brrrr.....

Mia Speaks

Happy Halloween

Spring!

Enduring the Winter

Kasey Gets a Little Sis

Yes it has been a few months since my last blog entry, and lots has happened, including an addition to our family. That's Mia on the right, with Kasey. She's 6 months old now. She's pretty fearless and energetic, and I'm figuring that she'll take very well to agility once she's old enough.

In the meantime, Kasey earned his Rally Novice title a couple of months ago...



....and I've been bragging to my hospital colleagues about the "RN" that goes after his name. Next weekend, he'll be doing CPE agility trials, and I'll blog about that later.

More on Mia later too....

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Canine Good Citizen

Last week was a big one for Kasey.

On Wednesday, Kasey took his Canine Good Citizen test. He was a bit cautious with the examiner, but that was his only rough spot among the ten test items (sit/stay, down/stay, come, heel, accept a stranger in a friendly way, don't freak out when owner leaves the room, etc.), so he passed the test. It's kind of cool now to have letters after his name to validate his education.

We also started beginner's agility last Thursday. It was the first time that he has gotten to interact with the equipment, and we were curious to see how he would like it. Well, after seeing how he easily took to the jumps, and also to the tunnel and the dog walk after a little coaxing, we think that he'll love it and do well.

Since we brought this little dude home, we've been watching to see what his particular talents and favored activities would be (e.g., he'll fetch, but doesn't seem to love it). I believe, as does Patricia McConnell, that a dog's happiness depends upon whether he gets to spend time doing what he loves (whatever that is....agility, herding, chasing a ball, etc.), and not just upon pleasing his owner by performing arbitrary tasks. So, in the weeks to come, we'll see if agility keeps his boat afloat.

I hope if dogs ever take over the world, and they choose a king, they don't just go by size, because I bet there are some Chihuahuas with some good ideas.
- Jack Handey
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Link to Paradise

Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring — it was peace.
- Milan Kundera (b. 1929), author
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Obedience Debut

Well, Kasey got his big start in the... eh... amateur ranks today, with some achievement at a local Fun Match. He took third in Rally and second in Obedience. Ooooh, ribbons! Both were at beginner level (on leash), but hey, that's okay, it's a "tune up."

He was a little nervous, and his attention wandered when he was supposed to be maintaining a good heel, so we lost points there.

But then I think that we got some points back when he impressed the judge with his Elvis impersonation.

Play Face and Color

I've been fascinated by play faces on dogs since getting started with digital photography not long ago, and noticing that there are many expressions that you miss in real time, but you see them when you review the images. Here we captured a few smiles(?) as we introduced Kasey to a new toy.

He likes the texture, the biting, squeaking and tugging. The colors are for our pleasure.





* Thanks to Jennifer Davis and my old schoolmate Dr.P. for the color spectrum illustration.
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Animal

This post contains graphic images that may go unappreciated by the squeamish.

If you were ever that student who kept passing out in Biology class (and you know who you are), then you may wish to consider looking no further.

True story:

Years ago, when I was in college, I came back to the dorm with a stack of photographs that I had snapped at the Bronx Zoo. I liked photography a lot, and I was probably more eager to show off my photos than most of my friends were interested in seeing them. But I prevailed upon my roommate to look at my new zoo shots, and I handed him the stack of prints to look through at his own pace.

He muttered one polite comment after another as he flipped through the photos, until.....

"Eewww!! What the hell is THAT?"


The tone of revulsion sounded excessive. I assured him that it was only just an ordinary caiman or crocodile in the picture. But he continued to look puzzled and disturbed, which began to puzzle me.

Then I noticed the awkward way that he was holding the print.

So I suggested that he try holding it this way:

But I'm sure that he had difficulty reorienting the image in his mind. He insisted that the animal was not like any crocodile he had ever seen. Then I recall that he flipped through all the rest of the prints, but without any more comments. Sheesh!

Anyway....

Nowadays my portrait subjects have fur.
That seems to help.


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Urine Good Company

Well this is just great. Now I can't get dog pee out of my mind.

Anyway, it's no big news that dogs like to use their good scents in marking various locations with their urine and/or feces, sniff at the the locations marked by other dogs, greet new colleagues with a sniff of their anogenital regions (AGR), roll in wet odiferous matter and wear the fragrance into the house, etc. But humans just don't really know all the information that could be getting exchanged between dogs through scents (are they sniffing about us??), or how dogs actually choose the time and place for a pee or a sniff (smell art?).

Right now there's an interesting discussion happening on Trisha McConnell's blog concerning some new research on scent marking. It seems that one of the reasons they mark where they do could be because it can give other dogs a place to sniff them without intruding into their personal space to sniff their AGRs, particularly when they are entering a new area where other dogs are already gathered (thus avoiding being mobbed by multiple noses at once).

....or maybe it's just their way of sniff blogging.
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Glass of Yard Dog

Last weekend my wife and I visited a liquor store. She was looking for some red wine and I wanted some white. Neither of us had anything more particular than that in mind. Then this bottle caught my eye.

dw: Look Honey! This wine has a dog on it!

Wife: That's nice, Honey.

dw: Isn't it cool?

Wife: Do you want it?

dw: I want to take pictures of it.

Wife: Pictures of it?

dw: Do you think it's good wine?

Wife: Get it if you want it, Honey.

We can become captivated by a thing that stays always a little bit out of focus, challenging us to find the right lens through which we can shape a clear vision. It tends to make us dizzy if it moves outside our depth of field. Or else it stays within the focal range we set, but then draws our eye first to the illusory images formed by the many reflections from it's surface, and then to the reshaped rays of refraction coming through it from oblique angles, and then to the shadows and colors. Our brain gets hooked on the visual puzzle. We feel that it is worth the effort to understand. And we know, of course, that in the opinion of many wise people, these intangible images are only a distraction, that really it is the inner substance that is more worthy of attention (and I did eventually drink the wine...it's not bad at all). But we are human, and a good percentage of our brain is wired for visual analysis, and we enjoy glitter.

I can't help thinking that dogs must feel the same way about odors as we feel about our images. Maybe if we could comprehend their smell art, then we would come to see dogs in a whole new light.....eh, I mean, smell them in a whole new scent.

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Angraecum Erratum

Well, now I feel silly. I got all excited because our Darwin's Orchid bloomed. But with further research, I discovered that our orchid is actually another species that is closely related to Darwin's Orchid. Ours is an Angraecum eburneum, and the orchid that prompted Darwin to make his famous moth prediction was an Angraecum sesquipedale. Sheesh!


Same genus, though, and both are native to Madagascar, and both have that elongated nectary spur.

I feel a lot better now that I've cleared that up.


Anyway, I still feel that an exceptionally long proboscis would be necessary for any moth to get it's way with our Angraecum eburneum.

Darwin's Orchid

I believe that there are times when the greatest fulfillment comes from letting tangents and coincidence guide one's attention. Well, coincident with the attention given to Darwin's two-hundredth birthday, my wife's specimen of Darwin's Orchid decided to bloom, and so it cried out for a snapshot today.

This genus is native to Madagascar. It has an elongated nectary - up to a foot long - extending from the back of the flower. Nectar is contained in the tip of the nectary. Darwin reasoned that there must be some species of moth with a proboscis long enough to reach the length of the nectary, but this hypothesis was ridiculed by others in his day.

The idea that such a long-tongued moth would have evolved is no longer considered ridiculous. Such a moth was indeed discovered years later.

This fascinating video from a Nature episode shows the moth in action with Darwin's Orchid:

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Dogs Shaping Human Evolution

The Bark just published a good article on Darwin and dogs by Mark Derr. It's an interesting read, and Derr's description of the often-misconstrued concept of natural selection is nice and clear.

It's pretty obvious in Darwin's thinking - and in the view of today's naturalists - that humans have influenced the evolution of the domestic dog. But an equally interesting hypothesis is Darwin's belief in the power of dogs to shape human evolution.

Derr quotes Darwin from The Descent of Man:

"The strongest and most vigorous men—those who could best defend and hunt for their families, who were provided with the best weapons and possessed the most property, such as a large number of dogs or other animals—would succeed in rearing a greater average number of offspring than the weaker and poorer members of the same tribes. There can, also, be no doubt that such men would generally be able to select the more attractive women."

I am curious to hear what my wife's thoughts will be.

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Hey, Nice Ecosystem!

So, we have this domestic dog species hanging around with humans since the Stone Age, and it theoretically descended from wolves, and it shows high intelligence and devotion. Wolves and dogs are also predatory and territorial species that show some capacity for aggression (though not as offensive as some humans, one could argue). In this context, I found an interesting National Geographic video documenting domestic dogs' key role in restoring ecological/economic harmony for wolves and ranchers in rural Spain. It's a beautiful story. Here's the brief video:



The earth trembled and a great rift appeared, separating the first man and woman from the rest of the animal kingdom. As the chasm grew deeper and wider, all the other creatures, afraid for their lives, returned to the forest - except for the dog, who after much consideration leapt the perilous rift to stay with the humans on the other side. His love for humanity was greater than his bond to other creatures, he explained, and he willingly forfeited his place in paradise to prove it.
- Native American folktale, quoted in The Lost History of the Canine Race by Mary E. Thurston
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Canine Heroism

Our friend and fellow blogger mouse pointed us to a video which shows a dog in Chile saving the life of another dog who had just been struck by a car on a busy highway. The video is difficult to watch, but it ends with the news anchor announcing that the injured dog survived (thanks to having been pulled to safety across heavy traffic by the fellow dog). You can view this amazing video here.

In my web surfing, I came across more videos showing dogs rescuing humans or other dogs. Of course, there are some videos that may have been staged, and others like the one above that are certainly genuine. Here's a video in which a dog saves a bullfighter from a bull (whatever you think of bullfighting - I don't like it at all - this small dog shows some big heroism):



I think that there are many more stories of animal heroism that get less play in the news compared to tragedies like the chimpanzee attack in Connecticut this week or the cases of dog attacks that occasionally get media attention. The amazing thing to me about the heroic incidents is that, in many cases, the animal never received specific training to perform such actions, but nevertheless risked his/her own safety for that of a fellow being. That's something that really must come from deep in the heart.

Sometimes when a man's alone, all you got is your dog.
- Mickey Rourke (saying this as he thanked all his dogs, living and dead, after winning the Golden Globe for Best Actor this year).
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Bonaparte's Retreat

Today I was talking with a musician friend about dog themes in music (something about which I will post future entries), and he told me about Emmylou Harris' love of dogs. Her story is very touching. I did not know this story until today, but a couple of years ago Emmylou established a sanctuary in Nashville for dogs that are otherwise unadoptable. She founded Bonaparte's Retreat - named after her companion of ten years who died suddenly in 2002. Here is an article about this in The Bark, which also includes a video of the beautiful song, Not Enough, that she wrote for Bonaparte.

Among God's creatures two, the dog and the guitar, have taken all the sizes and all the shapes, in order not to be separated from the man.
- Andrés Segovia (1893-1987), classical guitarist
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Why We Love Cats and Dogs

Last night the PBS station in my area showed the Nature episode "Why We Love Cats and Dogs." I was touched by the stories of how people's bonds with pets can sustain them through difficult times. Most poignant to me was the story of Jerry, a German Shepherd dog, whose family really made the most of his short time with them after Jerry was diagnosed with cancer.

The show raised fascinating issues about the nature of empathy between humans and pets. Among other nuggets in this episode, Marc Bekoff speculated that cells in the brains of humans and other animals, called "mirror neurons," allow us to appreciate each others' states of mind (what researchers call "theory of mind").

As I type at my keyboard, what Kasey knows is that if he keeps dropping toys at my feet, then I will probably turn away from the keyboard and.....

I'm looking more like my dogs every day — it must be the shaggy fringe and the ears.
- Christine McVie (b. 1943), musician
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