Saturday comes a day early this week, at least here on Dog Spelled Forward. I’m a little behind on editing video for tutorials, so I am posting this today.
First up is a wonderful article from the NY Times this week about the huge impact companion animals can have on people with special needs. It’s a great story.
Next we have a dog that can read. Allegedly. I think the fact that she offered “bang” when the “wave” sign came out says something, but I am a hopeless skeptic.
Here’s an absolutely insanely fast Labrador Retriever that is having the time of her life:
Special thanks to the Pet Connection blog for sharing that.
Over on Dog Star Daily I posted Six Ways to Change Your Dog’s Behavior Now and the post generated some interesting comments.
And keep in mind, the Blog Carnivals are here all month!
One Comment
I am skeptical of the reading dog. I wonder how many of the words she would get right if someone other than the owner held up the signs.
Or, even better, let the owner hold up the sign for the dog, but with out knowing which one she’s holding up.
The problem with things like this is that our animals pick up on so many tiny cues that we don’t even realize we are giving. For instance, I thought our dog had a great verbal-only release from a stay. Later, I realized that instead of the verbal command, she was orienting too and responding to a tiny forward shift in my weight right before I gave the command. And I had even been trying to keep my body position neutral. I’ve seen too many clever Hans type situations, where the handler didn’t even know they were cuing the behavior.
Pigeons are perfectly capable of learning to distinguish words (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA). So, theoretically, I bet it’s possible to teach a dog. I just don’t think that’s what’s going on here.
Mary H.
http://stalecheerios.com/blog
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