Merry Christmas and Seasons Greetings to all

MERRY CHRISTMAS and Happy Holidays to all from Shasta, myself and Enok (our rescued kitty)!

I thought I would post the intuitive of a canine. After all, Shasta as my service dog HAS to know prior to even me when my health is run a muck to alert me and at times respond to my necessary medical needs.

This can't be taught as it's a 6th sence that perhaps all dogs may have, but since it's not needed it isn't developed. That's my own theory anyway.

While I did have to train her to meet my needs as far as physical help and gaining me more independance, their are many things she does that put me in awe at how she taught me. An example being that while I was in a chronic fatigue flare and not able to fuction properly. I was either sleeping for extremely long periods or when I did wake up, I felt so groggy and impossible to function normally cognitively.

A dog is a ham’s best friend



By Arthur BLACK
Dec 24 2006


Science ignores things that make life worth living for the simple reason that beauty, love and so on, are not measurable quantities and science deals only with what can be measured.

Aldous Huxley

Mister Huxley was bang on. Science is pretty useless when it comes to measuring immeasurables like beauty and love.

And, it turns out, heroism in dogs.

We all grew up with tales of dog heroism. Larger-than-life, smart-as-a-whip canines like Rin Tin Tin and Lassie pulling kiddies out of raging cataracts or barking sleeping families awake to save them from a house fire.

All heart-warming folk legends – but what if they were just that? Legends. Mere myths designed to make us feel warm and fuzzy about our warm and furry friends? Researchers at the University of Western Ontario decided to question the widely held belief that pets – dogs specifically -- are capable of understanding emergencies and reacting appropriately.

The researchers designed two experiments. In the first, a dozen owners of 12 different breeds of dog walked their pets through a field. Each owner, on a pre-assigned signal, stopped, clutched his chest, gurgled a bit and fell to the ground.

Rin Tin Tin would know what to do. He’d bark an SOS. Lassie would haul the apparent heart attack victim to a taxi stand. The Littlest Hobo would probably find a phone and dial 911 with his nose.

The twelve dogs in the experiment did next to nothing. Some of them barked a little or nuzzled their owners. The toy poodle did search out a bystander, but curled up in the bystanders lap and went to sleep.

In the second experiment the scientists put the dog owners under a collapsed bookcase making it look like they were pinned and helpless. The dog owners then cried out to their dogs, telling them to ‘go and get help’.

The twelve dogs checked their owners out. Sniffed around the books some. Not a one of them made any move to go and find assistance.

“I wasn’t surprised that they didn’t,” said Bill Roberts. “It appears that (dogs) don’t understand when an emergency has occurred or what to do about it.”

Now I can tell you a thing or two about Bill Roberts. He’s a psychology professor and co-author of the study that resulted from the two aforementioned experiments. I learned that from the newspaper story, but I can tell you one more thing.

Bill Roberts doesn’t own a dog. Or if he does, he hasn’t been paying attention.

Of COURSE the dogs didn’t react when their owners faked heart attacks or pretended to be helpless under a fallen bookcase – dogs may or may not be smart enough to go for help in an emergency – but they are definitely smart enough to recognize lousy acting when they see it.

Dogs don’t see situations so much as smell them. Real victims of emergencies give off chemical cues that Christopher Plummer or Meryl Streep couldn’t fake.

Those twelve dogs in the University of Western Ontario weren’t failing an emergency response experiment – they were evaluating an amateur acting seminar – and giving it a ‘four paws down’ rating.

The best reaction to the experiment appeared in my newspaper a day or two after the article about the non-responsive dogs. It was a letter to the editor from Michelle Poulton of Nanoose Bay, B.C.:

“Did the researchers consider that dogs understand when people are faking an emergency? I have had dogs as pets for many years. While living on Salt Spring Island in the 1980s, I had two dogs, a terrier-cross lab and a coon hound. They were dear but not the smartest bricks in the load. They were trained never to stray on the roads, which were twisty with blind corners.

“One day Nipper and Boomer didn’t respond to my calls. Then Nipper appeared at the top of the driveway, refusing to come in. I followed him and found a small child tottering down the middle of the windy, dangerous road.

“On either side of him were my two wonderful dogs.”

To which I can only add: Amen, Michelle.

And Professor Roberts? You still have a lot to learn.

Get yourself a dog.