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Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

theguardian.com

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Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood people who say dogs are hard to train. They are SO motivated by food

Which is depressingly animalistic.

We are also the same. We are out for food, the rest is just talk..

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#53

I've had my Labrador for 12 years, she was about 1 when we rescued her. In the first week I was walking her and passed a bus stop mainly used by school kids. There's a small wall behind it and she dashed around and emerged with half a sausage roll hanging out of her mouth. To this day, every time we pass that spot she enthusiastically pulls and goes round to inspect.

I've never understood people who say dogs are hard to train. They are SO motivated by food

Most dogs are, yes. I train dogs at an animal shelter, and I can tell you that not all dogs are motivated by food. Some will just turn their nose up at even the tastiest of treats. Some of those dogs might rather have a pet on the head or some praise. A rare few don’t seem motivated by much of anything.

But for the 80% case, yeah, grab some string cheese and a clicker.[0]

[0] https://www.rover.com/blog/clicker-training-dogs/

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the search and rescue dogs used for finding people in collapsed buildings after, say, an earthquake. Apparently the dogs get depressed after finding nothing but dead people, so the humans seed the rubble once in a while with a live human for the dogs to find. https://allcreatureslargeandsmall.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/t... "As time passes without survivors found, search-and-rescue dogs — especially those…

The way I've heard avalanche dogs are trained here is that they are rewarded for accurate information, so in principle they ought to be as satisfied with their job after finding "no people" or "dead person" as well as "live person".

Dogs are social creatures. These dogs are well aware of humans as fellow social creatures. Constantly finding dead people might be inherently distressing, in the same way it'd be distressing to constantly find dead dogs.

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood people who say dogs are hard to train. They are SO motivated by food

Not all dogs are motivated by food. Our high energy, water-loving, labradoodle is only motivated by one thing: frisbee.

IME all are...

Labradoodles are loopy, like most of the bred-for-instagram breeds. Got to expect the abnormal

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood people who say dogs are hard to train. They are SO motivated by food

Which is depressingly animalistic.

What do you mean by that?

Of course sharing food is a way to build social bonding and positively motivate social conformance. It is with people too, which is why it's so natural for us to carry it over to our relationship with dogs.

How or why is that depressing?

It's good that we crave what helps us thrive and that we can recognize who makes it easy for us to have more, and there's a beautiful elegance to that fact that so many creatures share the trait, across such diverse lineages as birds, reptiles, fish, arthropods, mammals, etc

Isn't that inspiring, rather than depressing?

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood people who say dogs are hard to train. They are SO motivated by food

Most dogs are, yes. I train dogs at an animal shelter, and I can tell you that not all dogs are motivated by food. Some will just turn their nose up at even the tastiest of treats. Some of those dogs might rather have a pet on the head or some praise. A rare few don’t seem motivated by much of anything. But for the 80% case, yeah, grab some string cheese and a clicker.[0] [0] https://www.rover.com/blog/clicker-traini…

Perhaps overfed? Have owned dogs all my life, also trained 4 rescues, and various friends' dogs and never yet met one who can resist chicken. Relativity small sample size of about 20 dogs I admit

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#58
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All your examples were about dogs overeating, which I don't think anyone would disagree dogs can do. But I think it's pretty rare for dogs to under eat and to need to trick them into eating their food.

It's not uncommon at all. Take toothache, for example. The catch is they can't tell you, and we are terrible at reading the subtle signs.

Some dogs can communicate such things. Bunny (of What About Bunny) can vaguely, imprecisely, communicate "some kind of pain somewhere" using a button-activated buzzer system. She can sometimes name the approximate location of the pain after a minute or two of thought. (See https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=RN_ZpyS6Fkc&t=34 )

I have no idea how you'd get "I'm in pain" from the associated body language; but, then again, I'm not a dog. In this case there were behavioural cues, but I don't know how I'd tell if there weren't.

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all dogs are motivated by food. Our high energy, water-loving, labradoodle is only motivated by one thing: frisbee.

IME all are... Labradoodles are loopy, like most of the bred-for-instagram breeds. Got to expect the abnormal

[deleted]

Re: Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study shows

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is depressingly animalistic.

What do you mean by that? Of course sharing food is a way to build social bonding and positively motivate social conformance. It is with people too, which is why it's so natural for us to carry it over to our relationship with dogs. How or why is that depressing? It's good that we crave what helps us thrive and that we can recognize who makes it easy for us to have more, and there's a beautiful elegance to that fact…

I ride a lot of bike. I love it when dog owners see someone approaching on a bike, tell their dog to sit and give him a treat. These dogs will then stop when they notice a bike approaching while the owner is distracted. I am always so grateful that I say thank you to the owners.

Then there are those who just don't care to train their dogs.

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