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rospigan

MH
Posts:372

10/28/2008 1:05 PM
Sometimes things happens that make you wonder about how much a dog actually can figure out and understand. Early this morning Maud and we were going to different island in the Baltic sea. I had to go to the Aland islands for a fast trip back and forth and Maud and Briz were bound to the Gotland island for a field trial. Maud had to start early since she had a 3 hours drive to the Nynas ferry harbour and I had only a 4 minutes drive. So while Maud was loading her car I was still asleep in the bed. Then, just before Maud was finished with her luggage, Briz jumped up to the bed, made noises and licked me and touched my face with her paw and generally made me to understand that she had something to say. She has always been very expressive so I understood her language and told her to "show me!". She jumped down and looked at me and made some growling sounds and I followed her. She walked to the door that Maud had left open and looked back at me. I followed her and she run to the car and jumped into it looking at me. There was no doubt that she was saying something like: "Come on now, can't you see that we are going for a hunting trip?? I want you to be with us!". Foxy was similar, she also "speak" a lot but in a more "discreet" and "humble" fashion, but still in a way much more demanding and insisting. In addition her "speaking" included several "stages", she could express her wishes step by step, so to say. I can't make the dogs out really well. There is a slight collision between the science of animal behaviour and the daily experiences I have with them..... They are not supposed to be able to think in several steps ahead, but as far as I have seen they can! Torsti Borta Med Vindens Kennel www.rospigan.net "Merciful God the Almighty! Deprive me my common sense so that I can at least to some extent accomplish my commitments as a citizen of the European Union!."

cwalt

MH
Posts:180

10/30/2008 10:07 AM
The intellectual advantage that dogs have over wolves is their readiness to seek help from a human pack member, something that wolves cannot do. My dogs have trained me to respond to their requests in a relatively complete fashion, they have trained me to open the door when they want to go out and to take them for a ride when they want to see the countryside. They were exceptionally efficient in training me to hunt properly and to take them hunting when they wanted to go. Wolves don't solicit help with a problem whereas dogs show no hesitation in demonstrating their needs and emotional state to a human. Since dogs can efficiently solicit help from a human they take advantage of human intelligence to a greater degree than any other species. I consider that ability to be part of a dog's intelligence. I find that many of my dogs' behaviors are asking for something, the trick is learning what they need help with. I encounter many dog handlers that are only too willing to try to teach or direct a dog in how to hunt when the dogs need no help. I run into babblers all the time and, quite interestingly, they are ready to direct the dog in the field but haven't a clue when the dog actually requests their help. Many handlers cannot shut up during a field search but when the dog is retrieving blind it will often look to the handler to solicit guidance and the handler stands mute... what a peculiar dichotomy. After training and working with a few retrievers the trainer often learns to use body language and subtle signals to guide the dog under difficult retrieving conditions. Eventually the 'hup' or 'sit' command takes on a new meaning, it says "pay attention to me" and the dog comes to expect a human signal of some sort after receiving such a command. Dog body language can be very subtle as can human body language, you tell your dog far more than you know. The classic, and most easily diagnosed dog question is seen in the water retrieve in versatile dog tests, it is the solicitation of help, the dog swims out and suddenly turns and looks to the handler, the dog is waiting for the handler to throw a stone to direct it towards the bird. The naive trainer will, more often than not, start searching for something to throw for the dog, this is a consequence of training of the handler by the dog. With more sophistication on the part of dog and handler you can answer the dog's question by the orientation of your face or the direction of your gaze. Can dogs engage in complex behaviors?... when a dog approaches and throws a stick or a ball at your feet it is asking you to play with it, a relatively complex request involving both solicitation and anticipation linked to a specific object. My dogs have a half dozen or so barks or sounds that have specific meanings and an extensive repertoire of body language to engage my attention. In this I found that mallard ducks and black ducks are more vocally communicative than dogs in that they have a richer sound vocabulary of calls whereas the dogs have a more extensive body language vocabulary. Most forms of contact that I have with my dogs are instances in which the dogs want or need something from me, of course the converse is also true, when I have an interaction with one of my dogs usually I want something as well. A lot of this kind of behavior is termed allelomimetic, a fancy word that essentially means they're copying the body language of their pack mates. Yes, dogs learn a lot of behaviors from other dogs since they are preprogrammed for learning body language. It is also important for the trainer to understand that dogs learn a lot of their body language signals from humans, a form of communication that is particularly difficult to diagnose. Dogs can, and do think about things that interest them and are far more than simple response reaction boxes. You can spend your whole life reading dogs and still encounter new language from both old and new dogs. Cj

rospigan

MH
Posts:372

10/30/2008 1:50 PM
>>Dogs can, and do think about things that interest them and are far more than simple response reaction boxes. You can spend your whole life reading dogs and still encounter new language from both old and new dogs. Cj> It feels good to know that I have not been entirely insane when I have felt the same way about dogs, for a long time. My own observations, that I have not been able to find words for, suggest that the dog actually can and do change between wild animal behaviour and domesticated animal behaviour as called for by the situation. You might for days or weeks live with the dogs in a non-dramatic environment at home, in the hunting camp, on the city streets and parks and your dogs behave flawlessly kindly, from a human point of view. You have started to doubt that they have ever been wild animals, descending from some Asiatic wolf. You can see how white wings grow out from their back, they get an angel-like appearance and you start to think that they will sing and play harp any day now. Then suddenly two dogs start to fight seriously, kind of turning into utterly wild animals, forgetting about any human that might stand by. Their extremely rapid movements, that you hardly can follow with your eye, and the horrible sounds they make clearly shows how far they now are from the modern era of the domesticated dog. What you see right now could just as well happen 1 million years ago. Their behaviour will strongly touch you instinctively and you too get very exited and upset. The size of the fighting dogs does not matter the least, it is their unconditional determination to kill each other that agitate you and instinctively your body prepares to fight too. You feel a bit shaken from the sudden change of their character, fast as lightning, and you may blame yourself for naive humanization of the dog. You might feel a bit sad when you realise that there after all is this almost unbreakable wall of iron between you and the animal, that you so eagerly want to humanize. Most of all the consciousness of your reaction to the dogs fight will remind you of how close both of you still are to the stone age era when you two met for the first time and started to fight together in order to improve your chances to survive. Once the dogs have been separated they can calm down and become "civilized" again in a few minutes or even a shorter time, depending of their temperament. Hence it might be correct to say that the domestic dog is right now in such a stage of its evolution that it sometimes falls on one side of the edge, into the far history it came from, while it most of the time spends its life on the other, modern side, resembling us humans more that anything else. The quizz of the day could be: What happens with the domesticated dog in the next stage of its evolution? ........................................................ BTW, those who have broadband could check this out. ADSL will do. http://www.countrychannel.tv/player.php There are interesting British country sports videos. If it stops working properly the best way is to close down and restart the entire browser (not the computer). Torsti Borta Med Vindens Kennel www.rospigan.net "Merciful God the Almighty! Deprive me my common sense so that I can at least to some extent accomplish my commitments as a citizen of the European Union!."

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