The story’s focus is on a cow or a pensioner depending on your point of view. Personally cows scare me, pensioners not so much.

It turns out I’m not the only one who feels this way if only because of the sheer size of the animals. I suspect I’d climb a tree too if one came charging at me.

This is Nottingham has the full story.

FIREFIGHTERS are warning dog walkers to avoid fields with cows in after a pensioner had to be rescued from up a tree.

The 79-year-old woman had climbed up a hawthorn in Newark and been stuck for two hours after she and her two dogs were chased by a cow and a calf.

Brian Smith, watch manager for Newark Fire Station, said he only found the woman after spotting her pet Jack Russell hiding in the long grass beneath the tree, trembling.

Mr Smith said: “We normally save kids up trees but not 79-year-old ladies. I was expecting it to be a child. She said the cows had chased her.

“If you do come across cattle, let go of the dog and the cows will chase them. Dogs will outrun a cow, unless it has arthritis like the lady’s little dog did.”

The woman’s other dog, a golden retriever, is believed to have scared off the cows while hiding in a bush below the tree.

So which would your pup be more like: the trembling Jack Russell or the Golden Retriever?

Pic is of Dogster/Bovine member Polo

Since this is a dog blog, a couple of times a month our boy Bo (woof!) thought it would be nice to get the news through a dog’s eyes. Bo invites everyone to read a chapter from his upcoming book BAD TO THE BONE at Bo Knows Online. It’s a funny memoir about the crazy adventures we have shared together over the last 14 plus years, told through Bo’s eyes.

Okay Bo, take it from here…..

Give a hoot, don’t pollute.

That’s what comes to mind when I take a look at the picture on the left. The phrase has nothing to do with the story I’m featuring today other than it being uttered by an owl on US television for years. Or it used to be, anyway. I think this breed of bird isn’t the advertising draw it used to be. But then again, are you really going to top the Tootsie roll lollipop commercials?

Anyway, is it me or does the owl look like a cat with a bad Halloween costume?

So these two are best of buds, which is unique in that owls usually only like Yorkies not spaniels. Well known fact. Just google it. The Daily Mail has the details on their friendship.

A baby owl is kept looking spruce thanks to her friend Sophie the spaniel, who licks her clean every day.

The pair have become inseparable since Bramble, the baby eagle owl, was taken in at a bird of prey centre.

Sophie, three, used her maternal nature to give Bramble a quick clean as a chick. Now the bird flies into the main house for a spruce-up every day and sits while Sophie licks her feathers and beak.

Conservationist Sharon Bindon, 43, who runs the bird of prey centre in Liskeard, Cornwall said: ‘We have many birds of prey and Sophie has been brought up alongside all of them but they normally stay outside the house.

‘But baby owls are born without feathers, so we had to keep Bramble indoors at first. On the first day of having her they were on the settee together and Sophie put her motherly instinct to work and began to clean her.

‘From that day on Bramble has had the cleanest beak in the country.’

Ms Bindon added: ‘Ever since Sophie first cleaned her, Bramble had flapped around to be let out of her cage each day so she can be washed again.

‘Bramble has now started to fly around and we’ve put her in the aviary but she swoops back all the time for a clean.”

Friends of a feather, clean together. Woof!

* Photo courtesy SWNS

The funniest dog blog, written by a dog, on the internet. Commentary on the latest animal news stories of the day.

In one of Lisa’s favorite magazines, Modern Dog, there is a great story about an unusual pair.  Best friends who overlook their differences,  and only care about being there for each other.

On the CBS Evening News Katie Couric did a piece on the animal kingdom’s oddest couple, a rescued mutt named Bella and her best gal pal, 34-year-old Asian elephant Tarra. The girls became fast friends at The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee, a non-profit pachyderm refuge founded in 1995 by Carol Buckley and Scott Blais.

At 2700 acres, it is the largest natural-habitat sanctuary of its kind, providing a place of peace for sick, old or needy elephants. In addition to the 17 endangered African and Asian elephants that call the sanctuary home, many homeless dogs and cats have found respite there as well.

It is one of these sanctuary dogs that formed an unlikely but enduring friendship with Tarra. Bella, who now spends her days lounging in the shade of Tarra’s belly, was taken in by the Sanctuary when she was found guarding a bulldozer on recently acquired land. Perhaps this bulldozer-attachment pointed to an inherent draw towards the large, for an elated Tarra soon won Bella, the subject of her affection, over.

Run on over to Modern Dog to read the full story and see a video of Tarra and Bella in action.  Also,  visit  The Elephant Sanctuary website to read all about the sanctuary and their elephants.

* Pic courtesy Modern Dog and The Elephant Sanctuary

Janice just barked this important information to me for Dogster readers in the Wheaton, Illinois area.

A warning has been issued by the Wheaton Chief of Police, Mark Field.

Coyote Alert

WHEATON, Ill. – The highly adaptable coyote continues to flourish in the western suburbs within populated areas, mostly because of the interesting menu available in the form of dog and cat food, or easy-to-open garbage cans.

Coyotes can survive on whatever food is available, from rodents to rubbish, from insects to fruit to carrion. They can be a threat to family pets. Although no attacks have been reported within the City of Wheaton, in isolated but tragic cases elsewhere, coyotes have attacked small children.

Essentially unimpeded by control measures, abundant food has encouraged coyotes to become accustomed to the sight and sounds of humans. Consequently, coyote populations and range have expanded in recent years in the western suburbs.

While coyotes are valuable in decreasing the rodent population, their presence in populated areas can be minimized.

DO feed pets indoors or promptly remove dishes when pets complete their meal outside. Store bags of pet food indoors.

DO clear brush and dense weeds from around property. This deprives rodents of shelter and reduces protective cover for coyotes.

DON’T leave domestic pet food outside. Wildlife will soon depend upon it.

DO use trash barrels equipped with tight clamping devices on the lids, which will prevent spills should they be tipped over by large animals.

DO try to educate your friends and neighbors about the problems associated with feeding coyotes. If you belong to a homeowner’s association or neighborhood watch, bring up the subject during one of the meetings.

DON’T feed or provide water for coyotes or other wildlife. This practice abnormally attracts coyotes and promotes increased numbers of rodents, birds, snakes, and other creatures that can provide major portions of the coyote’s natural diet.

TO PROTECT PETS

Keep small pets (cats, rabbits, small dogs) indoors. Don’t allow them to run free at any time. They are easy, favored prey. Some coyotes hunt cats in residential areas.

Large dogs should be brought inside after dark and never allowed to run loose.

DON’T leave domestic pet food outside. Wildlife will soon depend upon it.

Definitely some great advice for those that live in the area.  Please be sure to pass this important information on to your friends and neighbors so they can keep their pets safe too.

* The beauty above, Yoat, actually lives on the property of a Dogster member.

Hi Dogsters, just wanted to let you know Bo is stepping in this morning to share some info on Santa Paws.

Sing along with me, “Here comes Santa Paws, here comes Santa Paws, right down Santa Paws Lane…”

Soon to be seen at a doggie mall in your area is the one and only Santa Claus. This time he’s dealing with the family pet.

Santa has a new troublemaker to contend with: the family pet.

Chickens, rodents, birds, cats, dogs – you name it – Santa’s being photographed with a lot of critters these days, and has the scratches, ripped suit and urine stains to prove it.

This is the first I’ve heard that the family pet includes rodents. I gotta ask…”Where does the writer of this article live?”

“I’ve been licked a lot,” said Harriet Farmer, 63, who’s posed with hundreds of pets over the past seven years as the Ottawa Humane Society’s volunteer Santa.

What? Santa Claus is really Harriet Farmer? I thought his name was Kris Kringle? But of course I kid, for we all know the truth. Just as most of you reading this, I was devastated when my parents told me that Santa Paws wasn’t real. My intent here is not to spoil all the young pups’ Christmas, so let’s continue on.

While dogs and cats make up most of Santa’s pet clientele, that’s not all that people are bringing in.

“My favorites have been the five baby ferrets,” Ms. Farmer said. “Oh, I had a rat with a Santa hat. He was lovely.”

Did Santa, aka Ms. Farmer, just say that his/her preference is for baby ferrets and freakin’ rats? Call me crazy but I’ve never seen a magazine titled Rat Fancy or a book about ferret friendly bed and breakfasts.

Anyway, the article goes on to provide some hints on getting a good picture with Santa and pet.

Pet and talk to the animals as much as possible so they don’t get bored.

…and don’t just make small talk about the weather. Make the discussion substantive…like talking about the pros and cons of moving back to the gold standard or what we should do about contaminated dog food coming from China or the best way to create a bunny rabbit shaped poo.

The high-pitched sound of a whistle or a squeaky toy just before the photo is taken will usually alert the animals and cause them to prick up their ears and look attentive.

This is the type of advice that gets Santa bitten. Take it from a veteran, when someone blows a whistle in your ear the last thing you’re going to do is smile for the camera. Cheese…don’t just say it, give it…and you will see a pet smile a mile wide.

Dogs can sometimes be coaxed into posing with a treat such as a dog biscuit or treasured toy.

Bag the toy and make it a biscuit, or better yet some people food. Since we’re probably taking this picture at the mall, I’ll opt for the sweet and sour chicken that’s been sitting out for 5 hours from the Chinese “restaurant”. Mmm…tastes like kitty snickers.

Cats are often aloof and don’t respond as readily to bribery. To persuade cats to stay put for a shot, conceal a hot water bottle under a favorite blanket.

Better yet, conceal a .44 magnum under the blanket and threaten them with their life. They may be cold and aloof, but they’re not stupid. You’ll get the picture you’re looking for…unless the feline punk feels “lucky” that day.

Harassing pets to get a good picture does not work. They just become more agitated.

Not only is harassing a pet a bad idea, it could result in a restraining order. We wouldn’t want Santa arrested on Christmas Eve because he accidentally delivered a present to a home that had a restraining order out on him. Think of all the disappointed young pups on Christmas Day!

Here’s my advice…say no to pictures with Santa and yes to pictures with bikini clad poodles.

It constantly amazes me how dogs can help us in so many new ways! Take this article for example. Here is a dedicated group of humans trying to address a very serious problem. And who steps up to be their partners once again? Dogs, of course!

Okay, I know the dogs didn’t actually apply for the job but as our closest friends and symbiotes, dogs are helping theri humans meet these challenges. What would we do without them?

Thanks to Lindsey at Conservation International for barking over this article.

For These Dogs, Are Their New Tricks Saving Species?
May 13, 2008

Sniffing Dogs Help Monitor and Protect Threatened Animals in Brazil

It’s a tough job, but somebody – or at least some dogs – have to do it.

In the Cerrado region of Brazil, four dogs have been trained to detect animal feces by scent. These canines are helping researchers monitor rare and threatened wildlife such as jaguars, tapirs, giant anteaters, and maned wolves in and around Emas National Park, a protected area with the largest concentration of threatened species in Brazil.

The researchers analyze feces found by the dogs to learn where and how the threatened mammals live. Data on the numbers, range, diet, hormonal stress, parasites, and even genetic identity contribute to a study of how the mammals use environments inside and outside the park, especially on privately owned lands of the region.

The information helps develop conservation and development strategies that meet the needs of both the animals and local farmers. But the dogs’ efforts do not go unrewarded. They receive tennis balls to chase and chomp in return for their good work.

Preserving Vegetation for Species Survival

After a brief pilot study in 2004, research began in 2006 in a 3,000-square-kilometer (equivalent to 300,000 soccer fields) area in the western portion of Emas National Park and surrounding farms in Mato Grosso do Sul state and Goiás state.

Now nearing conclusion, the project’s analysis of feces samples shows that the species being studied roam the forest area surrounding the park, but fewer endangered mammals frequent farms with less than 30 percent of natural vegetation cover. Jaguars, however, rarely moved outside the protected park into the more deforested surrounding farmland, as they prefer the healthy ecosystems of conserved environments.

According to Carly Vynne of the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington, preservation of open grasslands should be a priority for the maned wolf, giant anteater, and giant armadillo since these species prefer open areas of park. Unfortunately, there is very little open area under protection outside the park.

Vynne leads the program as part of her doctoral thesis. Conservation International (CI) Brazil is a partner in her endeavor.

“The data and results serve as a warning to develop conservation strategies for the restoration of degraded areas in the region, both to conserve healthy ecosystems and biodiversity,” Vynne says.

Challenges in Cerrado

Brazil’s Cerrado region, a wooded grassland that is one of the world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots, already has lost 60 percent of its original area to deforestation and continues to disappear at twice the rate of the neighboring Amazon forest.

Such deforestation turns protected national parks into savanna islands surrounded by agricultural fields, noted Ricardo Machado, director of the Cerrado-Pantanal Program of CI-Brazil. Using the sniffing dogs to locate trails of endangered species is instrumental in identifying and establishing key areas as corridors to connect isolated areas of native vegetation. That means working with rural landowners to help threatened species survive.

PHOTOS: These are special dogs and they’re doing important work. Explore the project in pictures.

“If we wish to speak of sustainable development, we have to establish incentives and strategies for farmers to maintain native species in agricultural landscapes,” Machado said.

In addition to CI-Brazil, the project is supported by the University of Brasilia, the Jaguar Conservation Fund, and the Chico Mendes Institute for Conservation of Biodiversity, the entity responsible for management of the Emas National Park.

Old Methods, New Tricks

These dogs are trained in the same way that other dogs have been trained to sniff out drugs. When the dogs find the feces, the accompanying researcher marks the location by GPS and collects the samples. With the aid of satellite images, the sample data are correlated with the environments where the samples were found.

Professor Jader Marinho Filho of the University of Brasilia, a sponsor of the project, said sniffing dogs can collect data that otherwise would only be available through radio telemetry and other expensive and labor-intensive techniques. Perhaps one of the most important benefits: tracking dogs are non-intrusive. Using them to find data means collecting biological material without capturing or sedating animals, and the information they gather is essential.

Follow this link to read the rest of the article.

The Blue and Green BLUEgreen blog has photos on this post showing the expiration date on a bargain bin item that should have been tossed out, not into a sale bin. Here’s what the blog has to say:

I recently visited a local Petsmart today and the little “manager’s bargin bin” caught my eye. Looking around at several items, my eye came across treats that I thought I might buy. I was looking at the back and what do I notice, but that the treats were expired!

Follow this link to read the post and see the photos.

Are you looking for a new home? Have pets? Then you may find the PeoplewithPets site to be a real timesaver!

PeopleWithPets has listings of rental properties and hotels that accept pets. How cool is this? When I first moved to St. Louis I remember how hard it was to find a first home with my pack then, coonhound Reba and Weimaraner Nigel. How happy do you think most landlords were to see US coming? 90 pounds of Weimaraner, 65 pounds of coonhound and well, uh, me. Not exactly a landlords dream, I bet.

Here’s some information from the site:

Our goal at PeopleWithPets.com is to ease the burden of finding rental housing or hotel accommodations that will allow your dog, cat or other animals. We started in a few metro cities: Atlanta, Dallas, Austin, Orlando, Jacksonville and Raleigh-Durham. We have since then expanded to include the entire United States with pet friendly places to call home. If you find an apartment from our site, please tell them you found them on PeopleWithPets.com so we can continue to provide this FREE service to you. Happy home hunting for you and your best friends!

Dogsters and Catsters know that dogs, cats and others animalshave a different yet important type of intelligence. So this National Geographic article will probably not surprize you too much. Bit it will confirm some of what you already feel and know.

Personally, I’m thrilled to see this information talked about openly by reputable publications because there are way too many people who still believe that there is nothing we can learn from dogs and other animals.

Those of you who have visited me at the science fiction conventions know I am usually on panels about how humans view and write about non-humans. A few years ago I was on a panel with a successful writer who actually has a good-selling series with aliens. But he has little interest in non-human animals on THIS planet. When i asked him why he said it was because there was nothing else we could learn from other species on Earth. I hope this writer gets a chance to read this article. There are so many excellent scientists who know better. I hope the writer and others like him can learn from these true scientific pioneers.

There is so much we can learn about and from our canine and feline symbiotes, as well as the other species with whom we share this planet.

Thanks to Michael K. (who saw the convention panel with the other writer) for barking in this article from National Geographic.

Minds of their Own
Animals are smarter than you think.
By Virginia Morell
Photograph by Vincent J. Musi

In 1977 Irene Pepperberg, a recent graduate of Harvard University, did something very bold. At a time when animals still were considered automatons, she set out to find what was on another creature’s mind by talking to it. She brought a one-year-old African gray parrot she named Alex into her lab to teach him to reproduce the sounds of the English language. “I thought if he learned to communicate, I could ask him questions about how he sees the world.”

When Pepperberg began her dialogue with Alex, who died last September at the age of 31, many scientists believed animals were incapable of any thought. They were simply machines, robots programmed to react to stimuli but lacking the ability to think or feel. Any pet owner would disagree. We see the love in our dogs’ eyes and know that, of course, Spot has thoughts and emotions. But such claims remain highly controversial. Gut instinct is not science, and it is all too easy to project human thoughts and feelings onto another creature. How, then, does a scientist prove that an animal is capable of thinking—that it is able to acquire information about the world and act on it?

“That’s why I started my studies with Alex,” Pepperberg said. They were seated—she at her desk, he on top of his cage—in her lab, a windowless room about the size of a boxcar, at Brandeis University. Newspapers lined the floor; baskets of bright toys were stacked on the shelves. They were clearly a team—and because of their work, the notion that animals can think is no longer so fanciful.

Certain skills are considered key signs of higher mental abilities: good memory, a grasp of grammar and symbols, self-awareness, understanding others’ motives, imitating others, and being creative. Bit by bit, in ingenious experiments, researchers have documented these talents in other species, gradually chipping away at what we thought made human beings distinctive while offering a glimpse of where our own abilities came from. Scrub jays know that other jays are thieves and that stashed food can spoil; sheep can recognize faces; chimpanzees use a variety of tools to probe termite mounds and even use weapons to hunt small mammals; dolphins can imitate human postures; the archerfish, which stuns insects with a sudden blast of water, can learn how to aim its squirt simply by watching an experienced fish perform the task. And Alex the parrot turned out to be a surprisingly good talker.

Thirty years after the Alex studies began, Pepperberg and a changing collection of assistants were still giving him English lessons. The humans, along with two younger parrots, also served as Alex’s flock, providing the social input all parrots crave. Like any flock, this one—as small as it was—had its share of drama. Alex dominated his fellow parrots, acted huffy at times around Pepperberg, tolerated the other female humans, and fell to pieces over a male assistant who dropped by for a visit. (”If you were a man,” Pepperberg said, after noting Alex’s aloofness toward me, “he’d be on your shoulder in a second, barfing cashews in your ear.”)

Pepperberg bought Alex in a Chicago pet store. She let the store’s assistant pick him out because she didn’t want other scientists saying later that she’d deliberately chosen an especially smart bird for her work. Given that Alex’s brain was the size of a shelled walnut, most researchers thought Pepperberg’s interspecies communication study would be futile.

“Some people actually called me crazy for trying this,” she said. “Scientists thought that chimpanzees were better subjects, although, of course, chimps can’t speak.”

Chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas have been taught to use sign language and symbols to communicate with us, often with impressive results. The bonobo Kanzi, for instance, carries his symbol-communication board with him so he can “talk” to his human researchers, and he has invented combinations of symbols to express his thoughts. Nevertheless, this is not the same thing as having an animal look up at you, open his mouth, and speak.

Pepperberg walked to the back of the room, where Alex sat on top of his cage preening his pearl gray feathers. He stopped at her approach and opened his beak.

“Want grape,” Alex said.

“He hasn’t had his breakfast yet,” Pepperberg explained, “so he’s a little put out.”

Alex returned to preening, while an assistant prepared a bowl of grapes, green beans, apple and banana slices, and corn on the cob.

Under Pepperberg’s patient tutelage, Alex learned how to use his vocal tract to imitate almost one hundred English words, including the sounds for all of these foods, although he calls an apple a “banerry.”

“Apples taste a little bit like bananas to him, and they look a little bit like cherries, so Alex made up that word for them,” Pepperberg said.

Alex could count to six and was learning the sounds for seven and eight.

“I’m sure he already knows both numbers,” Pepperberg said. “He’ll probably be able to count to ten, but he’s still learning to say the words. It takes far more time to teach him certain sounds than I ever imagined.”

After breakfast, Alex preened again, keeping an eye on the flock. Every so often, he leaned forward and opened his beak: “Ssse … won.”

“That’s good, Alex,” Pepperberg said. “Seven. The number is seven.”

“Ssse … won! Se … won!”

“He’s practicing,” she explained. “That’s how he learns. He’s thinking about how to say that word, how to use his vocal tract to make the correct sound.”

It sounded a bit mad, the idea of a bird having lessons to practice, and willingly doing it. But after listening to and watching Alex, it was difficult to argue with Pepperberg’s explanation for his behaviors. She wasn’t handing him treats for the repetitious work or rapping him on the claws to make him say the sounds.

“He has to hear the words over and over before he can correctly imitate them,” Pepperberg said, after pronouncing “seven” for Alex a good dozen times in a row. “I’m not trying to see if Alex can learn a human language,” she added. “That’s never been the point. My plan always was to use his imitative skills to get a better understanding of avian cognition.”

In other words, because Alex was able to produce a close approximation of the sounds of some English words, Pepperberg could ask him questions about a bird’s basic understanding of the world. She couldn’t ask him what he was thinking about, but she could ask him about his knowledge of numbers, shapes, and colors. To demonstrate, Pepperberg carried Alex on her arm to a tall wooden perch in the middle of the room. She then retrieved a green key and a small green cup from a basket on a shelf. She held up the two items to Alex’s eye.

“What’s same?” she asked.

Without hesitation, Alex’s beak opened: “Co-lor.”

“What’s different?” Pepperberg asked.

“Shape,” Alex said. His voice had the digitized sound of a cartoon character. Since parrots lack lips (another reason it was difficult for Alex to pronounce some sounds, such as ba), the words seemed to come from the air around him, as if a ventriloquist were speaking. But the words—and what can only be called the thoughts—were entirely his.

For the next 20 minutes, Alex ran through his tests, distinguishing colors, shapes, sizes, and materials (wool versus wood versus metal). He did some simple arithmetic, such as counting the yellow toy blocks among a pile of mixed hues.

And, then, as if to offer final proof of the mind inside his bird’s brain, Alex spoke up. “Talk clearly!” he commanded, when one of the younger birds Pepperberg was also teaching mispronounced the word green. “Talk clearly!”

“Don’t be a smart aleck,” Pepperberg said, shaking her head at him. “He knows all this, and he gets bored, so he interrupts the others, or he gives the wrong answer just to be obstinate. At this stage, he’s like a teenage son; he’s moody, and I’m never sure what he’ll do.”

“Wanna go tree,” Alex said in a tiny voice.

Alex had lived his entire life in captivity, but he knew that beyond the lab’s door, there was a hallway and a tall window framing a leafy elm tree. He liked to see the tree, so Pepperberg put her hand out for him to climb aboard. She walked him down the hall into the tree’s green light.

“Good boy! Good birdie,” Alex said, bobbing on her hand.

“Yes, you’re a good boy. You’re a good birdie.” And she kissed his feathered head.

He was a good birdie until the end, and Pepperberg was happy to report that when he died he had finally mastered “seven.”

Many of Alex’s cognitive skills, such as his ability to understand the concepts of same and different, are generally ascribed only to higher mammals, particularly primates. But parrots, like great apes (and humans), live a long time in complex societies. And like primates, these birds must keep track of the dynamics of changing relationships and environments.

“They need to be able to distinguish colors to know when a fruit is ripe or unripe,” Pepperberg noted. “They need to categorize things—what’s edible, what isn’t—and to know the shapes of predators. And it helps to have a concept of numbers if you need to keep track of your flock, and to know who’s single and who’s paired up. For a long-lived bird, you can’t do all of this with instinct; cognition must be involved.”

Being able mentally to divide the world into simple abstract categories would seem a valuable skill for many organisms. Is that ability, then, part of the evolutionary drive that led to human intelligence?

Charles Darwin, who attempted to explain how human intelligence developed, extended his theory of evolution to the human brain: Like the rest of our physiology, intelligence must have evolved from simpler organisms, since all animals face the same general challenges of life. They need to find mates, food, and a path through the woods, sea, or sky—tasks that Darwin argued require problem-solving and categorizing abilities. Indeed, Darwin went so far as to suggest that earthworms are cognitive beings because, based on his close observations, they have to make judgments about the kinds of leafy matter they use to block their tunnels. He hadn’t expected to find thinking invertebrates and remarked that the hint of earthworm intelligence “has surprised me more than anything else in regard to worms.”

To Darwin, the earthworm discovery demonstrated that degrees of intelligence could be found throughout the animal kingdom. But the Darwinian approach to animal intelligence was cast aside in the early 20th century, when researchers decided that field observations were simply “anecdotes,” usually tainted by anthropomorphism. In an effort to be more rigorous, many embraced behaviorism, which regarded animals as little more than machines, and focused their studies on the laboratory white rat—since one “machine” would behave like any other.

But if animals are simply machines, how can the appearance of human intelligence be explained? Without Darwin’s evolutionary perspective, the greater cognitive skills of people did not make sense biologically. Slowly the pendulum has swung away from the animal-as-machine model and back toward Darwin. A whole range of animal studies now suggest that the roots of cognition are deep, widespread, and highly malleable.

Just how easily new mental skills can evolve is perhaps best illustrated by dogs. Most owners talk to their dogs and expect them to understand. But this canine talent wasn’t fully appreciated until a border collie named Rico appeared on a German TV game show in 2001. Rico knew the names of some 200 toys and acquired the names of new ones with ease.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig heard about Rico and arranged a meeting with him and his owners. That led to a scientific report revealing Rico’s uncanny language ability: He could learn and remember words as quickly as a toddler. Other scientists had shown that two-year-old children—who acquire around ten new words a day—have an innate set of principles that guides this task. The ability is seen as one of the key building blocks in language acquisition. The Max Planck scientists suspect that the same principles guide Rico’s word learning, and that the technique he uses for learning words is identical to that of humans.

To find more examples, the scientists read all the letters from hundreds of people claiming that their dogs had Rico’s talent. In fact, only two—both border collies—had comparable skills. One of them—the researchers call her Betsy—has a vocabulary of more than 300 words.

“Even our closest relatives, the great apes, can’t do what Betsy can do—hear a word only once or twice and know that the acoustic pattern stands for something,” said Juliane Kaminski, a cognitive psychologist who worked with Rico and is now studying Betsy. She and her colleague Sebastian Tempelmann had come to Betsy’s home in Vienna to give her a fresh battery of tests. Kaminski petted Betsy, while Tempelmann set up a video camera.

“Dogs’ understanding of human forms of communication is something new that has evolved,” Kaminski said, “something that’s developed in them because of their long association with humans.” Although Kaminski has not yet tested wolves, she doubts they have this language skill. “Maybe these collies are especially good at it because they’re working dogs and highly motivated, and in their traditional herding jobs, they must listen very closely to their owners.”

Scientists think that dogs were domesticated about 15,000 years ago, a relatively short time in which to evolve language skills. But how similar are these skills to those of humans? For abstract thinking, we employ symbols, letting one thing stand for another. Kaminski and Tempelmann were testing whether dogs can do this too.

Betsy’s owner—whose pseudonym is Schaefer—summoned Betsy, who obediently stretched out at Schaefer’s feet, eyes fixed on her face. Whenever Schaefer spoke, Betsy attentively cocked her head from side to side.

Kaminski handed Schaefer a stack of color photographs and asked her to choose one. Each image depicted a dog’s toy against a white background—toys Betsy had never seen before. They weren’t actual toys; they were only images of toys. Could Betsy connect a two-dimensional picture to a three-dimensional object?

Schaefer held up a picture of a fuzzy, rainbow-colored Frisbee and urged Betsy to find it. Betsy studied the photograph and Schaefer’s face, then ran into the kitchen, where the Frisbee was placed among three other toys and photographs of each toy. Betsy brought either the Frisbee or the photograph of the Frisbee to Schaefer every time.

“It wouldn’t have been wrong if she’d just brought the photograph,” Kaminski said. “But I think Betsy can use a picture, without a name, to find an object. Still, it will take many more tests to prove this.”

Even then, Kaminski is unsure that other scientists will ever accept her discovery because Betsy’s abstract skill, as minor as it may seem to us, may tread all too closely to human thinking.

Follow this link to read the rest of the article.

Yay for Rex! big barks!!!

Thanks to the Telegraph for this article.

Dog comes to the rescue of baby kangaroo
01/04/2008

A dog has rescued a tiny baby kangaroo, gently carrying it to safety in its mouth after the joey’s mother was killed by car.

Rex the dog found the four-month-old joey in the pouch of its dead mother and carried it to safety
Rex, the German short-haired pointer cross, was walking with his owner, Leonie Allan, near the Bells Beach in Torquay, on Australia’s south coast, when they passed a dead kangaroo.

The marsupials are often killed while crossing busy roads, so Mrs Allan thought nothing of it. But Rex sensed something and when Mrs Allan went outside later in the day, she saw the ten-year-old family pet pointing and went to investigate.

“I was worried he’d found a snake and called him back, but when he returned he dropped the joey at my feet,” Mrs Allan said.

“I was so surprised and delighted. Rex saved the day.”

The dog had found the four-month-old joey in the pouch of its dead mother and gently prised it out, carrying it back to his owner.

“He obviously sensed the baby roo was still alive in the pouch and somehow had gently grabbed it by the neck, gently retrieved it and brought it to me.”

The animals showed an instant fondness for each other, nuzzling and playing together, Mrs Allan said.

“The joey was snuggling up to him, jumping up to him and Rex was sniffing and licking him. It was quite cute.”

Most joeys whose mothers are killed by cars die in the same collision. Those who survive the impact are rarely able to fend for themselves outside the pouch and succumb soon after.

But the prospects of this kangaroo – named Rex junior after its saviour – are good. It will be hand-reared at a wildlife sanctuary until it is 18 months old, when it will be released into the wild.

Tehree Gordon, director of Jirrahlinga Wildlife Sanctuary, was amazed at the bond between the animals and said the fact Rex was so gentle with his younger namesake was proof that dogs – often criticised in Australia for killing native fauna – could live in harmony with local species if they were taught not to attack them.

Follow this link to read the rest of the article.