Posted on 09/22/2017 10:02:58 AM PDT by Kaslin
One of my favorite kinds of news stories is the report of a new scientific study that verifies the obvious. You've seen them. New research finds that heterosexual men are attracted to very attractive women. Evidence collected by wildlife researchers has confirmed that bears really do use the woods as toilets.
But some research that corroborates the obvious is exciting because some people refuse to accept the obvious.
Which brings me to the work of Dr. Gregory Berns, a neuroscientist at Emory University and the author of "What It's Like to Be a Dog." Berns has, from what I can tell, the best gig in neuroscience. He spends all day taking pictures of dog brains. Don't worry: He doesn't remove them. He uses magnetic resonance imaging to study what's going on in Fido's head. It's tougher than it sounds because the dogs have to hold absolutely still for Berns to get a good read. But that's OK. They got the goodest doggos around, as folks on dog-obsessed Twitter might say, to volunteer.
And what did Berns discover? Something that almost every dog owner in the world could have told you: Dogs aren't faking it when they act like they love you. Because it's not an act.
Berns and his team confirmed this through a host of tests that looked at different centers of the doggie brain and how they responded to different stimuli. In one test they alternated between giving the pooches hot dogs (the food, not Dachshunds) and offering them praise. Looking at the pleasure centers of the dogs' brains, the researchers found that nearly all the dogs responded to "Who's a good boy?! You are!" (or whatever they actually said) with at least as much pleasure as when they got a Hebrew National. A fifth of the dogs actually preferred praise to food.
Berns concluded that dogs derive as much pleasure from love as from food.
As a somewhat obsessed dog guy, I'm the first to concede that a central tenet of doggie philosophy is to reject the whole love-vs.-food paradigm as a false choice. Dogs are committed to the idea that there is no such thing as too much of a good thing. But as almost anyone who has come home to their dog after an extended absence will tell you, dogs don't go bonkers for missing loved ones solely because they think there's a meal in it for them.
And yet, there are people who argue almost precisely that. There's what I would call the dumb version and the smart version of that particular school of thought. The dumb version, as the label suggests, is dumb. It can be found in people who say things like, "Dogs just lick you for the salt," or, "It's just an animal; you shouldn't care about its feelings."
The smart version has more merit. Evolutionary psychologists and other scientists label dogs "social parasites" or, in the words of some, "con artists." They claim that dogs evolved from wolves to exploit our weakness for cuteness. They also note that dogs evolved an ability found almost nowhere else in the animal world: to read human body language and expressions. Indeed, Berns found evidence of this in his MRI studies.
Some, rightly, reject the term "parasitism" in favor of "mutualism," because while dogs certainly benefitted from the warmth of cavemen's campfires and the tossed scraps from their mastodon kills, they also made important contributions as guard dogs and hunters. Pat Shipman even speculates in "The Invaders: How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction" that dogs gave us a competitive advantage against our (presumably) hated rivals, the Neanderthals. Dogs -- or proto-wolf/dogs -- weren't so much pets as allies in hunting big game, helping us evolve as a cooperative species.
I think that's all true or at least quite plausible. But what it leaves out is the ingredient missing in almost all discussions of evolved behavior and genetic programming -- not just for dogs but for people, too. Dogs obviously evolved to depend on humans, but humans also evolved to depend on dogs. From our genes' perspective, we love our children to ensure that our DNA lives to see another day. But that's not how we consciously think about it, nor does that explanation diminish the experience of love or make it any less real.
Dog genes may be designed to con us, but the dogs themselves aren't in on the caper. They just love us, because that's what dogs do.
I knew things were going to be different when my old Black Labrador(since deceased) told me once that he didn’t want to be called a ‘’dog’’ anymore. He told me that he wanted me to refer to him as a “Canine American’’.
I was cleaning a deer a few years ago. It was hanging from a tree. It got dark, so I set up a halogen light. My dog went and laid down on the edge of the light, and watched the darkness for intruders.
Agreed. There’s nothing better than unconditional love.
Rather have a dog than a woman any day.
You’ve just described women.
I read a brilliant theory explaining how dogs and humans might have learned to hunt together. Sorry, but I don’t remember whose theory it was.
Under this theory, the dogs do what they do best — chasing and harassing the prey, let’s say a Bison. Dogs would be happy to pursue and harry, nipping and snapping, until the big beast is exhausted. But the exhausted Bison is still dangerous in close quarters and the dogs would face serious danger going in for the kill.
That’s where the humans come in. Humans are lousy at chasing prey but they are very effective at killing. So the humans dispatch the Bison and both humans and dogs get together to share the big feast. I like it!
Dog ping
There is a reason Dog uses the same letters as God. We have had rescue Beagles for years and the love they show us and we show them cannot be replaced or replicated. Its unconditional and solid. How sad it would be to go home to a silent house every evening, no wagging tails, barking, howls and bays of joy.
Wonderful post :)
Love my dogs. They’re better than people.
And they love back. Unconditionally, and fiercely.
Lock each in a car trunk for a while.
Release them.
Which one is happier to see you?
I think this research proves that muzzies are not human....
I don’t think so. There were times my mini-doxie had to stay in the house by herself for up to three days when I was gone on a business trip. I put out several bowls of food and plenty of water to tide her over.
She did not touch any of the food until I got back. Then she ran into the kitchen and wolfed down some chow. If all she cared about was survival would she have skipped eating for days because I was gone?
Proving a negative?
The best alarm system is a dog. Way better than an electronic system. Works 7/24, knows friend form foe and can actually fight back. Their only fault as an alarm system is the off switch.
Humans would do the same thing, right? If you get lost in the woods with only a piece of beef jerky, you SHOULD hold off eating it for as long as you can, not knowing when you'll find food again.
How is paper training the worse thing you can do? This is not merely paper training, it’s a fixed location in our house where newspaper is inside a 1 ft. x 2 ft. tray, and she NEVER makes mistakes in the house. She uses the tray whether we’re home or not. Oh, and she’s a TINY dog at 3 lbs.
Some comedian made the point a long time ago.
“When you leave in the morning, your dog doesn’t know if he’ll EVER see you again.”
It’s a fun thought and true to a minor extent, I guess. But my dog expected me to come back home and would be at her station atop the couch, looking out the window for me to round the corner on the way home, at the right time. I was expected to come back.
And she didn’t go into no-food when I left the house every morning. When I was gone too long, she didn’t ration. That implies she ate a little. She stopped eating entirely.
Other than the above, your post is right on. Heh.
A friend of mine had one of those tiny little energetic breeds of dog. I'm not a dog person, but when we'd take long walks for exercise, we'd take the little arfer with is, me with the leash. After some period of miles (and occasional stops at fast food joints for cups of water for us and the fido) he'd be all worn out, and had an empty colon to boot. He'd generally fall asleep with his adorable head on my boot. Of course, he may have liked me better just because I wasn't the one who took him to get his nuts chopped off. Thanks Kaslin.
Pat Shipman even speculates in "The Invaders: How Humans and Their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction" that dogs gave us a competitive advantage against our (presumably) hated rivals, the Neanderthals. Dogs -- or proto-wolf/dogs -- weren't so much pets as allies in hunting big game, helping us evolve as a cooperative species.PS is full of crap.
The Neandertal Enigma"Frayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
in local libraries
Have a couple of kids they live longer.
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