Thursday, June 3, 2010
On my blog!
This blog is for dogs and dog-lovers ONLY. ( just kidding) This blog was actually made for everybody. Especially the people who hate dogs that way they can learn to like or even love dogs. On this blog you will learn about dogs like where they live, what they eat, and anything's that's unusual. You will also learn about their favorite foods, their favorite toys, their favorite things to do, and their favorite places to see. One of the most important things you'll learn about dogs are their breeds. For example, you will eventually learn whether they're mixbred or purebred. And yes, I know, I know this blog's not going to be perfect so, if you think that my blog's not perfect, then, post a comment and I'll improve. And whatever you do don't judge a book by it's cover- or in this case my blog. Just because there's pink doesn't mean that this blog's going to be all girlie. If you really want to learn about dogs then read my blog to decide whether you like it or not.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Remember when I made those horoscopes? Do you know why I made them? You may think that they have completly nothing to do with dogs but that's where you're wrong my friend! in my opinion, horoscopes are sort of like the zodiac. But, that still has nothing to do about dogs! You know what part of the horoscopes has to do about dogs? Do you!? Well, if you really want to know, maybe just maybe it will be your lucky day, and your lucky little horoscope will tell you to get a dog.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Zodiac Dogs!?
Did you know that dogs are a zodiac sign too!? The Dog ( 狗 ) is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. The Year of the Dog is associated with the earthly branch symbol 戌. The character 狗 refers to the actual animal while 戌 refers to the zodiac animal.
Did you also know that dogs ( the zodiac sign), are born with different elements?
People within these date ranges for the zodiacal Dog bear the following elemental sign:
1898 - 2 February 1899: Earth Dog
10 February 1910 - 21 January 1911: Metal Dog
28 January 1922 - 14 February 1923: Water Dog
14 February 1934 - 25 January 1935: Wood Dog
2 February 1946 - 21 January 1947: Fire Dog
17 February 1958 - 8 February 1959: Earth Dog
6 February 1970 - 26 January 1971: Metal Dog
25 January 1982 - 12 February 1983: Water Dog
10 February 1994 - 30 January 1995: Wood Dog
29 January 2006 - 17 February 2007: Fire Dog
16 February 2018 - 4 February 2019: Earth Dog
2030 - 2031: Metal Dog
Information from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_(zodiac)
Did you also know that dogs ( the zodiac sign), are born with different elements?
People within these date ranges for the zodiacal Dog bear the following elemental sign:
1898 - 2 February 1899: Earth Dog
10 February 1910 - 21 January 1911: Metal Dog
28 January 1922 - 14 February 1923: Water Dog
14 February 1934 - 25 January 1935: Wood Dog
2 February 1946 - 21 January 1947: Fire Dog
17 February 1958 - 8 February 1959: Earth Dog
6 February 1970 - 26 January 1971: Metal Dog
25 January 1982 - 12 February 1983: Water Dog
10 February 1994 - 30 January 1995: Wood Dog
29 January 2006 - 17 February 2007: Fire Dog
16 February 2018 - 4 February 2019: Earth Dog
2030 - 2031: Metal Dog
Information from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_(zodiac)
http://www.nextdaypets.com/directory/breeds/
I've heard about a really neat website about dogs! It's called http://www.nextdaypets.com/directory/breeds/ . This neat website has the top 10 dog breeds, breed matching, puppies for sale, dog breeds from A to Z, dog articles, advertisements, learning centers, dog names, dog pictures and dog videos and a whole lot more!!! If you want to learn more then go to http://www.nextdaypets.com/directory/breeds/ just like how I'd shown you 2 sentences ago.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Differences from wolves
Physical characteristics:
Compared to equally sized wolves, dogs tend to have 20% smaller skulls, 30% smaller brains, as well as proportionately smaller teeth than other canid species. Dogs require fewer calories to function than wolves. Their diet of human refuse in antiquity made the large brains and jaw muscles needed for hunting unnecessary. It is thought by certain experts that the dog's limp ears are a result of atrophy of the jaw muscles. The skin of domestic dogs tends to be thicker than that of wolves, with some Inuit tribes favoring the former for use as clothing due to its greater resistance to wear and tear in harsh weather. The paws of a dog are half the size of those of a wolf, and their tails tend to curl upwards, another trait not found in wolves.
Behavior:
Dogs tend to be poorer than wolves at observational learning, being more responsive to instrumental conditioning. Feral dogs show little of the complex social structure or dominance hierarchy present in wolf packs. For dogs, other members of their kind are of no help in locating food items, and are more like competitors. Feral dogs are primarily scavengers, with studies showing that unlike their wild cousins, they are poor ungulate hunters, having little impact on wildlife populations where they are sympatric. However, feral dogs have been reported to be effective hunters of reptiles in the Galápagos Islands, and free ranging pet dogs are more prone to predatory behavior toward wild animals.
Despite common belief, domestic dogs can be monogamous. Breeding in feral packs can be, but does not have to be restricted to a dominant alpha pair (despite common belief, such things also occur in wolf packs). Male dogs are unusual among canids by the fact that they mostly seem to play no role in raising their puppies, and do not kill the young of other females to increase their own reproductive success. Some sources say that dogs differ from wolves and most other large canid species by the fact that they do not regurgitate food for their young, nor the young of other dogs in the same territory. However, this difference was not observed in all domestic dogs. Regurgitating of food by the females for the young as well as care for the young by the males has been observed in domestic dogs, dingos as well as in other feral or semi-feral dogs. Regurgitating of food by the females and direct choosing of only one mate has been observed even in those semi-feral dogs of direct domestic dog ancestry. Also regurgitating of food by males has been observed in free-ranging domestic dogs.
Trainability:
Dogs display much greater tractability than tame wolves, and are generally much more responsive to coercive techniques involving fear, aversive stimuli, and force than wolves, which are most responsive toward positive conditioning and rewards. Unlike tame wolves, dogs tend to respond more to voice than hand signals. Although they are less difficult to control than wolves, they can be comparatively more difficult to teach than a motivated wolf.
Info from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog
Compared to equally sized wolves, dogs tend to have 20% smaller skulls, 30% smaller brains, as well as proportionately smaller teeth than other canid species. Dogs require fewer calories to function than wolves. Their diet of human refuse in antiquity made the large brains and jaw muscles needed for hunting unnecessary. It is thought by certain experts that the dog's limp ears are a result of atrophy of the jaw muscles. The skin of domestic dogs tends to be thicker than that of wolves, with some Inuit tribes favoring the former for use as clothing due to its greater resistance to wear and tear in harsh weather. The paws of a dog are half the size of those of a wolf, and their tails tend to curl upwards, another trait not found in wolves.
Behavior:
Dogs tend to be poorer than wolves at observational learning, being more responsive to instrumental conditioning. Feral dogs show little of the complex social structure or dominance hierarchy present in wolf packs. For dogs, other members of their kind are of no help in locating food items, and are more like competitors. Feral dogs are primarily scavengers, with studies showing that unlike their wild cousins, they are poor ungulate hunters, having little impact on wildlife populations where they are sympatric. However, feral dogs have been reported to be effective hunters of reptiles in the Galápagos Islands, and free ranging pet dogs are more prone to predatory behavior toward wild animals.
Despite common belief, domestic dogs can be monogamous. Breeding in feral packs can be, but does not have to be restricted to a dominant alpha pair (despite common belief, such things also occur in wolf packs). Male dogs are unusual among canids by the fact that they mostly seem to play no role in raising their puppies, and do not kill the young of other females to increase their own reproductive success. Some sources say that dogs differ from wolves and most other large canid species by the fact that they do not regurgitate food for their young, nor the young of other dogs in the same territory. However, this difference was not observed in all domestic dogs. Regurgitating of food by the females for the young as well as care for the young by the males has been observed in domestic dogs, dingos as well as in other feral or semi-feral dogs. Regurgitating of food by the females and direct choosing of only one mate has been observed even in those semi-feral dogs of direct domestic dog ancestry. Also regurgitating of food by males has been observed in free-ranging domestic dogs.
Trainability:
Dogs display much greater tractability than tame wolves, and are generally much more responsive to coercive techniques involving fear, aversive stimuli, and force than wolves, which are most responsive toward positive conditioning and rewards. Unlike tame wolves, dogs tend to respond more to voice than hand signals. Although they are less difficult to control than wolves, they can be comparatively more difficult to teach than a motivated wolf.
Info from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog
Behavoir
Although dogs have been the subject of a great deal of behaviorist psychology (e.g. Pavlov's dog), they do not enter the world with a psychological "blank slate". Rather, dog behavior is affected by genetic factors as well as environmental factors. Domestic dogs exhibit a number of behaviors and predispositions that were inherited from wolves. The Gray Wolf is a social animal that has evolved a sophisticated means of communication and social structure. The domestic dog has inherited some of these predispositions, but many of the salient characteristics in dog behavior have been largely shaped by selective breeding by humans. Thus some of these characteristics, such as the dog's highly developed social cognition, are found only in primitive forms in grey wolves.
Info from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog
Info from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog
Intelligence
The domestic dog has a predisposition to exhibit a social intelligence that is uncommon in the animal world. Dogs are capable of learning in a number of ways, such as through simple reinforcement (e.g. classical or operant conditioning) and by observation.
Dogs go through a series of stages of cognitive development. They are not born with the understanding that objects which are not being actively perceived still remain in existence, called object permanence. This occurs as the infant learns to interact intentionally with objects around it. For dogs, this occurs at roughly 8 weeks of age. Puppies learn behaviors quickly by following examples set by experienced dogs. This form of intelligence is not peculiar to those tasks dogs have been bred to perform, but can be generalized to myriad abstract problems. For example, Dachshund puppies who watched an experienced dog pull a cart by tugging on an attached piece of ribbon in order to get a reward from inside the cart learned the task fifteen times faster than those who were left to solve the problem on their own. Dogs can also learn by mimicking human behaviors. In one study, puppies were presented with a box, and shown that when a handler pressed a lever, a ball would roll out of the box. The handler then allowed the puppy to play with the ball, making it an intrinsic reward. The pups were then allowed to interact with the box. Roughly three-quarters of the puppies subsequently touched the lever, and over half successfully released the ball, compared to only 6 percent in a control group that did not watch the human manipulate the lever. Another study found that handing an object between experimenters who then used the object's name in a sentence successfully taught an observing dog each object's name, allowing the dog to subsequently retrieve the item.
Dogs also demonstrate sophisticated social cognition by associating behavioral cues with abstract meanings. One such class of social cognition involves the understanding that others are conscious agents. Research has shown that dogs are capable of interpreting subtle social cues, and appear to recognize when a human or dog's attention is focused on them. To test this, researchers devised a task in which a reward was hidden underneath one of two buckets. The experimenter then attempted to communicate with the dog to indicate the location of the reward by using a wide range of signals: tapping the bucket, pointing to the bucket, nodding to the bucket, or simply looking at the bucket. The results showed that domestic dogs were better than chimpanzees, wolves, and human infants at this task, and even young puppies with limited exposure to humans performed well. Dr. Stanley Coren, an expert on dog psychology, states that these results demonstrated the social cognition of dogs can exceed that of even our closest genetic relatives, and that this capacity is a recent genetic acquisition which distinguishes the dog from its ancestor, the wolf. Studies have also investigated whether dogs engaged in partnered play change their behavior depending on the attention-state of their partner. Those studies showed that play signals were only sent when the dog was holding the attention of its partner. If the partner was distracted, the dog instead engaged in attention-getting behavior before sending a play signal. Dr. Coren has also argued that dogs demonstrate a sophisticated theory of mind by engaging in deception, which he supports with a number of anecdotes, including one example where a dog hid a stolen treat by sitting on it until the rightful owner of the treat left the room. Although this could have been accidental, Coren suggests that the thief understood that the treat's owner would be unable to find the treat if it were out of view. Together, the empirical data and anecdotal evidence points to dogs possessing at least a limited form of theory of mind.
Info from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog
Dogs go through a series of stages of cognitive development. They are not born with the understanding that objects which are not being actively perceived still remain in existence, called object permanence. This occurs as the infant learns to interact intentionally with objects around it. For dogs, this occurs at roughly 8 weeks of age. Puppies learn behaviors quickly by following examples set by experienced dogs. This form of intelligence is not peculiar to those tasks dogs have been bred to perform, but can be generalized to myriad abstract problems. For example, Dachshund puppies who watched an experienced dog pull a cart by tugging on an attached piece of ribbon in order to get a reward from inside the cart learned the task fifteen times faster than those who were left to solve the problem on their own. Dogs can also learn by mimicking human behaviors. In one study, puppies were presented with a box, and shown that when a handler pressed a lever, a ball would roll out of the box. The handler then allowed the puppy to play with the ball, making it an intrinsic reward. The pups were then allowed to interact with the box. Roughly three-quarters of the puppies subsequently touched the lever, and over half successfully released the ball, compared to only 6 percent in a control group that did not watch the human manipulate the lever. Another study found that handing an object between experimenters who then used the object's name in a sentence successfully taught an observing dog each object's name, allowing the dog to subsequently retrieve the item.
Dogs also demonstrate sophisticated social cognition by associating behavioral cues with abstract meanings. One such class of social cognition involves the understanding that others are conscious agents. Research has shown that dogs are capable of interpreting subtle social cues, and appear to recognize when a human or dog's attention is focused on them. To test this, researchers devised a task in which a reward was hidden underneath one of two buckets. The experimenter then attempted to communicate with the dog to indicate the location of the reward by using a wide range of signals: tapping the bucket, pointing to the bucket, nodding to the bucket, or simply looking at the bucket. The results showed that domestic dogs were better than chimpanzees, wolves, and human infants at this task, and even young puppies with limited exposure to humans performed well. Dr. Stanley Coren, an expert on dog psychology, states that these results demonstrated the social cognition of dogs can exceed that of even our closest genetic relatives, and that this capacity is a recent genetic acquisition which distinguishes the dog from its ancestor, the wolf. Studies have also investigated whether dogs engaged in partnered play change their behavior depending on the attention-state of their partner. Those studies showed that play signals were only sent when the dog was holding the attention of its partner. If the partner was distracted, the dog instead engaged in attention-getting behavior before sending a play signal. Dr. Coren has also argued that dogs demonstrate a sophisticated theory of mind by engaging in deception, which he supports with a number of anecdotes, including one example where a dog hid a stolen treat by sitting on it until the rightful owner of the treat left the room. Although this could have been accidental, Coren suggests that the thief understood that the treat's owner would be unable to find the treat if it were out of view. Together, the empirical data and anecdotal evidence points to dogs possessing at least a limited form of theory of mind.
Info from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog
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