I’m dealing with yet another emergency, but I am also trying to keep my publishing schedule, so here is what would normally be a weekend “links post.”
Over at Scienceblogs, I’ve become a faithful reader of The Thoughtful Animal. Well, over the past few weeks Jason has been knocking them out of the park.
- Jason wrote about a study where researchers recorded growls in different contexts. I was able to hear the difference in the 2 recorded growls and have heard the guarding growl many times. The results on how dogs reacted to the different growls is fascinating.
- If you’ve been reading here andor reading some of my comments on different blogs, how dogs become dogs is one of my favorite topics. In a pretty long post, Jason covers some research done by Brian Hare et. al that looks compares 2 competing theories on how dogs developed their highly-developed social skills with humans. Was it deliberately selected for, did it develop as a by-product of selection for tameness/less aggression?
- Social skills aren’t just for dogs though. What about Polar Bears?
Dr. V is on vacation this week, and she has arranged for some guest posters. If today’s post on kids and dogs is any indication, it’s going to be a great week.
Last week Angela at fun4fido posted a great article about what dominance really is. This article covers a lot of what Dr. Suzanne Hetts discussed at the Best Friend Forever Conference I attended 2 weeks ago.
Youre right, dogs are not only the sociable animals on the planet. Cats and polar bears can be sociable with their own kind.