Thursday, September 5, 2013

8:06 AM Morning news – Photographer Ray Bellisario is auctioning off his collection of 20,000 shots of the British royal family and other celebrities. These photographs are candid shots including Prince Charles water skiing while sitting in a chair, the Queen doing the twist and Princess Anne falling off her horse. He went to royal events strolling around with his camera and kept his eye open for the compromising shots. He began his activities in 1954 at the age of 18, shortly after the Queen was crowned. His pictures were blacklisted in the United Kingdom, but were sold abroad. He is expecting some 500,000 pounds or $1.6 million for the collection.

Reading. About dog intelligence, the author said it is hard to measure and to pin down to specific breeds. Mutts vary widely on intelligence. The border collie probably ranks at the top on trainability, which he said is easier to measure, and the Afghan hound, other hounds and terriers are at the bottom. Are the hunting dogs more instinctual in their behavior? Maybe their intelligence should be judged more on how they discover and flush out the prey without killing it. The border collie Rico is known for having a word vocabulary of 200 names for his toys. The handler takes him into an adjacent room to his toy storeroom and tells him to go get one of his toys, referenced by its name. Rico immediately does it. The handler even gave him an unfamiliar word as the name of a toy, and Rico, recognizing that he didn't have a familiar toy by that name, selected a new toy that had recently been placed in the room. In other words, he deduced which toy to bring out by the fact that it was unfamiliar. So there is some degree of “thinking” with dogs. Rico is said to be able to learn a new name for a new toy after being told the word just one time. Human psychologists call this “fast mapping” and they had thought that only human toddlers could do it. My mixed breed terrier when I was a child could pick words out of conversation and react to them, and would show signs of appreciation and attention if you talked about her. People who have interacted closely with dogs and observed them with an open mind, in other words, rather than firmly assuming they are extremely inferior to humans, will probably have personal stories to tell of their intelligence. I think if you get away from the realm of dogs doing tricks like “roll over” and “give me howdy” and go more toward watching them interacting with the world you will see their intelligence. The dogs that have been trained to help paraplegics around the house are especially interesting. Monkeys have also been trained to do that. On Animal Planet there was a show about those dogs. The paraplegic man had tied a towel to the handle of the refrigerator door and would ask his golden retriever to bring him a beer. The dog would go immediately to the kitchen and pull the fridge open by the towel and get a beer out for the man, carrying it carefully to him. Many pets, when the owner interacts frequently and with warmth and patience with them, learn a great deal. Plus they learn by observing people doing things around the house. The author cites one of his dogs that quickly learned to open the screen door and escape from watching the author do it. When they tried to circumvent this by always closing the wooden door which had a handle on it, the dog soon learned on his own to pull the handle down and let himself out. It is obvious to me that animal intelligence is similar to human intelligence, but is not quite as highly developed. Also it is hard to test them, especially on language, because they don't have the vocal cords and throat to talk. Birds that can talk, specifically the African gray parrot Alex, showed some reasoning and recognition of the meaning of the words, rather than simply being able to say them, and several apes including Kanzi the chimpanzee and Koko the gorilla have been taught human sign language. Koko made the news a couple of years ago by telling Penny her owner that she had a pain on the scale of 9 in her mouth. They took her to a veterinarian who put her to sleep and pulled her decayed tooth, meanwhile taking the opportunity to give her some other physical exams.

Other traits that psychologists have researched in animals are self-awareness, empathy and consciousness. A number of chimpanzees passed the test of self-awareness by recognizing themselves in a mirror and touching their own body where a streak of lipstick had been applied, rather than touching the image on the mirror. In other words, they recognized that the mirror was merely reflecting their own image. Not all chimps recognized themselves, though. Some thought it was another individual and showed fear. Most dogs don't show any recognition of their image in a mirror, and the author said they don't even seem to recognize it as a dog. I have a story about a border collie, however, which breaks this rule. This dog, owned by my first husband's family, was in the sitting room with me on Christmas morning after the gifts had been unwrapped, sharing some mutual affection. I took a large red ribbon off the floor and put it around her neck, and it looked so pretty with her thick black fur and white collar that I began saying repeatedly, “Oh, you look so pretty! You're beautiful!” After about thirty seconds of this she abruptly moved away from me to a long mirror that was hanging on the door and looked at herself in the mirror while “smiling” widely. I am convinced she knew what I was saying, first, and secondly that she did indeed have “self awareness.” My husband and I also had a German shepherd that would sometimes show signs of problem solving and attempts at communication with body language, once jiggling the door keys that were hanging in the lock with his nose as we stood too long talking and saying goodbye. He seemed to be saying, “Let's go already!” Clearly some dogs are brighter than others, but it is also a matter of the owner paying a great deal of attention to the dog on a regular basis and talking to them, while observing what they do. If you take your animal and tie it up on a chain outdoors all the time, maybe beating it for barking and just feeding it a couple of times a day, you won't see much intelligence.

About empathy, I have had my terrier Butch to come up to me when I was sitting and feeling down and put her head in my lap, licking my face. Again, you have to form a relationship with the animal to see empathy. The author said that scientists have identified “mirror neurons” in the brain which initiate imitation, so that when the viewer sees happiness or sadness or other feelings, a part of their brain imitates the mood and we can therefore identify with the other person or being. Chimpanzees when they are together in a group will come over to comfort a member of the group who has just been injured in a fight, for instance. This is one of those things that I would expect to find in a social animal such as a human, an ape or a dog, maybe even a dolphin. The author said that dogs clearly have “at least a limited capacity” for imitation.

The author also looks at the ability to be conscious of the thoughts or intentions of other individuals. Psychologists call this “Theory of Mind,” and are studying a wide range of social animals, not just the most intelligent ones. It is probably an important basic instinct to watch others to see what their mood is. It keeps the individual from being assaulted within the group and tells them when the others have found a source of food. The author says that even small puppies can read canine body language. Dogs also watch human faces closely for signals as to what is going on, and cooperate with their masters.

Can dogs plan ahead? The author tells a story of one of his six dogs that was used to sleeping in a crate by the owner's bed, while another of the dogs went to the bed to sleep. Both dogs would go to the bedroom a few minutes before the owners retired, because they were used to the sleep schedule. The crate dog observed the other dog going to the bed and began to precede the others into the bedroom and hide between the bed and the wall underneath the dust cover, and after a few minutes hop up on the bed herself. She seemed to have planned to secrete herself in order to circumvent being put into the crate. I have a story about my terrier Butch. At least one time I remarked out loud to Mother that I was going to wash Butch, and she immediately disappeared, hiding from me. After that I spelled out “wash Butch” with better results.

The author talks about love. Do dogs love their masters or their mates? Apparently dogs lost the wolf trait of pairing off with a mate for a long-term relationship. Papa dog goes about his business after the mating while Mom raises the babies. Do they love their masters? The author thinks so, in a doggy sort of way. They definitely miss them if they are absent, and try to please them, showing empathy and cooperating closely.

About dog bites, Page says that some breeds are indeed statistically more prone to be the attackers, though not all members of the breeds are necessarily aggressive. Pit bulls and rottweilers are cited the most frequently for actually killing people, though I have seen in other sources that German shepherd attacks are also more commonly fatal than others. He also listed Akitas, Domermans, Chow chows, huskies and Rhodesian Ridgebacks. The Rhodesian Ridgeback was developed from interbreeding with a “semi-domesticated” hunting dog of the African tribe called the Khoikhoi, and was used to hunt lions, wild pigs and baboons, so they are formidable fighters. They were also known for fierceness as guard dogs. He says that while the upbringing of the dog is a very important factor in producing an aggressive and dangerous individual, that the genetic traits bred in are also very important. As much as I like dogs in general, I would never have a rottweiler or pit bull, and certainly not a Rhodesian Ridgeback. I can't imagine why some people are so fearful that they need that kind of protection for their house. I want a warm, affectionate and intelligent dog that will be a good companion. It is my experience with dogs that most of them in a pinch will try to defend their home or their masters if they are under attack. You want a guard dog that will bark loudly and persistently to attract the neighbor's attention, and will threaten someone who comes on the property and tries to attack a human, but which will be able to tell the difference between a hostile human and a friendly one, in other words, they need to be intelligent and well-socialized to people. I think a border collie would make a good watch dog, while gently and patiently helping to take care of your children.

The Appendix on obedience trainability breaks it down by breeds, and includes the number of attempts it takes to get them to understand what is wanted and to do it on command. There are great variances between the breeds. It takes a border collie, the champion of all breeds, just 5 exposures to a new command to learn it and they will obey 90% of the time. There were ten breeds in this top category, including also the Poodle (I have seen it before given as the large or “standard” poodle and not those little fluffy ones), German shepherd, Golden retriever, Doberman, Shetland sheep dog, Labrador retriever, Papillon, Rottweiler and Australian cattle dog. The least clever, requiring as much as a hundred repetitions and when they do obey they show signs of being annoyed includes the Shih-tzu, basset hound, beagle, mastiff, Pekingese, Afghan hound, blood hound, Chow-chow and bulldog. How much of their disobedience is a lack of desire to be pleasing to their masters, I wonder? The only one of these breeds that I have ever been around is the Basset hound, and that dog was very slow to come when called, but seemed cheerful and friendly. I assumed it was just stubborn. Its owner said she had trouble with it when it was on the leash also, and that was a problem because the dog weighed fifty pounds and she was a very small woman, so it could pull her around. The author said that in choosing mongrels for pets to chose according to what breed the dog most closely resembles in order to pick a personality that you want.

Wild dogs of modern times are the subject of Appendix D. The author first discusses the foxes, of which there are 22 species out of the 35 wild dog species. They occur on every continent except Antarctica. The most widespread of the species is the red fox, starting in Eurasia and spreading to North Africa, though they were not native to the southeastern US and Australia, but introduced by mankind. They are also the largest of the foxes, growing up to 30 pounds. Their coat varies in color from red or mingled in color to black or even white. In upland areas their coats tend to be a golden red while in lowland areas they tend more to be paler and more yellowish. They avoid the territories of wolves and coyotes which will eat them, and also they don't like dense woods or deserts. They are comfortable living in towns and cities, as there are no natural predators there. They live in small groups consisting of a single mating pair with a few daughters to help raise the kits. A female is called a vixen and the male is called a dog fox. They eat insects, mice and voles mainly, but have been known to kill and eat the young of wild boars or deer, so they are powerful predators. They also scavenge on garbage dumps like dogs, and approach houses to eat food from the pet dog's dish. They have very good ears, being able to hear a mouse as far away as 150 feet. Than can broad jump 6 feet and leap over a normal sized fence, and they can run for some distance at a speed of 30 mph. They have been characterized in many stories down through time as being very clever and good escape artists. There is only two other foxes in North America, the “swift fox” or kit fox and the gray fox, which is a different genus, and differs in several ways, especially in that it has large curving claws that enable it to climb trees. They sometimes nest as high up as 30 feet, and will run up a tree like a cat when chased by dogs. The are also the Fennec of the deserts of North Africa and several other species in the dry regions of Africa, plus one that lives above 16,000 feet in Tibet, one that ranges from India to Pakistan, and one in southern Russia. There are also a number of types in South America. There is one in Africa that eats mainly termites and other insects, and even has a specialize set of teeth to chew the hard shells of the insects. At the Arctic Circle there is a species that changes its coat from brownish in the summer to white or bluish in the winter, presumably to blend in with the snow and hair-covered feet to prevent frostbite. This Arctic Fox has a relationship with the lemmings in which it's population figures go up every four years, as does the population of the lemmings, so it can reap the benefit of the extra food supply. They must have lived in that area with the lemmings an awfully long time to have developed this parallel pattern.

The large wild dogs include wolves, coyotes, African hunting dogs and jackals. Hyenas are not dogs, but are closer to felines and “viverrids”. The classification of viverrid includes the African linsang, binturongs and the African civet. The next group of wild canids is called “hunting dogs” and consists of the Dhole of southeast Asia and the African wild dog or Cape Hunting Dog. Neither is very large, but they hunt in packs and can run until the prey animal gets tired, so they can bring down large prey. Jackals come in four species, most of which live in Africa, though one lives in Asia and into Europe as far west as Italy. They eat anything from insects to gazelles, often preferring to scavenge the kills of other predators. They live in small packs with one mating pair and several of their young which help in raising the new offspring. They “yell, woof, whine, growl and howl. All jackals are smaller than the hunting dogs and resemble foxes. The largest jackal type weighs about 40 pounds. This is called the Simien Jackal and is thought by some biologists as being related to wolves and coyotes than to the other jackals.

The last of the wild dogs is the coyote, which play a large role in Navaho folklore, being part of their creation story, and are known for their intelligence. They sometimes are solitary, but often hunt in small packs, bringing down deer and even elk, but they also eat small mammals and insects. They sometimes hunt in the daytime, but are more often nocturnal. They range in size from 35 to75 pounds. When they live in cities they will eat small pets, especially house cats. They also kill livestock, and so they are hunted by farmers and ranchers. They have spread from the West to the whole United States except for Hawaii. They have interbred with both wolves and domestic dogs. Coyotes are not bothered by the presence of humans, and don't try to attack them.

This is the end of that book. It was all fascinating and written in a way that scientific terms and theories when they occurred were explained for the most part. I did thoroughly enjoy it. It's 4:46. To my emails now.