Random Youtube video: Excellent documentary about dogs

[Arlos]

Some fascinating stuff.

1) Did you know that the right side of our faces is the side that expresses more emotion than the left, so humans have a natural bias to look left (at the right side of someone's face) when we look at them, to better judge emotional states? Was once thought this was a uniquely human trait, but they found that dogs do this too, but ONLY when looking at people's faces. Dog faces, inanimate objects, there's no bias. People's faces, they have the same tendency we do. No wonder people have always felt that dogs were good at reading human emotions. They are!

2) ONLY dogs bark. Wolves don't. This is a trait they picked up after we domesticated them, apparently to better communicate with humans. There are 6 categories of barks, and humans are pretty universal in being able to tell the emotional state of a dog just from the bark, without any visual clues at all. Recordings of various dog barks from random dogs were played back to other dog owners, and with extreme levels of accuracy, people were able to tell what kind of bark it was: distressed, playful, threatening, etc.

3) Dogs can instinctively process complex cues from humans. Point at a location where you've hidden a treat, and a dog will go investigate where you're pointing, and get the treat. No training involved. No other animal responds to human cues in that way. Again, wolves don't do it either. It's another thing dogs evolved to do after we started domesticating them.

4) There's a hormone, Oxytocin, generated by a old part of the brain, the hypothalamus, that is a big part of the bond developed between mothers and babies. Every time they breast feed, the brain releases a burst of oxytocin, which helps increase the bonding. Humans and dogs were tested for this too. Baseline blood samples were taken, and then samples after several minutes of the owner petting their dog. They found that there's a similar oxytocin spike when petting the dog as their is in mothers. The exceptional thing, though, is that there's not just a spike in humans. There's an oxytocin spike in the DOG during that time too.

-Arlos

[Menelvir]

Three of my four dogs had a tussle with a porcupine this weekend, the second time they've met one. $1000 in vet bills (on two separate visits) later, I'm thinking about actively hunting porcupines. Maybe I could try a live trap.

All four of my dogs are rescues, and two years after rescuing them as pups, they are definitely part of the family. They're supposed to be cheaper to raise/maintain than kids, but they're definitely working on catching up in terms of costs.

Thanks for sharing the documentary link, Arlos.

[leah]

we have three dogs--two corgis, one yellow lab. one of the corgis (sam handwich, the tri-color one) has chronic renal failure and is really starting to go downhill fast. he's on so many medications and we've tried so many things and it's killing us that we're almost to the end. he means everything to josh and me. *sigh* anyway, to your point about dogs and $$, this dog has probably cost us THOUSANDS in the past year. it's all worth it, but it's definitely hard.

[leah]

(and yes, we do plan to let him go before he's in a lot of pain. the vet has assured us that he's not in pain yet, and his wagging tail-stub shows that he's still happy. when either of those things change, we'll make the necessary call.)

[Jay]

I feel you leah. Sorry to hear. I have a Corgi as well (Zacky) and I'm pretty anal about his nutrition and exercise. Probably moreso than my own.

[Zanchief]

Sam Handwich is the best dog name ever!

[leah]

thanks guys. incidentally, yesterday around 5 p.m. things got to be too much for him and we had to let him go. my heart's broken but i'm glad he's not suffering anymore. sam handwich is the best dog i've ever had the pleasure of meeting and i feel very fortunate to have had him in our lives for 4 years.

RIP little mister.

[Jay]

Sorry to hear that leah. Condolences.

[Menelvir]

Condolences on your loss.