Dogs

[jim]

That's a fine looking dog freed. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

[Freed Roger]

The Galoot is making a great recovery, and today is back to his old rambunctious ways - getting up early and raising hell by rolling around, shaking his collar and floppy ears - trying to roust me. Oh yeah, and he's back to making his loud and fake bear-like yawn while doing his stretches.

Found this puppy pic of him back when he lived on the family farm.



The dog has always been adept at clamoring up on [expletive]. When we inherited the dog, he came with an igloo shaped doghouse like this

[SHOW]

We put it out on the back deck.Galoot put it to use by standing on top of it (snoopy style), so he could see in the window and give us sad "let me in" eyes.

[Michael]

Your dog is awesome

[Freed Roger]

As I anthropomorphize the Galoot, I'm reminded of the story on Russian experiment - domestication of silver fox. Insights into how wild animals like wolves, morphed into a variety of domesticated dogs. It didn't take many years/generations, of sorting out foxes by behavior, then breeding to come up with domesticated foxes.

A few retellings
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues ... periment/1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox

and somewhere in this radiolab episode
http://www.radiolab.org/2009/oct/19/

[Molly]

The Galoot is making a great recovery, and today is back to his old rambunctious ways - getting up early and raising hell by rolling around, shaking his collar and floppy ears - trying to roust me. Oh yeah, and he's back to making his loud and fake bear-like yawn while doing his stretches.

Found this puppy pic of him back when he lived on the family farm.



The dog has always been adept at clamoring up on [expletive]. When we inherited the dog, he came with an igloo shaped doghouse like this

[SHOW]

We put it out on the back deck.Galoot put it to use by standing on top of it (snoopy style), so he could see in the window and give us sad "let me in" eyes.

Wait.....he's a PUPPY in that pic

[KyCardinalFan]

The Galoot is making a great recovery, and today is back to his old rambunctious ways - getting up early and raising hell by rolling around, shaking his collar and floppy ears - trying to roust me. Oh yeah, and he's back to making his loud and fake bear-like yawn while doing his stretches.

Found this puppy pic of him back when he lived on the family farm.



The dog has always been adept at clamoring up on [expletive]. When we inherited the dog, he came with an igloo shaped doghouse like this

[SHOW]

We put it out on the back deck.Galoot put it to use by standing on top of it (snoopy style), so he could see in the window and give us sad "let me in" eyes.

Wait.....he's a PUPPY in that pic

Lol, my thought exactly!

The pic of Galoot in the water on the previous page, is his nose above water?! I know it's a fraction of a moment in time, but the poor guy looks like he dozed off with his snout underwater. I did a double take.

[lukethedrifter]

As I anthropomorphize the Galoot, I'm reminded of the story on Russian experiment - domestication of silver fox. Insights into how wild animals like wolves, morphed into a variety of domesticated dogs. It didn't take many years/generations, of sorting out foxes by behavior, then breeding to come up with domesticated foxes.

A few retellings
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues ... periment/1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox

and somewhere in this radiolab episode
http://www.radiolab.org/2009/oct/19/

highly recommended reading. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/ ... iff-text/1

[Molly]

Kudos to luke's cohorts in Swansea, IL who saved this dog from a house fire

[Freed Roger]

highly recommended reading. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/ ... iff-text/1

Good reading. Implications in the nature vs nurture question.


Galoot and Fuzzypants about to do a conga line on loose neighborhood dog we corralled for an hour.

I ponder the bred contrast in the Big Galoot and Mr. Fuzzypants on most every walk. I realize that their domesticated breeds originate from different parts of the world, (Eastern Canada, Lhasa/Tibet) and surely their wild predecessors were naturally adapted for climate and environment -which may explain why one sheds and one doesn't.

But still, it goes way beyond environment. If you don't groom Lhasa's their fur will not stop growing. One is 90lbs, and the other 18lbs. Took them to local state park once, and the little guy was full of big cockleburs within seconds to the point of being unable to walk. The Galoot notices shapes of rabbits and squirrels from a distance. Fuzzy stumbles upon them. Fuzzypants would not survive long in the outside world. (though he did spend the night out once). Yet, somewhere I read that Mr. Fuzzypants is closer genetically to the wolf than the Galoot. Go figure.

I was proud of them recently though. They somehow worked together and had a squirrel trapped on our deck. I could barely run enough interference to avoid a slaughter.

Mr. Fuzzypants, no adaptation to wet snow, (no wet snow in Tibet?) other than being unflustered and lack of memory of being immobilized -maybe that is the adaptation -reliance on human to help them/ or not being bothered by slow painful death.

[Mary1966]

http://www.today.com/health/turns-out-o ... 6C10435423

We give them cookies and beds and dress them in clothing. They love their toys, their play time plus cuddling with "mom" and "dad" - and it's no wonder: Our dogs react to us in a manner that eerily mimics how human children respond to their parents, a new study has found.

Similar behaviors between our pooches and our tots (and us) is rooted in a type of bonding that happens when hounds or kids consider their protectors to be a "secure base," a living anchor that injects them with confidence, comfort and safety, according to research published in the journal PLoS ONE.

"One of the things that really surprised us is that adult dogs behave towards their caregivers like human children do," said Lisa Horn, of the Vetmeduni's Messerli Research Institute in Vienna and the author of the report.