BS: Adaptable Dogs!

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Apr 19 - 11:56 AM

StillyRiverSage,
could we tempt you to tell us
how your houseful of dogs is
adapting to each other?

(fairly recent newbie, much younger than
the two older dogs ... )

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: Jos
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 02:06 PM

I didn't know about cucumber - presumably melons and courgettes are poisonous as well, then.
I haven't got a dog but I sometimes 'borrow' other people's so I need to know these things.

And beware of a 'sweetener' called xylitol, which can be in toothpaste but which some people use when making cakes and biscuits, thinking it is 'healthier'.

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 01:13 PM

Jos, even cucumber is a dog poison.

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 12:54 PM

Jos - yet they can happily enjoy scoffing the foam cover, rubber seals, and bass cone
of a very expensive hi fi speaker...???

bloody border collies...

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: Jos
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 11:47 AM

You shouldn't be giving your dog garlic, or related substances such as onions and leeks.
And no raisins or similar, for that matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 11:06 AM

capsaicin (the "hot" chemical in peppers) triggers the pleasurable release of endorphins in human brains.


er not 100% true

And don't even get me near the subject of garlic................

Subject: RE: BS: Adoptable Dogs!
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 09:34 AM

When it comes to adoptable dogs it is advatageous to wait outside the Humane Society before the dogs are exposed to posible diseases like kennel cough. After paying its a good idea to make a donation to HS.

Then take your dog to the vet.

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 07:12 AM

My bomb sniffing dog Kaboom is still confusing my cooking with a bomb.

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: keberoxu
Date: 10 Apr 19 - 06:24 PM

Delighted to hear
that you and Dreamy are getting on well.

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Apr 19 - 11:34 AM

Our grey has figured out that if she lays down once I have put her walking kit on, I will go to the kitchen where she will follow, and I will giver her a treat!!

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Apr 19 - 11:01 AM

Call me crazy but I believe I met a back bred feral human who looked like the common Neanderthal in Lackawana NY nearly 50 years ago. He was from Zor Valley and was applying for a job at the steel plant but I digress

Dogs have been adapted to help diagnose many different diseases.
This to me is fabulous.

This canine talent is fabulous and can even provide warning of imminate seizures.

Whats next? Divorce Attorneys using crotch sniffing dogs to detect adultery?

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 10 Apr 19 - 09:25 AM

A side note, but having to do with dogs' adaptability....

(I heard about this research on Public Radio somewhere, but the only link I could find was to a New York Times article which is accessible by subscription only. So here's a second-hand nutshell version.)

Humans reared in cultures where hot spicy food is the norm develop a taste for it. If given a choice between spicy and non-spicy dishes, they'll go for the spicy one almost every time.

But dogs and pigs who scavenge food scraps in those same cultures do not develop a taste for spicy foods. They eat spicy food because that's what their human food providers throw out. But, if taken into a laboratory and offered a choice between spicy or bland food, they'll choose bland every time. This is true even if they've been eating nothing but spicy food scraps their entire lives.

Humans learn to enjoy the pain that comes from eating spicy foods because capsaicin (the "hot" chemical in peppers) triggers the pleasurable release of endorphins in human brains. But dogs' and pigs' brains are apparently sufficiently different from humans that capsaicin doesn't provide that same endorphin release. They learn to endure spiciness out of necessity, but they never learn to like it.

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Apr 19 - 06:17 PM

How are you and your best friends getting on?

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Jul 12 - 12:40 AM

Most glad you did! Drift away...we'll be right with you. I find this incredibly interesting and was just talking with a friend of mine about thought communication amongst animals and humans. Somehow I missed a book from years ago which she told me about: Kinship with All Life by J. Allen Boone. I just ordered a used copy. Have you read it, Janie?

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: Janie
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:58 PM

Uhmmmm...I done up and drifted a thread I originated.

Quick with the anchor please!

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: Janie
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:30 PM

Part of what drew my attention was the last little section I copy and pasted above, which I'll repeat for easy reference.

Author Eugene Linden, who has been writing about animal intelligence for 40 years, told ABC News that Moscow's resourceful stray dogs are just one of what are now thousands of recorded examples of wild, feral and domesticated animals demonstrating what appears, at least, to be what humans might call flexible open-ended reasoning and conscious thought.

I have long thought that we humans are amazingly arrogant and anthropomorphic to think we are the most "intelligent" species on earth. We likely fail to comprehend, much less appreciate, consciousness and/or "intelligence" that might be very different from our own. We mistake ourselves for "the gold standard." Even beyond that, we have some pretty rigid ideas about what comprises an "intelligent" human being, and falsely assume that greater "intelligence" as measured by standardized IQ tests suggests a more adaptive human being, and therefore more likely to insure the survival of the species.

Psshaw!

We used to think that what distinguished us and our evolutionary homo ancestors from the apes was the developed capacity to create and use tools. As research in the neurosciences progresses both in human and animal research, that distinction is proving to not be so clear cut.

Not having a television I tend to be a little behind the curve in learning about and watching some stuff that has been around a bit. I just finished watching the 3 part series on Nova "Becoming Human," from 2009. Enjoyed it immensely and learned a lot. But also have the benefit of reading news reports on scientific research and speculation a mere 3 years later that I did not find surprising, but which some of the scientists in the series apparently would have found surprising from their assertions and implications. All Non-Africans Part Neanderthal (Jean Auel got it right.) What struck me most about the series, however, was so much of the quest seemed to be about identifying what makes us (homo sapiens particularly, but also homo species in general) special.

Special? If we do not lose that notion of "specialness" and our arrogance about ourselves as a superior species we are headed for being another dead end on the evolutionary tree of life on earth.

In the event the evolutionary homo line survives long enough to encounter other life in the universe, if we have not learned the lesson that "intelligence" can not be anthropomorphically defined, even if our limits of understanding are anthropomorphically defined, we are in even bigger trouble than we are now.

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: Janie
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:37 PM

I'm going to copy and past the first part of the article - the part that caught my attention initially when my son showed it to me.


Stray Dogs Master Complex Moscow Subway System

- / +

By ALEX MARQUARDT, BILL BLAKEMORE and ROSS EICHENHOLZ (@ree232)
MOSCOW, March 19, 2010 (abcnews.com)

Every so often, if you ride Moscow's crowded subways, you notice that the commuters around you include a dog - a stray dog, on its own, just using the handy underground Metro to beat the traffic and get from A to B.

Yes, some of Moscow's stray dogs have figured out how to use the city's immense and complex subway system, getting on and off at their regular stops. The human commuters around them are so accustomed to it that they rarely seem to notice.

"In Moscow there are all sorts of stray dogs, but... there are no stupid dogs," Dr. Andrey Poyarkov, a biologist who has studied Moscow's strays for 30 years, told ABC News.

As many as 35,000 stray dogs live in Russia's capital city. They can be found everywhere, from markets to construction sites to underground passageways, scrounging for food and trying to survive.

Taking the subway is just one of many tactics the strays have come up with for surviving in the manmade wilderness around them.

"The street is tough and it's survival of the fittest," says Poyarkov. "These clever dogs know people much better than people know them."

Poyarkov says that only a small fraction of strays have figured out how to navigate the maze that is Moscow's subway system.
STRAY DOGS MASTER COMPLEX MOSCOW SUBWAY SYSTEM
Courtesy Maxim Marmur
Every so often, if you ride Moscow's crowded... View Full Caption
Every so often, if you ride Moscow's crowded subways, you may notice that the commuters around you include a dog - a stray dog, on its own, just using the handy underground Metro to beat the traffic and get from A to B. Close

What's most impressive about the subway dogs, says Poyarkov's graduate student, Alexei Vereshchagin, is their ability to deal with the Metro's loud noises and packed crowds, distractions that domesticated dogs often cannot handle.

To keep up with news about Russia follow ABC News' Alex Marquardt on Twitter

"It's stressful even for people standing in a crowd," he says, "and the dogs are lying down so no one is seeing them, so anyone can put feet on them. But they get used to this."

ABC News found a female stray in the Kievskaya station, and barely managed to follow her as she zipped between the legs of the bustling travelers around her to catch a ride on the Koltsevaya Line.

Once on board, she settled down on the floor among the feet and legs, even dozed a bit, and occasionally got up for a brief conversation with a friendly human.

She seemed to sense that such close quarters were no place to appear threatening.

Animal Intelligence

Author Eugene Linden, who has been writing about animal intelligence for 40 years, told ABC News that Moscow's resourceful stray dogs are just one of what are now thousands of recorded examples of wild, feral and domesticated animals demonstrating what appears, at least, to be what humans might call flexible open-ended reasoning and conscious thought.

Linden cites a wide variety of creatures ranging from captive orangutans and otters who frequently and slyly "trade" with their keepers, to a British cat famous for regularly taking the bus to a squirrel in Oklahoma who became a local hero when people began to notice that it regularly obeyed traffic signals when crossing a busy street.

"The take-away is that animals are not just passive in this," Linden told ABC News. "They are figuring out what we're about and how they can game the system, and work it to their advantage as well."

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:57 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 12:12 AM

That's awesome! Thanks, Janie!

Subject: RE: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: gnu
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 09:25 PM

Very interesting. Thanks.

Subject: BS: Adaptable Dogs!
From: Janie
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 08:00 PM

There are a lot of dog lovers and respecters among us so I thought I would share the following, compliments of my son who somehow stumbled across a link to this 2010 article yesterday.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/Technology/stray-dogs-master-complex-moscow-subway-system/story?id=10145833#.UAMp62GrH5O

Talk about being adaptable!