Posted on 09/18/2009 3:06:19 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
A little while ago I made my wife laugh by doing an impression of a dog acting guilty. After the laughter subsided I started thinking: How does a dog even know how to act guilty? Guilt is not an emotion in any part of the rest animal kingdom except perhaps to a much lesser extent in cats and maybe chimpanzees although I am not sure about the latter due to little contact with chimps. Cats have such a superiority complex that they really don't show much guilt about anything.
But dogs go completely overboard in the guilt department. You come home and if your dog did something it shouldn't have done, such as leave a "deposit" on the floor, you can often tell right away. The head is down, you might hear some whimpering, and the eyes give away a great deal of guilt. Not only can dogs act guilty, it is much more exaggerated than in humans since people often tried to hide their guilt.
We take this feeling of guilt for granted in dogs because we are so used to it. However, guilt is a very complicated emotion. How did dogs pick up feelings of guilt? It's really amazing when you think about it.
I have an absurdly strong and athletic Bull Mastiff female. I have to keep on top of things or she thinks she is a semi-autonomous member of the pack with ‘decision on who gets bit’ (mostly yappy dogs) decision making power.
He’s a gem.
a total gentleman
after the first day it was like he lived here his whole life
we’ve had several older golden rescues in the last decade
call our house “Del Webb for Dogs”
I think they pay you back a million to one, the only hard part is when they pass away.
That little one is gorgeous.
We almost got a yellow female Lab pup . . . but the owner of the bitch had not tested them for EIC, and I didn't want to get burned again, now that there actually IS a test (poor Ruby was almost 2 years old before they developed the test!)
Beautiful Lab. I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for those boogers. :)
And Jesus still loves you. lol
I think I live with your twin sister. lol
What’s EIC?
She belonged to our next door neighbor, an elderly man who was gassed in the Argonne in WWI. Periodically he had to go into the VA with lung trouble, and we would babysit the goat while he was gone.
He was just an old country boy, and as far as he was concerned the goat was just a lawnmower -- she had to live on the weeds and stuff in his back yard. When she came to our house for babysitting, she got alfalfa hay, Purina Goat Chow, and her own drinking fountain in the back yard, as well as a brushing every day and a bath once a week. She turned from a bag of bones with brittle hair into a fat, sassy, glossy-coated beauty.
And she used to periodically have a jailbreak and come putting her nose on our sunroom windows looking for a treat . . . .
Anyhow, when he passed away he bequeathed the goat to us, which was very nice, but then his relations came from south Georgia and claimed the goat. I just hope they didn't barbeque her -- but I think she was too old and tough for that.
African wild dogs are in the dog family, but not in the same genus or species. From wiki -- "The African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus) is a carnivorous mammal of the Canidae family"
The dingo's are considered to be descendants of feral dogs. Wiki -- "The Dingo (Canis lupus dingo) is a domestic dog"
These days dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are considered to be subspecies of wolf (Canis lupus). The old idea that wolves were in a separate genus (Lupus lupus) is now rejected.
Naturally this is still a matter of controversy.
It's a genetic fault in the neuromuscular transmitters to the hind legs. If the dog gets overtired, overheated, and overexcited, their hind end quits working. But you know it's not heat stroke because in 15 minutes with rest and hydration they're absolutely fine, as though nothing had happened.
It's the scariest thing -- Ruby has had one episode, during intensive training on a very hot day. I thought she had stepped in a hole and broken her back. While some dogs are severely affected and some have died during an episode, Ruby seems to be only mildly affected, and with Doggie Gatorade and cooling mats, fans, etc. she has never had another attack.
mine i don’t think know the difference..... we refer to them as arizona dog biscuts :)
tooo funny...
No kidding? I wonder if that is what my little Rex has. He can literally come to a stop and not move for about 5 minutes.
I have been saying for years he is a dork and lazy. I just pick him up.
Does it affect cockers or is my little guy just a little lazy?
Cute pictures on this thread and see video at post 25
The University of Minnesota Vet School is the outfit that isolated the gene and developed the blood test.
I could only watch a couple of seconds of that video.
You are right. That ain’t my little boy. He’s just lazy. I don’t care.
I love him and sometimes they what they is.
thanks for the video, erh, sort of.
Thank you.
Our first kidding season (my hubby and I being city folk that decided to raise goats) we lost 3 out of 4 of our first year...But the one I was able to save became quite a pet...He was the only one that I could let out of the pasture and he would follow me around the farm, if he lost track of me he'd baaa baaa until I called him...I spent so much time with him and carried him to the alfalfa field (he was too weak to walk) and I'd hold him up with my calfs (leg muscles not cow) and let him eat all he wanted and supplemented him with a bottle several times a day...A neighbor around the corner raised dairy goats and I'd go buy a gallon from her for my little guy (that ended up being his name)
Angora's don't smell like a lot of breeds of goats as they are like deer and have a breeding season (2 months) at that time the breeding billys stink to high heaven...They urinate on themselves and I guess that is irrestistible to the nannys...Just not to the owners....You can smell those guys from 30 feet away...P.U.
As a general rule 1 goat is a lonely goat, being a flock animal they are more at ease with others...
I got on a thread quite a while back of with one gal that was able to housebreak her goat...she sent me a picture...now thats a woman with patience...but she too had a great story....
But as long as the dog seems o.k. and not frightened, it's not as bad as it would be otherwise. It's when they're scared of what's happening that it's really bad.
When Ruby went down, she had four of us working over her and one on the phone to the vet. She had no idea what the fuss was about, but she enjoyed it very much, she was wagging her tail and smiling and licking everyone's hands . . . one of the pro trainers said, "Ruby, I hope you're not doing this just to get all this attention."
I was warned not to keep a billy! Oddly enough the lady down the hill on the OTHER side had an old billy goat with one horn and he WAS a stinky old fellow. She kept him on a tether in the yard to eat the kudzu.
This neighborhood was in downtown Atlanta but you might as well have been somewhere out in the country in north Georgia. The area was settled by folks out of NW GA who came down to Atlanta to work in the Tull Sheet Metal factory, and they brought the country with them. We loved it!
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