Category: Science

Science on the business of loving our dogs (and cats).

A fascinating article!

I have long subscribed to The Conversation and shared quite a few stories with you good people. But this recent one was a terrific report.

Read it yourself and I am sure you will agree with me.

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New research suggests cat and dog ‘moms’ and ‘dads’ really are parenting their pets – here’s the evolutionary explanation why.

Pet parenting can provide love and companionship to both human and animal. Willie B. Thomas/DigitalVision via Getty Images

Shelly Volsche, Boise State University

old pug dog in a stroller and harness
A pup out for a stroll, without paws touching the ground. Shelly Volsche, CC BY-ND

Have you noticed more cats riding in strollers lately? Or bumper stickers that read, “I love my granddogs”? You’re not imagining it. More people are investing serious time, money and attention in their pets.

It looks an awful lot like parenting, but of pets, not people.

Can this kind of caregiving toward animals really be considered parenting? Or is something else going on here?

I’m an anthropologist who studies human-animal interactions, a field known as anthrozoology. I want to better understand the behavior of pet parenting by people from the perspective of evolutionary science. After all, cultural norms and evolutionary biology both suggest people should focus on raising their own children, not animals of a completely different species.

More child-free people, more pet parents

The current moment is unique in human history. Many societies, including the U.S., are experiencing major changes in how people live, work and socialize. Fertility rates are low, and people have more flexibility in how they choose to live their lives. These factors can lead people to further their education and value defining oneself as an individual over family obligations. With basics taken care of, people can focus on higher order psychological needs like feelings of achievement and a sense of purpose.

The scene is set for people to actively choose to focus on pets instead of children.

In earlier research, I interviewed 28 self-identified child-free pet owners to better understand how they relate to their animals. These individuals pointedly shared that they had actively chosen cats and dogs instead of children. In many cases, their use of parent-child relational terms – calling themselves a pet’s “mom” for instance – was simply shorthand.

They emphasized fulfilling the species-specific needs of their dogs and cats. For example, they might fulfill the animal’s need to forage by feeding meals using a food puzzle, while most children are fed at the table. These pet owners acknowledged differences in the nutrition, socialization and learning needs of animals versus children. They were not unthinkingly replacing human children with “fur babies” by treating them like small, furry humans.

woman with party hat with dog
Pet parents might celebrate their dog’s big day – but with a doggy treat and not chocolate cake. fotostorm/E+ via Getty Images

Other researchers find similar connections, showing that child-free pet owners perceive their companions as emotional, thinking individuals. This way of understanding the mind of the animal helps lead to the development of a parent identity toward companion animals. In other cases, uncertain individuals find their need to nurture sufficiently fulfilled by caring for pets, cementing their fertility decisions to remain child-free.

Nurturing others is part of being human

Yet, these findings still do not answer this question: Are people who choose pets over children truly parenting their pets? To answer, I turned to the evolution of parenting and caregiving.

Evolutionary anthropologist Sarah Hardy wrote in 2009 that humans are cooperative breeders. This means it is literally in our DNA and our ancestral history to help care for offspring who are not our own. Anthropologists and biologists call this trait alloparenting. It is an evolutionary adaptation that helped human beings who cooperatively raised children survive. For early humans, this ancient environment was likely made up of small, foraging societies in which some people exchanged child care for food and other resources.

I propose that it is this evolutionary history that explains pet parenting. If people evolved to alloparent, and our environment is now making caring for children more difficult or less appealing to some, it makes sense for people to alloparent other species entering their homes. Alloparenting companion animals can offer a way to fulfill the evolved need to nurture while reducing the investment of time, money and emotional energy compared to raising children.

two kids and dog bathing in tub
Do people relate to animals differently in families with children? Mayte Torres/Moment via Getty Images

Untangling differences in caring for pets

To further understand this phenomenon of child-free adults parenting pets, I launched an online survey via social media, seeking responses from U.S.-based dog and cat owners over the age of 18. The survey included questions about attachment and caregiving behaviors using the Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale. It also asked a series of questions I developed to probe specific human caretaking behaviors oriented toward pets – things like feeding, bathing and training – as well as how much autonomy companion animals had in the home.

The final sample of 917 respondents included 620 parents, 254 nonparents and 43 people who were undecided or did not answer. Most of the respondents were also married or in a domestic partnership for over one year (57%), between the ages of 25 and 60 (72%) and had at least a bachelor’s degree (77%). They were also mostly women (85%) and heterosexual (85%), a common situation in human-animal interactions research.

Both parents and nonparents reported high amounts of training and play with their pets. This finding makes sense given that all pet owners need to help their dogs and cats learn how to navigate a human world. Survey respondents reported socializing, training and enrichment, including play, for their animals.

Nonparents were more likely to be the one providing general care for the animal. This finding also makes sense since parents often adopt or purchase companion animals as a way to help their children learn responsibility and to care for others. Child-free animal owners invest time, money and emotional energy directly in their pets.

Nonparents reported higher rates of general attachment to their animals. They more frequently viewed their pets as individuals. Nonparents were also more likely to use family terms such as “parent,” “child,” “kids” and “guardians” when referring to their relationships with their pet.

woman on couch petting cat
Caring for another being can be fulfilling and rewarding. Delmaine Donson/E+ via Getty Images

It is this difference, combined with the evidence from my earlier research that these individuals address the species-specific needs of the dogs and cats in their care, that suggests pet parenting is, truly, parenting pets. Though the details may look quite different – attending training classes instead of school functions, or providing smell walks for dogs instead of coloring books for children – both practices fulfill the same evolved function. Whether child or pet, people are meeting the same evolved need to care for, teach and love a sentient other.

My colleagues and I continue to collect data from all over the world about how people live with animals. For now, this study provides evidence that, perhaps rather than being evolved to parent, humans are evolved to nurture. And as a result, who and when we parent is much more flexible than you might initially believe.

[Get our best science, health and technology stories. Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter.]

Shelly Volsche, Clinical Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Boise State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Shelly does a fabulous job of looking more closely at the science and it is a science that has a very wide appeal. For in the UK, according to the RSPCA, “In the UK, it’s estimated that 12 million (44 percent of) households have pets with around 51 million pets owned.“

Here in America The Washington Post reported that: “Google the U.S. pet population, and you’re quickly confronted with two oft-cited, and contradictory, sources. The American Pet Products Association (APPA) found that 68 percent of U.S. households owned some sort of pet in 2016 — “equal to the highest level ever reported,” it gushed in the executive summary. Among those pets were about 90 million dogs and 94 million cats, the group said.“

That is just two countries. The worldwide population of dogs and cats must be gigantic.

Dream on, dear dog!

An article as to whether dogs dream.

James Dean was an American actor. He was killed in a highway accident on September 30, 1955. But he left a quote:

Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.

My article today is yet another one from The Dodo. It was published in early August this year and I am surprised that I have not shared it before. It is whether dogs dream or not.

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Do Dogs Dream?

Those little foot twitches 🥺

By Sam Howell, published on the 2nd August, 2021.

There’s nothing cuter than when your dog’s little paws are twitching in her sleep.

But it’s probably made you wonder: Is your dog actually dreaming?

The Dodo spoke with Dr. Megan Dundas, veterinarian and practice owner at Lincolndale Veterinary Center in New York, to find out just what’s going on in your sleepyhead’s sleepy head.

Do dogs have dreams?

For a long time, no one actually knew if dogs could even have dreams.

Since your pup can’t just wake up from a nap and tell you all about the weird dream she just had, scientists had to figure it out by discovering similarities between dogs’ sleep stages and ours (since we know for sure that people dream).

“It is thought that dogs do dream because studies have shown that dogs have sleep stages, including the REM stage, which is when most dream activity occurs in people,” Dr. Dundas told The Dodo.

But just because dogs go through a REM stage, does that mean they actually dream?

Well, scientists studied rats and found that they do, in fact, dream. So, researchers concluded that dogs must dream, too!

How do dogs’ dreams work?

In order to know how your dog’s dreams work, you’ve got to know about how her sleep cycles work.

“Dogs typically sleep anywhere from 9 to 14 hours in 45-minute sleep periods, with the phases of sleep divided into a wakefulness state, drowsiness, non-REM sleep and REM sleep,” Dr. Dundas explained.

REM stands for rapid eye movement, and it means exactly what it sounds like: Your dog is asleep, but her eyes are moving rapidly and her brain is almost acting like she’s awake (even though she’s asleep).

That’s when she’s going to be dreaming.

“During REM sleep, the neurons of the brain are still active,” Dr. Dundas said. “However, there is a ‘switch’ of sorts that disconnects the motor neurons in the spinal cord from the neuronal activity of the brain.”

Basically, your dog’s brain is still going during REM sleep, but that “switch” keeps her legs from moving.

Why do dogs twitch in their sleep?

“During REM sleep, most muscles are immobile with the exception of some facial muscles, the larynx, paws, tail, diaphragm and muscles of the ribs,” Dr. Dundas explained. 

That means that when your dog’s neurons are firing — signaling her to chase that car she’s dreaming about — only her paws, tail or nose will twitch, since those muscles aren’t immobile like her legs are.

It’s also the reason why you can hear your pup whimpering in her sleep.

“What seems like whining could be attributed to the movement of the muscles of the diaphragm pushing air through the larynx or voice box,” Dr. Dundas said.

And sometimes, that neuron switch that’s supposed to keep your dog’s legs from moving doesn’t actually shut off her motor functions, which is why you might feel like you can see your dog dreaming super intensely.

“The brain’s activity is then allowed to become motor activity, and the dog’s movements can become vigorous or even violent,” Dr. Dundas explained. “The behaviors seen in these situations are thought to be similar to humans acting out dreams.”

“I think it’s fair to say that it is similar to sleepwalking in humans,” Dr. Dundas said. “We can’t know what dogs are dreaming about, and we are making the assumption that they are dreaming in the first place. So we’re assuming that if they are running in their dreams that the coordinated foot movements seen when sleeping, or growling/gnashing behavior, is a sign that the dog is acting out a dream.”

What do you do when your dog is dreaming?

Honestly, nothing.

“As the old saying goes, it is usually best to let sleeping dogs lie,” Dr. Dundas said.

Even if you think your dog is having a nightmare, you’re going to want to let her ride it out.

“If you suspect your dog is having a bad dream, wait until the outward signs of the dream have ended and you can then wake your dog to give some comfort,” Dr. Dundas explained.

That’s because it could be super startling for your pup if she’s suddenly woken up out of nowhere — just like how you feel really weird when you abruptly snap awake in the middle of a nightmare.

“The combination of the excited state of a bad dream and being woken up from a deep sleep could lead to an inadvertent bite,” Dr. Dundas explained.

So if your dog is dreaming, just let her dream! Besides, it’s super cute to watch those teeny toes twitching away.

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Cleo, our female German Shepherd is a great one for moving her legs when she is asleep. So, too, is our Brandy. There are times when Brandy is sleeping on his side against one of our walls and his leg movements can be incredibly loud as his paws hammer against the wood wall.

But in one way or another all our dogs can move their limbs when in a deep sleep.

It is a shame they cannot report to us humans what they were dreaming about!

Darkness!

Chris Impey writes about his specialty in observational cosmology.

This has nothing to do with life, nothing that we are dealing with in our daily affairs, and has nothing to do with our dear dogs. BUT! This is incredibly interesting! Incredibly and beautifully interesting!

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The most powerful space telescope ever built will look back in time to the Dark Ages of the universe

Hubble took pictures of the oldest galaxies it could – seen here – but the James Webb Space Telescope can go back much farther in time. NASA

Chris Impey, University of Arizona

Some have called NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope the “telescope that ate astronomy.” It is the most powerful space telescope ever built and a complex piece of mechanical origami that has pushed the limits of human engineering. On Dec. 18, 2021, after years of delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns, the telescope is scheduled to launch into orbit and usher in the next era of astronomy.

I’m an astronomer with a specialty in observational cosmology – I’ve been studying distant galaxies for 30 years. Some of the biggest unanswered questions about the universe relate to its early years just after the Big Bang. When did the first stars and galaxies form? Which came first, and why? I am incredibly excited that astronomers may soon uncover the story of how galaxies started because James Webb was built specifically to answer these very questions.

A graphic showing the progression of the Universe through time.
The Universe went through a period of time known as the Dark Ages before stars or galaxies emitted any light. Space Telescope Institute

The ‘Dark Ages’ of the universe

Excellent evidence shows that the universe started with an event called the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, which left it in an ultra-hot, ultra-dense state. The universe immediately began expanding after the Big Bang, cooling as it did so. One second after the Big Bang, the universe was a hundred trillion miles across with an average temperature of an incredible 18 billion F (10 billion C). Around 400,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe was 10 million light years across and the temperature had cooled to 5,500 F (3,000 C). If anyone had been there to see it at this point, the universe would have been glowing dull red like a giant heat lamp.

Throughout this time, space was filled with a smooth soup of high energy particles, radiation, hydrogen and helium. There was no structure. As the expanding universe became bigger and colder, the soup thinned out and everything faded to black. This was the start of what astronomers call the Dark Ages of the universe.

The soup of the Dark Ages was not perfectly uniform and due to gravity, tiny areas of gas began to clump together and become more dense. The smooth universe became lumpy and these small clumps of denser gas were seeds for the eventual formation of stars, galaxies and everything else in the universe.

Although there was nothing to see, the Dark Ages were an important phase in the evolution of the universe.

A diagram showing different wavelengths of light compared to size of normal objects.
Light from the early universe is in the infrared wavelength – meaning longer than red light – when it reaches Earth. Inductiveload/NASA via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Looking for the first light

The Dark Ages ended when gravity formed the first stars and galaxies that eventually began to emit the first light. Although astronomers don’t know when first light happened, the best guess is that it was several hundred million years after the Big Bang. Astronomers also don’t know whether stars or galaxies formed first.

Current theories based on how gravity forms structure in a universe dominated by dark matter suggest that small objects – like stars and star clusters – likely formed first and then later grew into dwarf galaxies and then larger galaxies like the Milky Way. These first stars in the universe were extreme objects compared to stars of today. They were a million times brighter but they lived very short lives. They burned hot and bright and when they died, they left behind black holes up to a hundred times the Sun’s mass, which might have acted as the seeds for galaxy formation.

Astronomers would love to study this fascinating and important era of the universe, but detecting first light is incredibly challenging. Compared to massive, bright galaxies of today, the first objects were very small and due to the constant expansion of the universe, they’re now tens of billions of light years away from Earth. Also, the earliest stars were surrounded by gas left over from their formation and this gas acted like fog that absorbed most of the light. It took several hundred million years for radiation to blast away the fog. This early light is very faint by the time it gets to Earth.

But this is not the only challenge.

As the universe expands, it continuously stretches the wavelength of light traveling through it. This is called redshift because it shifts light of shorter wavelengths – like blue or white light – to longer wavelengths like red or infrared light. Though not a perfect analogy, it is similar to how when a car drives past you, the pitch of any sounds it is making drops noticeably. Similar to how a pitch of a sound drops if the source is moving away from you, the wavelength of light stretches due to the expansion of the universe.

By the time light emitted by an early star or galaxy 13 billion years ago reaches any telescope on Earth, it has been stretched by a factor of 10 by the expansion of the universe. It arrives as infrared light, meaning it has a wavelength longer than that of red light. To see first light, you have to be looking for infrared light.

Telescope as a time machine

Enter the James Webb Space Telescope.

Telescopes are like time machines. If an object is 10,000 light-years away, that means the light takes 10,000 years to reach Earth. So the further out in space astronomers look, the further back in time we are looking.

A large golden colored disc with a sensor in the middle and scientists standing below.
The James Webb Space Telescope was specifically designed to detect the oldest galaxies in the universe. NASA/JPL-Caltech, CC BY-SA

Engineers optimized James Webb for specifically detecting the faint infrared light of the earliest stars or galaxies. Compared to the Hubble Space Telescope, James Webb has a 15 times wider field of view on its camera, collects six times more light and its sensors are tuned to be most sensitive to infrared light.

The strategy will be to stare deeply at one patch of sky for a long time, collecting as much light and information from the most distant and oldest galaxies as possible. With this data, it may be possible to answer when and how the Dark Ages ended, but there are many other important discoveries to be made. For example, unraveling this story may also help explain the nature of dark matter, the mysterious form of matter that makes up about 80% of the mass of the universe.

James Webb is the most technically difficult mission NASA has ever attempted. But I think the scientific questions it may help answer will be worth every ounce of effort. I and other astronomers are waiting excitedly for the data to start coming back sometime in 2022.

Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The dark ages of the universe that lasted for millions of years until gravity started to form some order out of the ‘soup’.

I don’t know about you but the winter nights, when the sky is clear, have me waiting outside for the dogs to come in looking up at the night sky just lost in the sheer wonder of it all.

The very best of luck to NASA on December 18th!

Our Oregon wolves

A very close relative to the domestic dog.

Indeed until a short time ago it was thought that the dog evolved from the grey wolf but recently I read that the dog evolved as its own species.

But the following is a republication of an article on Oregon Wild about wolves returning to the State of Oregon.

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Wolves in Oregon

Gray wolves (Canis lupus) were once common in Oregon, occupying most of the state. However, a deliberate effort to eradicate the species was successful by the late 1940s.

In fact, trouble for wolves began almost 100 years earlier, in the years before Oregon became a state. In 1843 the first wolf bounty was established and Oregon’s first legislative session was called in part to address the “problem of marauding wolves.” By 1913, people could collect a $5 state bounty and an Oregon State Game Commission bounty of $20. The last recorded wolf bounty was paid out in 1947.

After an absence of over half a century, wolves began to take their first tentative steps towards recovery. Having dispersed from Idaho, the native species is once again trying to make a home in Oregon. One of the first sightings came in 1999 when a lone wolf was captured near the middle fork of the John Day River, put in a crate and quickly returned to Idaho by government wildlife agents. In 2000, two wolves were found dead – one killed by a car, the other illegally shot.

In 2006, a flurry of sightings led biologists to believe a number of wild wolves were living in Northeast Oregon near the Wallowa Mountains and the Eagle Cap Wilderness. Sadly, a wolf found shot to death near La Grande in May 2007 clearly indicated wolves had arrived in the area.

After that sad chapter, wolves began to establish a fragile foothold in the state. In July 2008 pups were confirmed to a wolf named Sophie by the Oregon Wild wolf pack (and B-300 to government biologists). Those pups represented the first wolves in Oregon in nearly 60 years! A second set of six pups were confirmed and videotaped in November 2009. The following July, a third litter of pups was confirmed.

Unfortunately, the news was tempered with additional poaching and heavy-handed state management. After peaking at 26 confirmed wolves, wolf recovery stalled out in 2011. While some wolves dispersed from the Imnaha Pack, only one pup was confirmed to Oregon’s best-known pack, and two pups were confirmed in one of the state’s other two packs (the Walla Walla and Wenaha). Oregon’s confirmed wolf population fell to 17, and then to 14, when the state killed three more wolves (two on purpose) and poachers killed a fourth.

In 2011, wolves in Eastern Oregon lost their federal protections due to an unprecedented congressional budget rider sponsored by Montana Sen. John Tester. Hours later,  Oregon used their new authority to kill two wolves and issue dozens of landowner kill permits at the request of the livestock industry.

Meanwhile, anti-wildlife interests and their political allies pushed over half a dozen bills in Salem aimed at making it easier to kill wolves and undermine wolf recovery. Most of the bills were defeated, but a compensation fund and new predator killing fund were approved.

Wolf hunts in nearby states also threaten the region’s fragile recovery. When wolves were federally delisted the region was home to an estimated population of about 1,700 wolves. Over 1,000 were killed in the first two seasons alone.

The large tracts of pristine and unspoiled Wilderness and roadless areas in Northeast Oregon are vital components in the successful recovery of wolves, and other wildlife too. (Ed: see the photograph below of the wild lands of Oregon.) The reappearance of wolves, wolverines, and other endangered wildlife in Oregon further underscores the importance of protecting those roadless areas that remain on public land.

Anticipating the eventual return of wolves, the state of Oregon completed a Wolf Conservation and Management Plan in 2005 aimed at making rational decisions in the light of day that would lead to wolf recovery. Though state polling put support for wolf recovery at over 70 percent, the plan was weak, allowed the state to kill wolves, and set scientifically indefensible recovery goals.

Even so, the plan was actively opposed by the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association. They argued in their minority report that “wolves are being used as a biological weapon” and that wolves are a non-native species that citizens should have the right to shoot without permits. 

Oregon Wild and other conservationists generally – if reluctantly – agreed to honor the compromise embodied in the plan. Most believed lethal control would be an option of last resort and conservation would be a priority.

After the state shot two young wolves in response to the first livestock depredations in over half a century, it was clear the state was willing to address the concerns of the livestock industry by killing wolves.

In 2010, the plan was reviewed and revised. The public process took the better part of a year and demonstrated that support for wolf recovery had grown. Over 90 percent of a staggering 20,000 public comments were in favor of stronger protections for Oregon’s endangered gray wolves. Oregon Wild joined other conservationists and the Oregon public in defending the plan against continued attacks. Though the plan survived relatively intact, most of the approved changes made it easier to kill wolves. 

In 2011, a lone wolf from the Imnaha Pack generated international headlines when he became the first in Western Oregon since 1947, and then the first in California in nearly a century. The story of Journey (OR-7) provided a welcome opportunity to step away from the unnecessary controversy manufactured by those opposed to wolf recovery and instead reflect on the positive story of a native species retaking its rightful place on the landscape.

Since 2012, wolf recovery in Oregon has slowly started to get back on track. Although the population has increased over the last several years, in 2015, and with only 78 known adult wolves in the state, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and its Commission decided to prematurely strip wolves of state Endangered Species Act protections — despite what peer reviewed, independent scientists recommended. Shortly after, lawmakers in Salem passed HB 4040: a bill that statutorily affirmed the delisting of Oregon’s wolves. The passage of HB 4040 essentially blocked the ability of conservation organizations to bring forth a lawsuit challenging the merits of the Commission’s decision.

The latest update to the Wolf Conservation and Management Plan — which was approved by the Commission in June of 2019 —  significantly erodes protections for wolves by lowering the threshold for when the state can kill wolves, removing requirements for non lethal conflict deterrence, and opening the door toward public hunting and trapping. 

For many, wolves are a symbol of freedom, wilderness, and the American west, and Oregon’s wolf country contains some of the most spectacular landscapes in the world. Science continues to demonstrate the positive impacts of wolves on the landscape and the critical role played by big predators, and interest in their return is fueling tourism in Oregon’s wolf country and elsewhere in the west.

Still, wolves are threatened by a purposeful campaign of misinformation and fear. This webpage shoots down many of the common myths about wolves. A small number of vocal anti-wolf activists, along with industry lobbyists and their political allies, continue to work to undermine already weak protections for wolves and other wildlife.

The Future

For a state that prides itself on its green reputation, the extermination of wolves is one of our greatest environmental tragedies. Their return represents an opportunity at redemption.

Most Oregonians value native wildlife and believe wolves have a rightful place on the landscape. We are happy to know the silence of a hike in the Eagle Cap might be broken by the lonely howl of a wolf. If that howl is to remain, it’s critical that those who value wolves and other native wildlife stand up and speak up on their behalf.

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Plus there were photographs embedded within the text that I thought would be better appreciated if they were offered separately. Here they are:

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Finally a collection of wolf photographs from a link on Oregon Wild that is no longer in use. I downloaded these pictures in 2016!

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130518_OR4_odfw

Long may they prosper!

Furry life saver!

The story of Rhys the dog!

I have known Keith Edmunds from a long time ago and we chat from time to time. Keith has his own company Tiger Computing, Linux specialists, (We provide managed cloud services and Linux support services for high-tech businesses), and we had a business connection many moons ago. But in an effort to stay connected with friends in the old country I have subscribed for quite some time to Keith’s newsletter. Although Keith clearly is speaking to potential clients his newsletter is quite readable for non-technical peeps such as myself.

At the end of September this year Keith’s newsletter was a little different. Here it is:

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Rhys the dog saved my wife’s life last week.

She was alone in the house. She put some flatbread in a pan on the hob, then went to check something on her PC. And forgot about the flatbread.

The flatbread got hotter, started smoking, and then the smoke alarm went off. That would be a clue for most of us that something may be amiss.

But my wife is deaf. She can’t hear the smoke alarm.

That’s when Rhys, the Hearing Dog, leapt into action. He found her and butted her hard with his nose. “What is it?”, she asked him. He squatted down on all fours, the signal that the smoke alarm is going off. He only makes that move for the smoke alarm so it’s clear what the problem is.

My wife ran to the kitchen, turned off the hob and opened windows to disperse the smoke. Without Rhys alerting her there would have been a fire. The consequences of that can only (fortunately) be imagined.

So here’s how it works. Rhys is trained to notify my wife when he hears certain sounds. He notified her when he heard one, and corrective action was taken.

Here at Tiger Computing we have sophisticated monitoring systems that keep an eye on our clients’ Linux systems. They’re configured to alert our support staff if things start going wrong, and the support staff can take corrective action.

Our monitoring probably won’t save your life. But it might save your bacon.

Until next week –
Keith

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It is a delightful account of yet another aspect of dogs. Dogs can undertake many things and some of our dogs are really clever. Rhys is an example of how highly trained dogs can be.

I spoke to Keith and asked permission to republish this, gladly and readily given, and whether Keith had any photographs of Rhys.

Rhys and Mrs. Edmunds

Beautiful!

Who wants to kiss a dog!

Well Jeannie does for sure.

All our six dogs are beautifully friendly but there’s one dog that just loves to be kissed and returns the favour just as much. That is Oliver!

Oliver

I don’t have a photograph of Oliver and Jean kissing and that’s me being lazy rather than anything else.

Now for whatever deep-seated reason I won’t give Oliver or any of the other dogs a tongue-to-tongue kiss but I am envious of Jean and Oliver; they both love it!

All of which serves as a preamble to an article from The Dodo on dogs’ mouths! Here it is, and it is quite a lengthy one, so settle yourself down and quietly read it completely:

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Are Dogs’ Mouths Cleaner Than Humans’?

For everyone who kisses their pup on the mouth 😘

By LAUREN TAYLOR, Published on the 24th September, 2021

If anyone has ever shamed you for letting your dog give you a kiss, you might have told them that dogs’ mouths are cleaner than humans’ mouths. But is that actually true, or is it just something obsessed dog parents made up to justify letting their dogs lick them?

The truth is that dogs’ mouths actually aren’t cleaner than human mouths — but they’re not really dirtier either. We just have different germs.

The Dodo spoke to Dr. Jonathan Roberts, a remote veterinarian with DoggieDesigner.com, to find out everything you need to know about dog saliva.

Why dogs’ mouths aren’t cleaner than human mouths.

Your dog’s mouth isn’t exactly clean. Just like people have bacteria living in our mouths, dogs do too.

“Multiple studies have discovered that dogs have many unique and potentially dangerous bacteria and other parasites lurking in their mouths,” Dr. Roberts told The Dodo. “Around 600 different species of bacteria have been discovered in both canine and human mouths.”

The type and amount of bacteria living in a dog’s mouth depends on the level of periodontal (dental) disease present, which is determined by a number of factors, including:

  • Diet
  • Breed (smaller dogs tend to be at greater risk because they have smaller teeth and mouths, leading to more food getting stuck, and they have less bone mass, leading to tooth loss)
  • Frequency of teeth brushing
  • Frequency of professional dental cleaning by a vet

What diseases can you get from dog saliva?

There are lots of bacteria in a dog’s mouth that are different from what humans have in our mouths. Some of these are harmless, but some could make you sick.

Some of the bacteria found in dogs’ mouths that can be dangerous to people include:

  • E. coli, Clostridia, Salmonella and Campylobacter — “[These are] bacteria that can cause severe gastrointestinal illness in people,” Dr. Roberts said. “Dogs are often carriers of these bacteria, yet they do not become ill from them. They usually get these bacteria in their mouths through licking their anuses or ingesting other animals’ feces. Another common source of these illness-causing bacteria is from ingesting raw food.”
  • Pasteurella — This can cause skin infections that can travel to your lymph nodes and cause severe disease, such as cellulitis or meningitis.
  • Capnocytophaga canimorsus — “[This] enters the wounds in skin after being licked by a dog’s tongue,” Dr. Roberts said. “Mostly only immune-compromised people are susceptible to this disease that develops into septicemia [blood poisoning].”
  • Giardia and Cryptosporidium — These are actually protozoa, not bacteria, but they can still make you sick by your dog licking your face and can cause gastrointestinal illnesses.
  • Parasites — If your dog has parasites, such as worms, and licks his anus and then your face, you could contract the parasite.

So what is the risk of getting sick from your dog licking you? Even with all those germs, if you’re healthy and don’t have a compromised immune system, the risk is luckily pretty low.

“Most human immune systems will neutralize these parasites before they can cause illness,” Dr. Roberts said. “Those with weakened immune systems, such as persons going through chemotherapy, persons with HIV, very young and very old people should be more careful around pets.”

Ultimately, it’s up to you to determine if it’s a risk you want to take.

But to be safe, you can follow these steps to avoid getting sick from dog saliva:

  • Keep your dog up to date on his deworming medications and flea and tick medications.
  • Get checked out by a doctor if you get bitten or scratched by a dog.
  • Don’t let a dog lick your wounds.
  • Frequently wash items that your dog’s mouth touches, like toys and food and water bowls.
  • Don’t let your dog lick you if you’re immunocompromised, and don’t let him lick others who are immunocompromised.

Does dog saliva heal wounds?

It’s an old belief that dog saliva heals wounds. But is it actually true?

“There may be some truth to this after all,” Dr. Roberts said. “The action of licking helps to remove debris and necrotic tissue from the wound.”

Dog saliva also contains proteins that can be beneficial in healing.

“Mammal saliva contains a protein called histatin,” Dr. Roberts said. “This protein is able to kill bacteria before they can cause infection.”

Histatins have antimicrobial and antifungal properties and are part of the immune system. They have been found to play a role in wound closure.

But while it’s possible that dog saliva could help to heal a paper cut, you shouldn’t let your dog lick all of your cuts and scrapes — there are much better ways to take care of your injuries, and you always run the risk of infecting your wound instead of making it better.

“I would still not allow my dog to lick my wounds,” Dr. Roberts said. “We have excellent wound care products on the market these days that not only do a better job of keeping wounds clean but also come without the risk of introducing nasty infections or potential parasites.”

How to keep your dog’s mouth clean

If you do let your dog give you occasional kisses (and even if you don’t), you should try to keep his mouth as clean as possible since it’s also important for his health.

You can do this by regularly brushing his teeth and by providing toys that help clean his teeth.

Try this dog toothpaste from Chewy for $4.99.

“The most important way to keep your dog’s mouth clean and healthy is (just like humans) through regular teeth brushing and dental cleaning by a professional,” Dr. Roberts said. “Start introducing your dog to teeth brushing from a young age and aim to brush at least twice a week.”

You can also let your dog chew on dental treats to clean his teeth in between brushing. (These treats received The Dodo’s Paw of Approval, and you can get them from Amazon for $4.98.)

So dogs’ mouths aren’t actually cleaner than people’s, and you shouldn’t let your dog lick your wounds. But if you keep your dog’s mouth and teeth clean, a kiss from your pup every now and then should be fine (if it’s something you’re comfortable with).

We independently pick all the products we recommend because we love them and think you will too. If you buy a product from a link on our site, we may earn a commission.

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I suggest that if you want to purchase any of the products described above then you go directly to The Dodo website and place your order via The Dodo.

Overall I find this a very useful article and I am grateful to The Dodo for allowing me to republish it.

Oh dear, I meant deer!

A timely reminder from The Conversation.

We live in a rural part of Southern Oregon. The number of deer hit on our roads is appalling. Not infrequently when out cycling I come across a deer that seems uninjured. Often I get off my bike and stroke the animal, or drag it from the centre of the road to the shoulder. But it is dead.

Once recently the deer was still warm. What surprises me is that they are always dead. There never seems to be a deer that has been wounded. Probably just as well as I wouldn’t want to leave the animal.

We feed the deer at home on a daily basis and there is a young stag that has become familiar with me and starts eating the COB (corn, oats and barley mixed together) even before I have finished setting out the six piles of food. They are very dear creatures.

So this article has to be shared with you!

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Fall means more deer on the road: 4 ways time of day, month and year raise your risk of crashes

Deer cross roads whenever they wish, but some time periods are higher risk than others. Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images

Tom Langen, Clarkson University

Autumn is here, and that means the risk of hitting deer on rural roads and highways is rising, especially around dusk and during a full moon.

Deer cause over 1 million motor vehicle accidents in the U.S. each year, resulting in more than US$1 billion in property damage, about 200 human deaths and 29,000 serious injuries. Property damage insurance claims average around $2,600 per accident, and the overall average cost, including severe injuries or death, is over $6,000.

While avoiding deer – as well as moose, elk and other hoofed animals, known as ungulates – can seem impossible if you’re driving in rural areas, there are certain times and places that are most hazardous, and so warrant extra caution.

Transportation agencies, working with scientists, have been developing ways to predict where deer and other ungulates enter roads so they can post warning signs or install fencing or wildlife passages under or over the roadway. Just as important is knowing when these accidents occur.

My former students Victor Colino-Rabanal, Nimanthi Abeyrathna and I have analyzed over 86,000 deer-vehicle collisions involving white-tailed deer in New York state using police records over a three-year period. Here’s what our research and other studies show about timing and risk:

Time of day, month and year matters

The risk of hitting a deer varies by time of day, day of the week, the monthly lunar cycle and seasons of the year.

These accident cycles are partly a function of driver behavior – they are highest when traffic is heavy, drivers are least alert and driving conditions are poorest for spotting animals. They are also affected by deer behavior. Not infrequently, deer-vehicle accidents involve multiple vehicles, as startled drivers swerve to miss a deer and collide with a vehicle in another lane, or they slam on the breaks and are rear-ended by the vehicle behind.

Car on road during the start of leaf colors with road sign reading: Caution: High Hit Area
A sign warns of deer traffic on Route 16 in Franklin County, Maine. Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

In analyzing thousands of deer-vehicle collisions, we found that these accidents occur most frequently at dusk and dawn, when deer are most active and drivers’ ability to spot them is poorest. Only about 20% of accidents occur during daylight hours. Deer-vehicle accidents are eight times more frequent per hour of dusk than daylight, and four times more frequent at dusk than after nightfall.

During the week, accidents occur most frequently on days that have the most drivers on the road at dawn or dusk, so they are associated with work commuter driving patterns and social factors such as Friday “date night” traffic.

Over the span of a month, the most deer-vehicle accidents occur during the full moon, and at the time of night that the moon is brightest. Deer move greater distances from cover and are more likely to enter roadways when there is more illumination at night. The pattern holds for deer and other ungulates in both North America and Europe.

Over a year, by far the highest numbers of deer-vehicle accidents are in autumn, and particularly during the rut, when bucks search and compete to mate with does. In New York state, the peak number of deer-vehicle accidents occurs in the last week of October and first weeks of November. There are over four times as many deer-vehicle accidents during that period than during spring. Moose-vehicle accidents show a similar pattern.

That high-risk period is also when daylight saving time ends – it happens on Nov. 7, 2021, in the U.S. Shifting the clock one hour back means more commuters are on the road during the high-risk dusk hours. The result is more cars driving at the peak time of day and during the peak time of the year for deer-vehicle accidents.

Overall, given that most U.S. states and more than 70 countries have seasonal “daylight saving” clock shifts, elevated ungulate-vehicle accident rates caused by clock shift may be a widespread problem.

[Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world. Sign up today.]

There is a longstanding debate about the benefit of a daylight saving clock shift, given how it disrupts humans’ circadian rhythms, causing short-term stress and fatigue. Risk of deer-vehicle accidents may be another reason to reconsider whether clock shifts are worthwhile.

Deer still cross roads at any time

It’s important to remember that deer-vehicle accidents can occur at any time of day or night, on any day of the year – and that deer can show up in urban areas as well as rural ones.

The insurance company State Farm found that on average, U.S. drivers have a 1 in 116 chance of hitting an animal, with much higher rates in states such as West Virginia, Montana and Pennsylvania. Over the 12 months ending in June 2020, State Farm counted 1.9 million insurance claims for collisions with wildlife nationwide. Around 90% of those involved deer.

Where deer or other ungulates are likely to be present, drivers should always be alert and cautious, especially at dawn, dusk, on bright moonlit nights and during the fall rut.

Tom Langen, Professor of Biology, Clarkson University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Nothing else to say but we drivers need to slow down and extra vigilant. Driving safely means always allowing for the unexpected and never following the vehicle in front too close. The minimum safe distance is one vehicle length for every 10 miles per hour in speed!

Canine Behavior.

Canine Behavior Friends from the start

In this month’s Science magazine, on page 1213, there is a short piece under the heading of In Other Journals.

I share it with you.

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Canine Behavior Friends from the start

By Sacha Vignieri.

Dogs, unlike wolves, are highly responsive to human voice, gestures, and eye contact.
CREDIT: ISTOCK.COM/HNIJJAR007

The closest relative to dogs, “man’s best friend,” is the wolf, a wily predator that generally avoids human interaction. For decades, researchers and dog owners have wondered how the leap to domestication occurred.

The main hypothesis invoked very early selection for wolves that “liked”—or least tolerated—humans, and the connection strengthened from there.

However, there is still some debate about whether the degree to which dogs interact and communicate with humans is a learned trait.

Two recent studies appear to close the book on this learning hypothesis. Bray et al. looked at about 400 puppies and found that at this young age and without much human interaction, they were adept at following human gestures and positively responded to high-pitched “puppy talk.” Further, there was variation in these responses with an association between relatedness and social communication skills, which supports a genetic driver.

Salomons et al. compared dog and wolf puppies and found no difference in general cognitive responses, but much greater responsiveness to human gestures and eye contact, in dog puppies. Importantly, this happened even though the dog pups had received less actual human interaction than did the wolf pups.

These studies confirm that dogs’ interest in communication with humans is an evolved trait unique to their lineage.

Curr. Biol.31, 3132, 3137 (2021).

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That is fascinating. Dogs have evolved this trait on their own, so to speak. It further underlines the precious nature of the relationship between dogs and humans.

Brandy et moi! Taken 6th April, 2018.

The Autumn Equinox

Day and Night are equal.

(Technically it is early on the 22nd.)

Please enjoy the following video:

https://youtu.be/f4odqiA8hpE

In next to no time it will be the Winter solstice and a hop, skip and a jump into 2022!

Yet more of the big question.

Time!

I wasn’t going to publish a post for today but then yesterday I read this article on The Conversation and wanted to share it with you. In fact it shares much of what I posted on the 1st, The Big Question. Because time and infinity are beautifully connected.

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What is time – and why does it move forward?

By Thomas Kitching, Lecturer in Astrophysics, UCL

Imagine time running backwards. People would grow younger instead of older and, after a long life of gradual rejuvenation – unlearning everything they know – they would end as a twinkle in their parents’ eyes. That’s time as represented in a novel by science fiction writer Philip K Dick but, surprisingly, time’s direction is also an issue that cosmologists are grappling with.

While we take for granted that time has a given direction, physicists don’t: most natural laws are “time reversible” which means they would work just as well if time was defined as running backwards. So why does time always move forward? And will it always do so?

Does time have a beginning?

Any universal concept of time must ultimately be based on the evolution of the cosmos itself. When you look up at the universe you’re seeing events that happened in the past – it takes light time to reach us. In fact, even the simplest observation can help us understand cosmological time: for example the fact that the night sky is dark. If the universe had an infinite past and was infinite in extent, the night sky would be completely bright – filled with the light from an infinite number of stars in a cosmos that had always existed.

For a long time scientists, including Albert Einstein, thought that the universe was static and infinite. Observations have since shown that it is in fact expanding, and at an accelerating rate. This means that it must have originated from a more compact state that we call the Big Bang, implying that time does have a beginning. In fact, if we look for light that is old enough we can even see the relic radiation from Big Bang – the cosmic microwave background. Realising this was a first step in determining the age of the universe (see below).

But there is a snag, Einstein’s special theory of relativity, shows that time is … relative: the faster you move relative to me, the slower time will pass for you relative to my perception of time. So in our universe of expanding galaxies, spinning stars and swirling planets, experiences of time vary: everything’s past, present and future is relative. 

So is there a universal time that we could all agree on?

The universe’s timeline. Design Alex Mittelmann, Coldcreation/wikimedia, CC BY-SA

It turns out that because the universe is on average the same everywhere, and on average looks the same in every direction, there does exist a “cosmic time”. To measure it, all we have to do is measure the properties of the cosmic microwave background. Cosmologists have used this to determine the age of the universe; its cosmic age. It turns out that the universe is 13.799 billion years old. 

Time’s arrow

So we know time most likely started during the Big Bang. But there is one nagging question that remains: what exactly is time? 

To unpack this question, we have to look at the basic properties of space and time. In the dimension of space, you can move forwards and backwards; commuters experience this everyday. But time is different, it has a direction, you always move forward, never in reverse. So why is the dimension of time irreversible? This is one of the major unsolved problems in physics. 

To explain why time itself is irreversible, we need to find processes in nature that are also irreversible. One of the few such concepts in physics (and life!) is that things tend to become less “tidy” as time passes. We describe this using a physical property called entropy that encodes how ordered something is.

Imagine a box of gas in which all the particles were initially placed in one corner (an ordered state). Over time they would naturally seek to fill the entire box (a disordered state) – and to put the particles back into an ordered state would require energy. This is irreversible. It’s like cracking an egg to make an omelette – once it spreads out and fills the frying pan, it will never go back to being egg-shaped. It’s the same with the universe: as it evolves, the overall entropy increases.

Unfortunately that’s not going to clean up itself. Alex Dinovitser/wikimedia, CC BY-SA

It turns out entropy is a pretty good way to explain time’s arrow. And while it may seem like the universe is becoming more ordered rather than less – going from a wild sea of relatively uniformly spread out hot gas in its early stages to stars, planets, humans and articles about time – it’s nevertheless possible that it is increasing in disorder. That’s because the gravity associated with large masses may be pulling matter into seemingly ordered states – with the increase in disorder that we think must have taken place being somehow hidden away in the gravitational fields. So disorder could be increasing even though we don’t see it.

But given nature’s tendency to prefer disorder, why did the universe start off in such an ordered state in the first place? This is still considered a mystery. Some researchers argue that the Big Bang may not even have been the beginning, there may in fact be “parallel universes” where time runs in different directions. 

Will time end?

Time had a beginning but whether it will have an end depends on the nature of the dark energy that is causing it to expand at an accelerating rate. The rate of this expansion may eventually tear the universe apart, forcing it to end in a Big Rip; alternatively dark energy may decay, reversing the Big Bang and ending the Universe in a Big Crunch; or the Universe may simply expand forever.

But would any of these future scenarios end time? Well, according to the strange rules of quantum mechanics, tiny random particles can momentarily pop out of a vacuum – something seen constantly in particle physics experiments. Some have argued that dark energy could cause such “quantum fluctuations” giving rise to a new Big Bang, ending our time line and starting a new one. While this is extremely speculative and highly unlikely, what we do know is that only when we understand dark energy will we know the fate of the universe.

So what is the most likely outcome? Only time will tell.

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Let me explain, in part, entropy. Because while I and many others sort of understand it, the principle behind entropy is much more detailed.

It is explained pretty well on WikiPedia, from which I reproduce the first paragraph.

Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynamics, where it was first recognized, to the microscopic description of nature in statistical physics, and to the principles of information theory. It has found far-ranging applications in chemistry and physics, in biological systems and their relation to life, in cosmology, economics, sociology, weather science, climate change, and information systems including the transmission of information in telecommunication.[1]

There’s a little bit more to read … 😉

Again, I am going to finish with sharing that image from Unsplash.

Imagine the universe is constant whichever direction one looks in, to 1 in 10,000. That is truly amazing!