh to enter the paddock, I slipped the lead off him and backed away, as requested.
Pharaoh had hardly taken 2 or 3 paces when Angela called out, “Paul, there’s nothing wrong with him!”
I was astounded and stammered, “But, er, er, how can you tell so quickly?” “Because my two dogs haven’t taken any notice!”, came the reply.
Later Angela explained that in the paddock were her female Alpha dog and her male Beta dog. Ergo, the two top dogs in terms of status so far as dogs see other dogs.
In fact, Pharaoh was utterly subservient to these dogs, in a way that I had never witnessed before. Later on, as Pharaoh relaxed and started playing, Angela said that she thought that Pharaoh was a Beta dog. Mixing some of her other dogs into the group was later able to confirm that.
So back now to present times and Duke.
Thus last Saturday, as Angela recommended, we selected two of our dogs, Cleo our female German Shepherd and the most socialable of dogs, and Casey, a strong but not aggressive male (he had some PitBull in him).
Duke arrived and was allowed freely to nose around the large grassed area some way from the fenced-off horse paddock that we were using for the ‘introduction’.
Duke pottered around and then caught sight of Cleo and Casey in the paddock.
First sighting of Cleo and Casey.
Then the meetings began!
Hello! My name is Duke. Do I smell OK? Mr. Casey?
And play didn’t seem to be too far off the agenda!
You lead, Cleo, I’ll chase!
So all the photographs and videos have been sent to Angela, and we will see what the conclusion is!
As Angela put it, “Remember, dogs talk dog far better than we do.”
Learning from Dogs 