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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

#161

Post by jvm___ »

JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #124
lostlogin wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then there are those who just don't care to train their dogs. There is a worse option. The thin extending dog lead at maximum extension while walking the dog in twilight on a cycle path. What could go wrong?

I tripped over one of these in central London where it abruptly started raining heavily and the owner ran off in one direction while the dog went in another. Got some doubts about the value of those leads in general; surely it just means the dog has no gauge at all in how far they can go in any direction?

I assumed someone was doing this to me on a sunset run along a paved path. Human standing on one side of the path, small dog in the grass on the side, so I cut my running closer to the dog.

It wasn't a dog, it was a skunk. Fortunately it didn't seem threatened and just waddled away.

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

#162

Post by 082349872349872 »

gradschoolfail wrote: post #123
082349872349872 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again, in the universe of Benjamin/Squealer fanfic, who's to say we couldn't find the following convo? — ... Ironic. He could save others from death, but not himself. — Is it possible to learn this power? — Not from a pig.

SPJ’s innovation, was to keep it bipartite and below— making sure type IIIs didnt feel like they were a higher class & everyone else was type II (Imagine an army with only NCOs and officers, but the NCOs are type IIIs) No proles (grunts) in the orgchart of a very large design agency..culturally, designers often happy to work like grunts anyway! (Painters = painters) This trouble with the proles (app store, actual sto…

> So that no rabbit would sign up in the first place.

I liked Добро пожаловать, или Посторонним вход воспрещён (1964), in which the summer camp director plays a very soviet version of an Eric Berne Transactional Analysis* game, "Everything I do, I do it for you".

According to wikipedia, it's infamous in russian for the lines:

— Children, remember! You all are the owners of the camp. [All of] you! What do you all [therefore] need?

— [children in chorus] Di. Sci. Pline!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku_V2HgK6i8

Thx for Equoid! Not having started in on it yet, all I have for now is pedantry, for the commenters on Stross' blog who are making horse analogies (as well as the wonderful Unicorns From Hell vid) are way off base: horses are Perissodactyl, but unicorns are Artiodactyl.

* I'm not sold on TA, but learning to tune out as soon as you notice the opening moves of a TA game? That's sanity-preserving material right there.

PS. I've lost the source for the roman trichotomy; plz remind?

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

#163

Post by stevesimmons »

kennyadam wrote: post #126
grujicd wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is all cute, dogs should be discouraged from eating food they find in the street! It could be poisoned. You never know whether there's someone who really hates dogs in the neighborhood, or if someone tries to solve problems with rats. Unfortunately, my friend lost a dog that way.

No doubt this happens, it must be so rare for someone to put out poisoned half-eaten sausage rolls with the aim of killing a random dog that finds it, I think this is perhaps a teensy bit paranoid.

It does happen. My sister lost two dogs from poisoned meat someone put in their local park. They ran into the bushes, must have eaten something, started frothing at the mouth, and 15 minutes later both were dead. Apparently a number of other dogs died near that location the same way.

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

#165

Post by csallen »

authorfly wrote: post #151
petepete wrote: post #10

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.

That's cool but dogs remembering names is more insightful in an exciting way, let me elucidate on why it's pretty fascinating! We know how place memories work quite well, Place and Grid cells specifically. There is a natural and almost physical level of 1:1 mapping at various scales[1] from location (based on different tracking systems - point integration, landmarks, your own steps) to activating cells in your brain.…

This is all fascinating stuff. I love the idea behind memory palaces, and this stuff about place/grid cells sounds like the explanatory science behind it. Any reading you'd recommend?

> And clearly we humans forget many of the sounds we have heard (e.g. songs, lyrics).>

It's true we forget many sounds, but songs and lyrics is a curious example. I'd guess those were high on the list of things humans are good at remembering… maybe #4 behind places, faces, and language in general? I've had pop lyrics and commercial jingles and theme songs rattling around in my head for decades, and I can easily sing them word for word. Something about a sequence of words put to a beat and a melody just seems to stick.

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

#166

Post by pxc »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #160
HumblyTossed wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're animals, you want predictable behavior (as much as is possible - because they're animals).

Eh, I had a Scottish terrier that was incredibly smart, learned every trick on practically the first attempt, then would just not do them again after mastery. Independent, great explorer and hiker, hated clear objects like she had an intifada against them and never got into trouble or destroyed stuff. She was a good dude and would have been less fun if she was more obsequious or eager to please and predictable.

I think both very adoring dogs and rather challenging or independent-minded dogs can be really precious in their own ways.

My mom had a boxer who was absolutely obsessed with her for his entire life. He was so eager to please her that she would often cue certain (benign) behaviors by accident, because he was always watching her to see if there was anything for him to do with her. He was so invested in figuring out what she wanted and in impressing her that the gentlest scolding would crush him— it could easily ruin a whole training session.

The things my mom (who is legally blind) got that dog to do were amazing. She (just a hobbyist) did dog sports with him (competitive obedience and rally) and got titles in advanced and intermediate levels. He did some 'American trick dog' stuff where he would do really gimmicky but pretty cute and impressive multi-step tricks, like going outside to fetch the mail and bring it back, or hopping into a suitcase, closing it on his own head, and lying down. He had some routine tricks that were pretty cool, like searching the house to collect all of his toys and put them away. He worked as a therapy dog in hospitals, where he was especially beloved by children, who were invariably amused and pleased that they could get a big, strange dog to do many tricks for them. He'd also do some little assistance things for my mom, like pick things up off the floor (if asked) so she didn't have to get down on her hands and knees and pat around to find them.

Unrelated to his training career, I'll never forget his watchfulness and sweetness toward my tiny old chihuahua. As you likely know, boxers can be extremely energetic dogs, but he was a calm soul as far as boxers go. While they didn't meet often, he had a special connection with my little squeezed through the bars of a baby gate in order to nestle into a dog bed with my mom's dog. He was really an incredible dog, and his gentle, agreeable, social, other-oriented nature was certainly a big part of that.

On the other hand, that little old lady of a Chihuahua, when I met her, didn't know how to walk on a leash, resource guarded laps and bit about it, and didn't respond to my stupid attempts to scold her except by mistrusting me and avoiding me. Learning how to communicate her and win her over was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. By the end of her life she was a dog I could trust around strangers, dog and human, of all sizes and personalities, whom I could take offleash anywhere, who would wait for my signal at a crosswalk, who I could have lie down on some blankets on a table where I was eating and trust her when I walked out of the room, and whom I learned to read for the tiniest signals: eye contact, pointing at what she wanted with her eyes, inaudible growls/whines I could only feel because she was in my lap, the 10 kinds of trembling that comprise key terms in the Chihuahua language... and I probably wouldn't have learned much of anything from her if she hadn't demanded that I come to her and understand her perspective and needs and wants first.

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

#167

Post by gitaarik »

poikroequ wrote: post #146
gitaarik wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also this experiment with dogs where they observed dogs getting up, walking to the front door, and waiting for their owner to come back home from work, as soon as the owner started heading home from the office. They somehow know, like they're telephatically connected.

I know the experiment you're referring to. It's been a long time since I've seen it, no idea how to find it now, but you're definitely misremembering some details. Dogs do have a sense of time, but in that experiment, it actually had to do with scent. As their owner was away, their scent would gradually dissipate throughout the day. At a certain point, the scent was weak enough that the dog knew it was about time for…

Aha, interesting, I looked up some info about it and it seems that in another experiment the dogs also reacted when the owner went home at irregular times. Quite interesting:

https://www.sheldrake.org/research/animal-powers/a-dog-that-...

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

#168

Post by cortesoft »

gefriertrockner wrote: post #120
cortesoft wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in no way religious, and I don't think we are fundamentally different than other animals, but I don't think it is surprising that most of us (myself included) think of human emotions and intelligence as being on a completely different level than animals. The complexity of human language, social structure, and technology is not even in the same ballpark as animals. Humans make iPhones and travel to space and writ…

> The complexity of human language, social structure, and technology is not even in the same ballpark as animals. Humans make iPhones and travel to space and write War and Peace. We dominate the world, changing its very climate and wiping countless species off the planet, and no other species even tries to stop us. That's true only for a small subset of humans. 99.9% of humans achieve no feat as you describe. You can…

> That's true only for a small subset of humans. 99.9% of humans achieve no feat as you describe.

You can have a conversation with 99.9% of humans, something you can’t do with any other animal. The other list of accomplishments is not even needed to surpass what animals can do.

You have to be intentionally being obtuse to suggest that the gal between humans and animals is not an order of magnitude away from the gap between humans and other humans.

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

#169

Post by 082349872349872 »

gradschoolfail wrote: post #101
smogcutter wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Rao’s model, the sociopaths and losers share an understanding that the organization exists for the benefit of the sociopaths, they just respond to it differently. It’s only the clueless who are bamboozled. So idk if it’s a great lens for AF, where all the proletarian animals are more or less equally taken in. But anyway, Benjamin is definitely a loser, not a sociopath! He comes closest to understanding what’s happ…

Tiny nitpick: Benjamin certainly would not want to become a sociopath, but the incumbent sociopaths would doubtlessly love to promote him into their ranks, surreptitiously. Confidence in the power of power to corrupt! (Usually misplaced, thankfully, despite media) (To abuse a Ridley Scott favourite: slip a Marechal’s baton into his rucksack) [this is opposite of the Rabinovich “strategy”, which hints that YC are not…

Dark Benjamin is a productive characterisation. Here are a few more snippets, from a world with a few less Midichlorians:

I. [Benjamin is attending an Animal Farm wedding with his mare friend from a neighbouring farm, Kay.]

— and Napoleon assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract.

— ...

— That's a true story. That's my farm, Kay, that's not me.

II. [After the death of Napoleon, the younger pigs took out a mortgage from the human bank. Pinkeye meets Benjamin to discuss some financial aid the latter provided for recent payments.]

— Com.. Mr. Benjamin, of course we pigs are very grateful for your assistance with affairs of farm, and so we thought we should give you a quick heads-up. You're an animal of the world, you know how unforeseen things happen; we'd like to repay you on the original schedule but our accountants are saying we might have to get creative and renegotiate. I don't know what we might do, that's for others to decide, and unfortunately it didn't get discussed at the last committee meeting because we were too busy drawing up this list of the new government ministries. Would you care to see it by any chance?

— Don't worry about negotiating with me; you should be worrying about negotiating with your Maker for breaking your word, when you come before Him to have Judgement passed on your soul...

— Mr. Benjamin, surely you of all animals know that we pigs live quarter to quarter and have no time to waste on something so far off as that?

— Allow me to repay your kindness by giving you a quick heads-up. You're an animal of the world, you know how unforeseen things happen. I'd like to be flexible but my investors are impatient. If we don't get repaid by Friday, you might be meeting your Maker on Saturday.

III. [Years later, Benjamin, having since officially taken over from the pigs, has scheduled a "working holiday" at a secluded fishing spot with the president of the bank]

— Ben, how do you do it? These skeeters are as loud as the outboard and I'm slathered in DEET but still getting eaten alive. Yet they don't bother you?

[Benjamin twitches his ears back, and lifts a hind hoof ever so slightly off the aluminium deck. In the sudden silence, the president can hear wavelets rippling along the gunwales of their fishing boat.]

— They... know better.

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