one smart (ass) dog

via

she doesn't look afraid

via

do i believe this?

yes i do. animals can do MORE than a toddler. things we cannot even fathom. smelling sickness (as in cancer). knowing when we are depressed (i don't know about you, but when i was sad or upset my dogs KNEW it. they'd seek me out and wouldn't leave me alone until i calmed down. then they were on their merry way).


p.s. I'VE MET WICKED STUPID DOGS too you know. just like humans, some are smarter than others

(and i don't think dogs can count)

Your family dog may be smarter than your toddler
By Doug Gross
CNN
Your dog may not actually be smarter than somebody's honor student -- popular bumper stickers aside. But your canine companion might well be smarter than their toddler, according to a growing body of research on how dogs think.

Using adapted tests designed for human children, psychologists have learned that average dogs can count, reason and recognize words and gestures on par with a human 2 -year-old.

"They may not be Einsteins, but are sure closer to humans than we thought," said Stanley Coren, a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia and leading researcher on dog behavior.

Coren planned to present his research Saturday at the American Psychological Association's annual convention in Toronto, Canada.,,,,,,,,,,

i love animals

but i love dogs the best. i absolutely know animals and dogs in particular (i only know this because i am most familiar with dogs and not other animals) adjust. they get by. they have no choice. they just DO IT

this is a most wonderful tale. i wanted to share it in case anyone who reads my blog is going through this.
DON'T PANIC. really

(friends went to mexico a few years back. they have a pug and a bulldog. they left the dogs with his mother. while playing one day the bulldog accidentally took out the eye of the pug. yes, it really was play and yes it really was an accident. when the couple got home and for a long time afterwards they were horrified and panicked. no need. the pug, we'll call her lu, ADJUSTED JUST FINE. PLUS, she makes one HELL of a pirate at halloween)
Virginia, the Blind Dog
Posted by McLaren+Torchinsky

Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with a common-law wife, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap.


One of my dogs, Virginia, went blind late last year. I knew it was coming; she has glaucoma, and lost sight in one of her eyes a while before. We'd been keeping the other eye alive with lots and lots of medicine, but the vet told us it was just a matter of time. So, when the morning came and I found her running around crazily all over the house, nose to the ground, I shouldn't have been surprised.

Still, I was pretty alarmed. And while I read lots on the internet about this, and even saw the articles that said not to panic, the dog will adapt, those articles were almost invariably written by the sort of hyper-caring earth-mother women who could say taking care of a limbless, eyeless, incontinent sea lion was an easy, rewarding experience anyone could do. I didn't really buy it.

So, when she went blind, I did end up going a bit nuts. She's a profoundly sweet-natured and smart dog, and seeing her struggle, without benefit of understanding why, was wrenching. I looked into research into artificial vision, surgeries, other medications; everything was either a pipe dream, insanely expensive, and almost nothing guaranteed any vision retention. It was crazy, and while I was being an idiot, Virginia was out there, rewiring her little brain to make it work.
................

funny

(via bits & pieces)

we all need some cuteness today (goddess knows i do)

"Play?" - More amazing video clips are a click away

(via manticore's moustache)

nice stache!

via

this is a wonderful

christmas story. scott arnold is my kind o' person!

For a Va. Neighborhood's Dogs, Santa Arrives on a Mail Truck
By Nick Miroff
Washington Post Staff Writer
In the troubled and toothy history of canine-mail carrier relations, the northwest corner of Zip code 22101 is something of an anomaly. There, dogs do not erupt in an angry frenzy at delivery time, nor to do they savage the mail when it comes through the slot. Some are known to leap up and down in celebration when postman Scott Arnold arrives each day; others simply throw their heads back and howl. But it is during the holidays that the humans along Arnold's route through McLean especially look forward to seeing him. That is when Arnold, a 27-year U.S. Postal Service veteran, transforms into a kind of dog-themed St. Nick, powered not by reindeer but by the force of a curious tradition he calls Santa Paws (he couldn't resist).

Each year, rain, snow or shine, Arnold delivers more than 100 doggy stockings along his route, writing each pooch's name in careful lettering across the cuff.......

obama gets down to some

important BID-NEZ
Obama takes questions from grade schoolers
Visits students after announcing education secretary choice Arne Duncan
-ap

..........The president-elect talked about how his daughters, 10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha, will get a dog when they make the move to the White House next month.
"They've been asking for a dog for years now," he said.
Obama said the girls would need to take care of their pet. And that didn't just mean feeding and walking the dog.

"You know, if they do their business, if they've got some poop — you got to make sure that you're not just leaving it there," Obama said............

d-boy!!!

shot three times, TWICE in the head.......... and he's still 'freshening up'

duhhhhhh

hope they didn't spend a lot o' dough on this study cause ANY dog owner could have told 'em this FOR FREE


Dogs feel envy and reject unequal treatment: study
Agence France-Presse

CHICAGO — Dogs can feel a simple form of envy and will respond with petulance to unequal treatment, a study published Monday has found.

But while dogs will refuse to give their paw when they see another dog is given a treat for doing it and they are not, they do not seem to care whether the other dog gets a better treat.

And unlike monkeys -- who in previous experiments got so frustrated with the unequal treatment that they refused to eat the less tasty treat -- the dogs never rejected a snack.......

go to the wapo

and see their old dogs are the best dogs photo array/tribute

amazing

(photo:

"Mr. Stinky," (a.k.a. Luigi), a 14-year-old Yorkshire terrier, is tougher than he looks.

Michael S. Williamson)

some out of the ordinary red river rafters

speaking of animals (but NOT cruelty this time, thank goddess)

i don't think ANY of us are surprised at this: Why Do Cats Hang Around Us? (Hint: They Can't Open Cans)
Genetic Research Suggests Felines 'Domesticated Themselves'


By David Brown Washington Post Staff Writer

Your hunch is correct. Your cat decided to live with you, not the other way around. The sad truth is, it may not be a final decision.
But don't take this feline diffidence personally. It runs in the family. And it goes back a long way -- about 12,000 years, actually.
Those are among the inescapable conclusions of a genetic study of the origins of the domestic cat, being published today in the journal Science.
The findings, drawn from an analysis of nearly 1,000 cats around the world, suggest that the ancestors of today's tabbies, Persians and Siamese wandered into Near Eastern settlements at the dawn of agriculture. They were looking for food, not friendship...........


Study Traces Cat’s Ancestry to Middle East

By NICHOLAS WADE

Some 10,000 years ago, somewhere in the Near East, an audacious wildcat crept into one of the crude villages of early human settlers, the first to domesticate wheat and barley. There she felt safe from her many predators in the region, such as hyenas and larger cats.
The rodents that infested the settlers’ homes and granaries were sufficient prey. Seeing that she was earning her keep, the settlers tolerated her, and their children greeted her kittens with delight.
At least five females of the wildcat subspecies known as Felis silvestris lybica accomplished this delicate transition from forest to village. And from these five matriarchs all the world’s 600 million house cats are descended.
A scientific basis for this scenario has been established by Carlos A. Driscoll of the National Cancer Institute and his colleagues. He spent more than six years collecting species of wildcat in places as far apart as Scotland, Israel, Namibia and Mongolia. He then analyzed the DNA of the wildcats and of many house cats and fancy cats..........

oh by the way, i'm a dog person. i love cats, don't get me wrong. i lived with five cats once (not mine although one was JUST like me. that was duchess kahanamoku de la tunette). the others were, pearl (a shear beauty and delight. almost every day she'd leave us a present on our doorstep. it was very noble of her. she could very well have eaten it herself, but no, she left it for US ), sven (a scamp), mustapha (an all around good egg of a feline) and of course EVERY ONE'S favorite jean-paul. i believe i have mentioned him from time to time. we thought he was a runt. when we got him he was supposedly eight weeks old. NO WAY, when we took him to the vets we found out he was about 3 1/2 weeks old. we named him jean-paul (and he did speak french) after pope jean-paul i. we figured like the pope, he wouldn't last more than 33 days. we were wrong. that cat was so un-catlike it was amazing! you had to be VERY careful when you got out of your car. as soon as you opened the door, he'd jump in. HE LOVED GOING FOR RIDES. he loved kids too. any large gathering of folk - as i said, that cat was NOT like any cat anyone had come across before. he'd seek out groups of children in our hood. he just wanted to get in the middle and play with them. he LOVED going for walks with you. he'd follow along. when he saw there was no giant canary or mouse at the end of the walk, he'd get pissed and you'd have to pick him up and carry him home. jean-paul also loved going to the vets. do you know ANY cat (or dog) that LIKES going to the vets? well i don't. he fought a lot so he WAS at the vets a lot. he was silver and buff colored-stripes. when they shaved him (to put the mostacholi like drains in him every time he got an infection from a fight) you could see his skin was striped too. his ears were HUGE and bat-like. he was gorgeous and he KNEW IT. the vet technicians delighted in having jean-paul as a visitor. they never left him in a cage. he was always allowed to roam the premises freely. they also discovered what a fan of peanut butter jean-paul was.

sometimes jean-paul wouldn't come home for a day or two. nothing to worry about - he always turned up. then the times away from home, started getting longer and longer. i wasn't worried though. he ALWAYS came back fatter, sweeter smelling AND cleaner than when he took off. he obviously adopted another set of humans. one day jean-paul just never came home. i just think he decided to stay with that other family.

NOTE: the picture is NOT jean-paul. the ears are too small, the eyes are not green and the markings aren't as distinctive as jean-pauls. i have pictures of him somewhere. i'll keep searching till i find them