We’ve all seen it; pictures of dogs using fire hydrants as bathrooms, cartoons of dogs heading for the red statue for some privacy.
But do our canine friends really, instinctively, use, or want to use, fire hydrants as their toilet?
Are our dogs born with the urge to use hydrants? Or is it more a learned attribute?
All signs point to convenience.
To dogs, a fire hydrant is just like any other material thing they can mark.
Anything and everything is fair game in the quest for a spot to call their own.
In the wild, and the in the times before big cities, dogs used everything in nature from trees to bushes to just the plain old ground. Now, with more and more buildings and urban areas, where’s a dog to go?
It has been a rampant and untested folklore that dogs are colorblind, but the University of California, Santa Barbara did a series of definitive tests in the 1980s that provided some more clarity on the matter.
“These experiments showed that dogs do see color, but in a more limited range than that seen by normal humans, who see the rainbow of colors described by “VIBGYOR”: Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red (plus hundreds of variations on these shades). Instead, dogs see “VIBYYYR” (Violet, Indigo, Blue, Yellow, Yellow, Yellow, and Red). The colors Green, Yellow, and Orange all look alike to dogs; but look different from Red and different from the various Blues and Purples. Dogs are very good at telling different shades of VIB apart. Finally, Blue-Green looks White to dogs.
The simple explanation for these differences in color vision is this. The retinas of normal humans have three (3) types of color receptors, called “cones”. Each cone type is particularly sensitive to light of a narrow limit within the entire VIBGYOR range. That means that three different “cone lines” of communication run back to the visual part of the brain, which then compares the weight of the signals coming in from each of cone “line”. Different weights produce a perception of different colors. In dogs (and in “green-blind” humans), there are only two (2) types of cones, so there is less basis for comparison by the brain, and thus the perceived color range is more limited. In sum, dog color vision is “color-limited”, not “color-blind”.”
I had always been under the impression that vaccinations were essential to Stranger’s health. Why? Well, the doctor said so and in quiet the matter of fact tone I might add. He’s been getting them since he was a puppy. Some were crucial, warding against rabies and parvovirus, but many were routine boosters that I didn’t understand, research, or doubt the validity of.
Lately, I’ve been coming across a lot of articles advising against the plethora of vaccinations, claiming that these vaccinations actually weaken the immune system…
Many holistic vets take a strong stand again them:
“Routine’ vaccination, as it is practiced today, is not always effective (especially in the case of the feline leukemia vaccine), and frequently has adverse side effects, either short term or long term. With the use of multivalent (combination: 3-in-1, 6-in-1, etc.) vaccines that are repeated year after year, the frequency and severity of these side effects in our pets has increased dramatically.
Not surprisingly, most of the problems involve the immune system. After all, the immune system is what vaccines are designed to stimulate. But they do so in a very unnatural way that can overwhelm and confuse the immune system. The body may overreact to normally harmless substances (allergies, especially flea allergies and other skin problems), or even produce antibodies to itself (auto-immune diseases).
At the same time, the body may be sluggish in responding to those things that it should reject, such as common viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites. This can result in increased susceptibility to acute infections (such as parvovirus), chronic or recurring infections (such as ear infections in dogs, bladder infections or feline leukemia in cats), or other chronic problems such as arthritis, kidney disease, or even cancer.
In summary, there is a great deal of evidence implicating vaccination as the cause of many serious chronic health problems. For this reason, I do not recommend vaccination for dogs or cats.”
~Dr. Jeffrey Levy
I also found a helpful chart outlining the major vaccinations and their priority level:
CORE VACCINES
NONCORE VACCINES
NOT RECOMMENDED
RABIES(May vary for adult dogs in accordance with local statutes) DISTEMPER PARVOVIRUS ADENOVIRUS-2 (hepatitis virus)
BORDETELLA(Kennel Cough, Canine Cough) PARAINFLUENZA
LYME VACCINE… considered a CORE vaccine in endemic areas. See article on LYME disease LEPTOSPIROSIS (all 4 types)
Ultimately, I think it’s up to individual pet owners. Consider your dog’s health, environment, and stress factors. Choose a vet you trust and most importantly ASK QUESTIONS!
It is undeniable that dogs do respond to a small selection of words, sit, fetch, stay, come, food but do they really have a capacity to understand more? Recent research shows that dogs possess a profound intelligence with the average trained dog knowing 160 words. Some dogs’ capabilities with language can even be compared to a three year old toddler.
And as long as I’m bragging, I might as well mention that dogs are also incredibly perceptive of body language.
I realized I haven’t spent nearly enough time in my life appreciating the beautiful Doberman! I was just watching a PBS special on dogs, and they briefly mentioned the history of the breed. I had always been intrigued (and maybe a little intimidated) by the Doberman’s strength and beauty so I decided to do a little bit of research. As it turns out, the beginning of the Doberman is a pretty interesting story.
The Doberman was first realized in Germany by the breeding of a tax collector named Louis Dobermann. Louis often traveled with money and wanted a dog for self protection. He was also in charge of the local dog pound, so he began to try to breed his dream dog, a dog with a short smooth coat, average build, incredible stamina, intelligence, alertness, and if necessary, even aggression. He meticulously chose the dogs whose genes would go into the making of the Doberman. Unfortunately, he kept no record of his choices.
I’d love to see the different dogs that came between the intention and the animal. Many sites speculate that the German Pinscher was the foundation breed that Louis Dobermann began with. Other possible ancestors include the Rottweiler, the Manchester Terrier, and the Beauceron.
Herr Dobermann passed away in the late 1800’s, but the Doberman “patent” and dog were left in the care of Otto Goeller, who may have added the Greyhound to the mix.
In 1990, The German Kennel Club officially recognized the Doberman as a legitimate new breed.
According to studies done at the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, a new software can classify barks according to different situations. It can even connect individual barks to individual dogs. I think I can distinguish Stranger’s bark from the neighborhood dogs, but with a greater pool of unknown dogs, I don’t know if I would be able to pinpoint his unique set of woofs.
The software analyzed over 6000 barks from 14 willingly vocal Hungarian sheepdogs in six different situations: “stranger,” “fight,” “walk,” “alone,” “ball,” and “play.” The barks were taped and then transferred to a computer, where they were digitized and individual barks were coded, classified, and evaluated.
The software correctly classified the barks 43 percent of the time, with recognition rates being highest for “fight” and “stranger.”
The software’s algorithm was 52 % accurate in matching up the individual barks of the Hungarian sheepdogs.
The scientists conclude, “The use of advanced machine learning algorithms to classify and analyze animal sounds opens new perspectives for the understanding of animal communication… The promising results obtained strongly suggest that advanced machine learning approaches deserve to be considered as a new relevant tool for ethology*.”
* Ethology: the study of animal behavior, with a focus on behavioral patterns in natural environments.
I think all dog owners have wondered about their dogs relationship with time. They don’t hold grudges and seem just as happy to see you after five minutes as after five hours. They remember faces, dog foods, and foes, but by no recognizable system of measure.
Did we discover time or invent it?
William Roberts and his colleagues at the University of Western Ontario’s Psychology Department discovered that rats are capable of keeping track of how much time has passed since they discovered a piece of cheese, but they don’t actually create memories of when the discovery occurred. To say, rats cannot place their findings in time seems obvious to me. Time and its instruments are as human as cheesecake or promotions, a specification of sweet things and social order.
“The research team, led by Roberts, designed an experiment in which rats visited the ‘arms’ of a maze at different times of day. Some arms contained moderately desirable food pellets, and one arm contained a highly desirable piece of cheese. Rats were later returned to the maze with the cheese removed on certain trials and with the cheese replaced with a pellet on others.
All told, three groups of rats were tested in the research using three varying cues: when, how long ago or when plus how long ago.
Only the cue of how long ago food was encountered was used successfully by the rats.
These results, the researchers say, suggest that episodic-like memory in rats is qualitatively different from human episodic memory, which involves retention of the point in past time when an event occurred.” (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080403183024.htm)
Makes me think that time is just a system to ensure precision, and it causes as many headaches as advancements.
And I’m glad my dog doesn’t wear a watch? Can you imagine?
Molecular biologists have sequenced the first dog genome, a boxer to be specific.In addition to being an exciting discovery, there are many possible benefits.Dogs and humans share diseases such as diabetes, epilepsy, and cancer, and understanding the link between these diseases and canine genetics could help usher in new treatments.Breeders could also get quick answers regarding pedigree by a simple visit to the lab.
