Tag Archives: dogs

May 12, 2022

BB #81: Animal Gods

I’ve lived with a Beagle, a Keeshond, a Belgian Shepard, a Great Dane, and a Black Labrador. I’ve dog-sat a German Shepard, two Black Labs, and the delightful Bentley, an American Bully.

I’m not bragging or claiming expertise (many have much more and far broader experience living with dogs). Just saying I’ve spent some solid hours with dogs pondering what the world looks like to them, how they perceive things.

It’s often struck me that, while humans may imagine and believe in gods (or not), animals live in a world where apparent gods walk among them. Dogs, and some other animals, live with their god(s) — depend on them and are subject to their every whim.

10 Comments | tags: crows, Discworld, dogs, Thomas Nagel | posted in Brain Bubble

December 31, 2021

Friday Notes (Dec 31, 2021)

By Wyrd Smythe

Welcome to a special edition of Friday Notes. This isn’t just the end of the week or even just of the month (although both are true). It’s also the end of the year!

So this edition of Notes is a reflection on a kind of weird year.

17 Comments | tags: 2021, Agatha Christie, blogger, Chillaxmas, dogs, Octavia E. Butler | posted in Books, Friday Notes

May 25, 2021

Like Being a Dog

By Wyrd Smythe

Back in 1974 Thomas Nagel published the now-famous paper What is it like to be a bat? It was an examination of the mind-body problem. Part of Nagel’s argument includes the notion that we can never really know what it’s like to be a bat. As W.G. Sebald said, “Men and animals regard each other across a gulf of mutual incomprehension.”

But in What It’s Like to Be a Dog: And Other Adventures in Animal Neuroscience (2017) neuroscientist Gregory Berns disagrees. In his opinion Nagel got it wrong. The Sebald Gap closes from both ends. Firstly because animal minds aren’t really that different from ours. Secondly because we can extrapolate our experiences to those of dogs, dolphins, or bats.

I think he has a point, but I also think he’s misreading Nagel a little.

21 Comments | tags: animal minds, brain mind problem, dogs, theory of mind | posted in Books, Science

November 8, 2020

The Big Dogs

By Wyrd Smythe

And congrats to the First Dogs (elect), Very Good Boys Champ and Major.

How great to have four-legged furry friends back in the White House! (I’ve long thought a love of dogs and a good character are correlated. Guess which POTUS hates dogs.)

Stay with dogs, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.

∇

3 Comments | tags: dogs, Joe Biden | posted in Politics

August 12, 2020

Morell: Animal Wise

By Wyrd Smythe

I recently read Animal Wise: How We Know Animals Think and Feel (2013) by Virginia Morell, correspondent for Science and contributor to National Geographic, Smithsonian, and other publications. She’s author of several books including Wildlife Wars (2001), which she co-authored with Richard Leakey.

Morell takes us on a tour of current research into the minds of animals, starting with ants and working up through various species to our primate relatives. Dear to my heart, she reserves the last chapter for our best friends, dogs.

I found it a wonderful exploration with some real eye-openers.

35 Comments | tags: animals, dogs, ethology, Virginia Morell, W.G. Sebald | posted in Books

June 21, 2020

Dog Tales: Memories

By Wyrd Smythe

Father’s Day, 1994

This post rises from deep in my Drafts Folder. I started it back in 2012 as a followup to the Sad Day; Perfect Day post. That one recalls a special 1994 memory about Samantha, my dog (who died a little before her time, in 2004). The second post would catalog various memories highlighting how much fun we had and how much she meant to me.

Two years later I did post a version of that eulogy: Dog Tales: Games. That post was actually the second beat to a post the day before, Sam’s Final Walk, which described the disposition of her ashes.

For Father’s Day, I thought it appropriate to post once more…

17 Comments | tags: Black Lab, Black Labrador Retriever, dog games, dogs, family, kids, love, Marriage, Sam, Samantha | posted in Life

April 22, 2020

Wynne: Dog is Love

By Wyrd Smythe

Recently I read Dog is Love, Why and How Your Dog Loves You (2019), by Clive D.L. Wynne, an animal behavior scientist who specializes in dogs. Despite the loaded word “love” in the title, this is a science book about a search for hard evidence.

Dr. Wynne is a psychology professor at Arizona State University and director of their Canine Science Collaboratory. He’s written several other books about animal cognition: The Mental Lives of Animals (2001), Do Animals Think (2004), Evolution, Behavior and Cognition (2013).

The book is the story of Wynne’s search for exactly what it is that makes dogs special and how they got that way.

27 Comments | tags: Clive Wynne, dogs, love, wolves | posted in Books, Science

March 8, 2020

Big Yawn!

By Wyrd Smythe

They say you’re supposed to let sleeping dogs lie. Personally, I’ve always thought a sleeping dog was pretty honest — I’m not exactly even sure how anyone could lie in their sleep. Tell fibs in your dreams? (Some old sayings just don’t make any sense.) I don’t think we should let anyone get away with lying, sleeping or otherwise (especially Presidents).

I do think there is something extra sweet about a sleeping dog. Maybe it’s a matter of the trust they’re showing — how they feel safe with you. Next to you, they can relax and fall into a deep snoring sleep. Dogs can have concerns about being left home alone, and if they are in your lap they know right where you are.

In any case, from the terminally cute file…

3 Comments | tags: Bentley, dog yawn, dogs, Sabbath, sleeping dogs, Sunday | posted in Life

September 13, 2019

BB #63: In the News

By Wyrd Smythe

Time for another Friday News Dump! The good news is that these are about quite recent news articles that caught my eye. (The bad news is that I might dump some older ones on you if there’s room.)

Usually I present them, more-or-less, in order of their interest to me… and apparently to my readers, since the comments seem to always involve the first article. So, this time I’m going to save the meatier one (in my eyes) for last hoping the others get some interest.

The lineup is: Dog brains, static electricity, quantum DNA, and free will.

25 Comments | tags: dogs, eels, electricity, free will, quantum cognition, quantum effects, quantum physics, static electricity | posted in Brain Bubble

September 6, 2019

Ow!

By Wyrd Smythe

Stung! Ow!!

I’ve been dog-sitting my pal, Bentley, the last few days, and when we began our early morning walk today, she was checking out an interesting hole in the ground. She’s noticed it before, sniffed at it, and then moved on, so I assumed it was just a hole in the ground worthy of smelling.

But today, suddenly she reacted — pawing at the air in front of her. Because bees! Or rather, yellow-jacket wasps, which nest in holes in the ground. Small ones, but equipped with stingers nevertheless. I whipped my hat off and started trying to clear the air (there were only three or so that I saw, not a swarm), swatted one off her side, and then we high-tailed it across the street as fast as we could run.

As we walked away, I noticed that my left hand hurt: one of them got me!

6 Comments | tags: bee sting, Bentley, dogs, walk it off | posted in Life