I was interested in Dr Overland's comments about the finger point being a primate trait and not fair for a dogbecause they do not have opposable thumbs. The netflix instant down load "National Geographic: Science of Dogs" claimed that it is typical for dogs to easily learn to follow a point, but not wolves nor even chimps. They claimed that humans and dogs are the only animals to understand this gesture.
My dogs have always been able to understand a point, and there are indeed breeds that point with their bodies. One of the characteristics seen in young kids that is associated with autism is a delay in responding to pointing (which some researchers think indicates poor joint attention).
Furthermore, Napier and Napier define opposition in reference to thumbs as "A movement by which the pulp surface of the thumb is placed squarely in contact with - or diametrically opposite to - the terminal pads of one or all of the remaining digits (The Natural History of the Primates. MIT Press, 1985). So pointing is not technically an opposable skill anyway. I just think that a Dr (DVM, MD, PhD, DDS?) putting out info should be a bit more precise in order to enhance credibility.
This small detail doesnt negate the remainder of Dr Overland's good points about mindfully using nonverbal communication that dog's will intuitively comprehend. This idea was popularized in 80s by Carol Lea Benjamin's book "Mother Knows Best: The Natural Way to Train Your Dog" and of course remains valid today.
"National Geographic: Science of Dogs" also featured Sulimov Dogs (Russian: Собакa Сулимова) that were developed to be able to detect minute amounts of contraband that was quite interesting.
I'm a bit surprised she uses pointing dogs as an example. I think we're pretty confident that pointing dogs aren't making an attempt to say "hey, look over here, there's a bird!" Pointing dogs actually have a highly altered predatory FAP where the "stalk" part is so intense, they never get to the "chase". They aren't communicating the location of something hidden, they are getting ready to eat it...to keep it for themselves. So that example falls apart in my mind.
Along these lines, however, there was an interesting (non-scientific) blog post on Upland Nation about how dogs react better to commands when they can see your eyes: http://scottlindenoutdoors.com/2011/07/09/im-just-sayin-face-it-your-dog-has-to/ It's anecdotal, but certainly makes sense to me given my experience training Ty at a distance both with and without sunglasses on.
@dlroberts - thanks just what I was looking for!! Although I will point out that the band, 3-dog-night, did give homage to the [I think?] Australian term for describing a cold night (sorry for being such a stickler i.e. pain).
Dr. Temple Grandin in her book, Animals in Translation, talked about the theory that human brain evolution took the path it did b/c dogs were able to do everything else (e.g. humans did not need to have excellent sensory equipment b/c our canine partner had it covered).
@dlroberts, et al - what do you think of Overland's comments on pointing breeds such as the labs she mentioned? How does a canine pack signal interest but by looking with body tense and still [frozen] in the direction of interest? Sometimes I think fear of anthropomorphizing stunts our understanding. I work with handicapped kids and I think they also are victims of this. If a typically developing child says dadada dada, everyone is all excited b/c they know who their poppa is - we run with it thus shaping speech and language - but we have to collect objective data before we can claim the same for delayed children, neglecting shaping opportunities.
It makes me think of Jaak Panksepp's experiences "Unfortunately, animal feelings were marginalized by so many influential and powerful scholars who simply could not tolerate such thinking that instead of essential conversation, there was mostly enforced silence. The whole field continues to be influenced by too many elders whose scientific arrogance was deeper than their wisdom (Science of the Brain as a Gateway to Understanding Play, 2010)" - although I am not excusing many things he did to animals to his data.
I hope it doesnt alienate me too much from this forum, but after many years of studying, training, and showing, I now see the animals I live with as roommates. And they are excellent roommates - very civilized, neat, and companionable to one and all - but are alas 'untrained'. While some may go to a dating forum to search for a significant other, I have come here. And cant get enough!
I now freely and happily attribute all kinds of subjective understandings of how animals (esp dogs) think and feel, and sometimes get turned off by a scientific approach that suppresses understanding of the extent of their capabilities. Its good for me that there are those on this forum who bring additional perspectives to my laissez-faire considerations. I hope my "retirement" perspectives are taken with a grain of salt and not too annoying.
I don't think dogs communicate directionality of a threat, prey, etc. using the position of their body. From my observations, they communicate it using either juxtaposition or motion that follows a verbal communication. Time and time again all three of my dogs will be sleeping peacefully near me, one will key on something alarming, and bark. The other two will react to the bark by giving off their alert "wuf, wuf". During this initial reaction, they are clearly confused as to the location of what they are alerting to. Their heads all go in different directions, and sometimes they'll even start investigating in different directions (windows, doors, etc.). It isn't until one of them confidently identifies the object of interest by letting out a full bark and moving in its direction that the others will follow. The full bark signal, combined with the position of the full alert dog relative to the others (juxtaposition) is what communicates the direction of intention.
You might ask, but what about shy dogs that back away from "threats"? Don't they communicate direction as well? And the answer is yes, but it's motion (shying away) that communicates the direction, not body position (pointing).
Another example of this comes from pointing dogs. Well trained upland bird dogs are expected to "honor" a "brace mate" (meaning when multiple dogs are hunting together, a brace, and one of them points a bird the other should go on point behind them). Honoring a point is not an instinctual behavior, and must be taught. Untrained dogs don't see a trained dog on point and know they are pointing a bird. An untrained dog will continue to hunt around the dog on point until they find the bird themselves. If you watch trained dogs that know how to honor, they do key on their brace mate's point and run over to honor it, but that's not a natural behavior.
I watched a NOVA documentary called Dogs Decoded in which they talk a lot about those experiments on dog cognition. I recommend it to, it's a really interesting show.
Thanks dlroberts - your perspective in training hunters is always new and interesting to me.
I also saw Dogs Decoded on Netflix instant download and recommend it.
The second Overland video started to say something about a border collie before it cut off, and could be the one mentioned on either the Nova or the National Geographic documentary. That border apparently demonstrated a vocab of about 200 words. Say "bone", for example, and the dog would pick up the bone. So the observer got matching toys and when she help up one bone, the dog would run in the other room and get the matching toy. So then the observer photographed the toys, and the dog got the bone or whatever was shown in the photo from the other room.
But I stray from Brads topic of Deferent Behavior....
Comments
My dogs have always been able to understand a point, and there are indeed breeds that point with their bodies. One of the characteristics seen in young kids that is associated with autism is a delay in responding to pointing (which some researchers think indicates poor joint attention).
Furthermore, Napier and Napier define opposition in reference to thumbs as "A movement by which the pulp surface of the thumb is placed squarely in contact with - or diametrically opposite to - the terminal pads of one or all of the remaining digits (The Natural History of the Primates. MIT Press, 1985). So pointing is not technically an opposable skill anyway. I just think that a Dr (DVM, MD, PhD, DDS?) putting out info should be a bit more precise in order to enhance credibility.
This small detail doesnt negate the remainder of Dr Overland's good points about mindfully using nonverbal communication that dog's will intuitively comprehend. This idea was popularized in 80s by Carol Lea Benjamin's book "Mother Knows Best: The Natural Way to Train Your Dog" and of course remains valid today.
"National Geographic: Science of Dogs" also featured Sulimov Dogs (Russian: Собакa Сулимова) that were developed to be able to detect minute amounts of contraband that was quite interesting.
----
Along these lines, however, there was an interesting (non-scientific) blog post on Upland Nation about how dogs react better to commands when they can see your eyes: http://scottlindenoutdoors.com/2011/07/09/im-just-sayin-face-it-your-dog-has-to/ It's anecdotal, but certainly makes sense to me given my experience training Ty at a distance both with and without sunglasses on.
Dr. Temple Grandin in her book, Animals in Translation, talked about the theory that human brain evolution took the path it did b/c dogs were able to do everything else (e.g. humans did not need to have excellent sensory equipment b/c our canine partner had it covered).
@dlroberts, et al - what do you think of Overland's comments on pointing breeds such as the labs she mentioned? How does a canine pack signal interest but by looking with body tense and still [frozen] in the direction of interest? Sometimes I think fear of anthropomorphizing stunts our understanding. I work with handicapped kids and I think they also are victims of this. If a typically developing child says dadada dada, everyone is all excited b/c they know who their poppa is - we run with it thus shaping speech and language - but we have to collect objective data before we can claim the same for delayed children, neglecting shaping opportunities.
It makes me think of Jaak Panksepp's experiences "Unfortunately, animal feelings were marginalized by so many influential and powerful scholars who simply could not tolerate such thinking that instead of essential conversation, there was mostly enforced silence. The whole field continues to be influenced by too many elders whose scientific arrogance was deeper than their wisdom (Science of the Brain as a Gateway to Understanding Play, 2010)" - although I am not excusing many things he did to animals to his data.
I hope it doesnt alienate me too much from this forum, but after many years of studying, training, and showing, I now see the animals I live with as roommates. And they are excellent roommates - very civilized, neat, and companionable to one and all - but are alas 'untrained'. While some may go to a dating forum to search for a significant other, I have come here. And cant get enough!
I now freely and happily attribute all kinds of subjective understandings of how animals (esp dogs) think and feel, and sometimes get turned off by a scientific approach that suppresses understanding of the extent of their capabilities. Its good for me that there are those on this forum who bring additional perspectives to my laissez-faire considerations. I hope my "retirement" perspectives are taken with a grain of salt and not too annoying.
You might ask, but what about shy dogs that back away from "threats"? Don't they communicate direction as well? And the answer is yes, but it's motion (shying away) that communicates the direction, not body position (pointing).
Another example of this comes from pointing dogs. Well trained upland bird dogs are expected to "honor" a "brace mate" (meaning when multiple dogs are hunting together, a brace, and one of them points a bird the other should go on point behind them). Honoring a point is not an instinctual behavior, and must be taught. Untrained dogs don't see a trained dog on point and know they are pointing a bird. An untrained dog will continue to hunt around the dog on point until they find the bird themselves. If you watch trained dogs that know how to honor, they do key on their brace mate's point and run over to honor it, but that's not a natural behavior.
I also saw Dogs Decoded on Netflix instant download and recommend it.
The second Overland video started to say something about a border collie before it cut off, and could be the one mentioned on either the Nova or the National Geographic documentary. That border apparently demonstrated a vocab of about 200 words. Say "bone", for example, and the dog would pick up the bone. So the observer got matching toys and when she help up one bone, the dog would run in the other room and get the matching toy. So then the observer photographed the toys, and the dog got the bone or whatever was shown in the photo from the other room.
But I stray from Brads topic of Deferent Behavior....