Dogs that tilt their head to one side as they look at a human are charming, but the gesture may actually be a sign that they are concentrating. As researchers studied a group of “gifted” border collies that can memorize multiple toy names, they noted the skill correlated with a tendency to tilt their head, and the dogs also had a preferred side, just as most humans prefer to use the left or right hand.
Deadly Plants for Pets
from Dr. Karen Becker and Health Pets
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- The tragic loss of two dogs in South Carolina is a grim reminder that now that warmer weather is here, it’s important to guard against the potential pet-related hazards posed by both outdoor and indoor plants
- Common outdoor plants that cause poisoning in dogs and cats include the sago palm, lilies, plants containing cardiac glycosides, and blue-green algae
- Indoors, common toxic plants include plants from the Araceae family, plants containing either soluble or insoluble calcium oxalates, kalanchoe, the corn plant/dragon tree, and spring flower bulbs
- If you suspect or know your pet has sampled a potentially poisonous plant, err on the side of caution by calling your vet, the local emergency animal hospital or a 24/7 pet poison hotline
Certain dogs more prone to ADHD-, OCD-like behavior
A Toy Safety Guide
While parents of human children can rest secure that their kid’s toys have to pass strict federal standards, pet parents have no such assurances. Sure, the FDA regulates pet foods, but when it comes to other products, including toys, there’s no agency or set of laws in place to protect your furbaby!
What to Do to Stop a Dog from Choking.
It is the scariest thing to watch your dog choke. What do you do? How can you help? Here are some great tips!
Hints on Training Your Puppy
Puppies are adorable and loving and happy and you must begin POSITIVE training at an early age. Be sure to look for a positive reinforcement trainer if you are going that route and watch your tone when training your puppy-love.
READ MORE
Angel Fund Supplies Clarity for Dog With Terminal Cancer
In the fall of 2017, a young Laguna Niguel family had a sick dog on its hands. Rikku, a shepard mix, had been in the family for some 13 years and was loved by mom and dad and two young children.
“She had been sick for a few months,” Lindsay, the mother, said in an interview. (She asked that her last name not be used.) “We were unsure of the cause. At first we thought it might be behavioral. But then . . . she started having potty accidents in the house, which was so unusual for her.
“We took her to the vet [Dr. Rachel Tuz at Aliso Niguel Animal Hospital]. After a few visits and really no conclusive idea what the diagnosis was, we shrugged our shoulders and decided, ‘Well, she’s 13 years old and pushing 14, should we even pursue this any further?’
“The doctor had suggested a couple of other tests,” Lindsay said. “At that point, we had run dry on money.” But Dr. Tuz called and said that Angel Fund might be able to help. Lindsay successfully submitted an application with the hospital’s help. “They did the tests and found that she had a massive tumor in her bladder. And it was basically inoperable. There was nothing we could do about it.
“”We didn’t know what to do next, other than wait it out,” Lindsay said. “The next few months the dog got worse quickly and was losing weight, two pounds or more a month. And we finally reached the point where Dr. Tuz said that this wasn’t fair to Rikku. She was not able to be in the house because she was having so many accidents. So we had to choose to put her down. That was in November.”
The experience was wrenching for all the family. “My husband, Ryan, and I had owned her since we were kids,” Lindsay said. “It was very hard. “My son, Finnegan, was very sad. He still is. He still talks about her.” He is five years old. She and her husband also have a two-year-old daughter, Molly, is two.
The family got a new dog – a puppy – in January. “We were going to wait but Finnegan kept saying he missed not having a dog,” Lindsay said. “It’s different, though. The new dog doesn’t replace the dog you had. They’re just totally different personalities.”
Angel Fund was “fantastic,” Lindsay said, and she wrote a thank you letter to the fund after receiving the grant. “They helped us in a serious time of need. It’s hard when your pet is sick and you feel like you can’t do anything else about it.”
Lindsay had opted to be a stay-at-home mom after her first child was born. And she and Ryan felt financially overburdened, she said, with a mortgage, two young children and hefty student loans for two college educations.
Study: Dogs Understand Spoken Words Better Than We Thought
From Healthy Pets
Mercola
By Dr. Karen Becker
https://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2020/05/01/dogs-understand-spoken-words.aspx?cid_source=petsnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20200501Z1&et_cid=DM521245&et_rid=862360194
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- New study results suggest that dogs understand spoken words even better than we thought
- Researchers concluded that dogs recognize spoken words regardless of the speaker, and they do it instinctively
- The study proves that despite previous assumptions, this spontaneous ability is not uniquely human and that dogs share this linguistic talent
- Earlier research indicates that dogs hear not only what we say, but how we say it
- Similar to us, our dogs use the left hemisphere of their brains to process meaningful words, and the right hemisphere to process vocal tones
The ability to recognize specific word sounds (e.g., vowels) in human speech is assumed to be a uniquely human trait. After all, small differences in sound frequencies can completely change the meaning of a word, for example, “had”, “hid” and “who’d,” or “mat”, “mitt”, and “met.” The sound changes between these groups of words are so minor that word recognition software often misinterprets them.
In addition, the sound of words changes depending on the speaker — his or her age, body size, mouth shape, and other factors. For all these reasons, many researchers have held the opinion that instinctive recognition of word sounds is uniquely human, and that animals such as dogs would need training, at a minimum, to develop the skill.
However, if you’re a dog parent or spend time around dogs, you’ve probably seen for yourself that dogs can and do learn words from one person and recognize those words when they’re spoken by someone else. I’d venture to guess the vast majority of family dogs recognize the word “treat” no matter who says it!
Study: Dogs Understand Spoken Words Better Than We Thought
Recently, a team of U.K. researchers decided to see if dogs are able to recognize the same little sounds (called phonemes) that make up words, when the words are spoken by different people with varying accents and pronunciation.1
The researchers chose words that began with an “h” and ended with a “d” but had different vowels —such as “had”, “head”, “hid” and “hood” — and that would also have no meaning to the dogs. The words were recorded by 14 female and 13 male speakers of varying ages and different accents, none of whom were familiar to the dogs in the study.
Each dog sat with his or her owner near an audio speaker while a sequence of six recorded words played with six seconds of silence between each word. The dog’s responses were videotaped.
Psychology professor and neuropsychological researcher Stanley Coren, Ph.D., author of the best-selling book “The Intelligence of Dogs,” in an article for Psychology Today, describes a likely testing scenario:
“One experimental trial might have run this way. The dog to be tested is presented with a string of repetitions of the word ‘had’ through the speaker. Suppose that in this instance the word was spoken by a woman.
Typically, when the dog first hears this new word spoken by this female voice he would point his ears forward, or move toward the speaker, or flick his eyes in the direction that the sound was coming from, all of which are signs of attention and engagement.
“However, as other women with different accents repeat the word ‘had’ the dog loses interest indicating that he knows that they are all saying the same thing. On the other hand, when a female speaker in the sequence says a new word, one with a different vowel, like ‘hid’, the dog now perks up again, indicating that he noticed the difference. But when the next woman’s voice returns to saying ‘had’ his attention will again flag.”2
After evaluating the videotaped sessions, the researchers concluded that dogs recognize spoken words regardless of the speaker, and they do it instinctively.
“These results are significant because they confirm two important aspects of speech recognition in dogs,” Coren writes. “First, they can distinguish between subtle changes in vowel sounds that identify particular words. Second, dogs isolate the important word sounds from all of the changes in sound quality associated with different speakers.”
Lead study author Dr. Holly Root-Gutteridge, a postdoctoral researcher with the Mammal Vocal Communication and Cognition Research Group in the School of Psychology at the University of Sussex made this observation in an interview with Sci-News:
“The ability to recognize words as the same when spoken by different people is critical to speech, as otherwise people wouldn’t be able to recognize words as the same when spoken by different people.
This research shows that, despite previous assumptions, this spontaneous ability is not uniquely human and that dogs share this linguistic talent, suggesting that speech perception may not be as special to humans as we previously thought.”3
Dogs’ Brains Work Similar to Ours to Process What We Say
In 2016, researchers in Budapest published a study that looked at how dogs’ brains process human speech.4 They came to the conclusion that our canine friends listen not only to what we say, but how we say it.
The scientists discovered that when we praise our dogs, the reward centers in their brains perk up if the words we use match our tone of voice. These findings suggest the ability to process words evolved much earlier than was originally thought and may not be unique to humans.
According to Phys.org, the study shows “… that if an environment is rich in speech, as is the case of family dogs, word meaning representations can arise in the brain, even in a non-primate mammal that is not able to speak.”5
For the study, the researchers recruited 13 family dogs — primarily Border Collies and Golden Retrievers — who excelled at lying completely still in an fMRI scanner, facilitating analysis of their brain activity. The dogs were volunteer study participants, were never restrained inside the scanner and could leave at any time.
The researchers recorded a trainer’s voice saying certain phrases with varying types of intonation. In the recordings, the trainer praised the dogs using Hungarian words and phrases that in English translate to “good boy,” “super,” and “well done.”
The words were spoken in both an upbeat tone and a neutral tone. The trainer also used neutral words like “however,” and “nevertheless” that meant nothing to the dogs.
While the recording played, the researchers studied the scans for regions of the dogs’ brains that were differentiating between the praise and meaningless words, as well as praise and neutral tones of voice. They observed that the dogs used the left hemisphere to process meaningful (but not meaningless) words, and the right hemisphere to process vocal tones.
Per Phys.org, “This was the same auditory brain region that this group of researchers previously found in dogs for processing emotional non-speech sounds from both dogs and humans, suggesting that intonation processing mechanisms are not specific to speech.”
Lead researcher Attila Andics of Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest explains:
“During speech processing, there is a well-known distribution of labor in the human brain. It is mainly the left hemisphere’s job to process word meaning, and the right hemisphere’s job to process intonation.
The human brain not only separately analyzes what we say and how we say it, but also integrates the two types of information, to arrive at a unified meaning. Our findings suggest that dogs can also do all that, and they use very similar brain mechanisms.”6
Processing Words Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Understanding Them
“One important thing is that we don’t claim that dogs understand everything we say, of course,” Andics told HuffPost in an email.7
There can be a difference between a dog processing words for their familiarity and actually understanding the words as we intend. As study co-author Adam Miklosi, head of the Family Dog Project told Scientific American magazine:
“‘Understanding’ is a tricky word. Studies using brain imaging technology cannot firmly say that the activation of a specific brain area indicates ‘understanding.’
“For sure, dogs in this study reacted to the meaningful words, that is, to those words that their owners often use when they want to attract the dog’s attention or provide a positive feedback for the dog. So in this sense our dogs recognized these words as familiar and probably meaning something good.”8
An important result of the study is that it demonstrates the left hemisphere of dogs’ brains processes meaningful words separate from the vocal tone. This suggests your dog may understand that “good dog” is praise regardless of the tone of voice you use when you say it, because he recognizes those words as meaningful vs. meaningless.
“We think that intonation is important,” says Miklosi. “Owners should learn how to praise a dog, and then use the same expression in similar way. Consistency in praising and in general in communication with the dog is important.”
The researchers suspect they would have similar results in studies of other domestic animals like cats and horses, as long as the animals had lived among humans. They hope this study and subsequent research can be used to enhance communication and cooperation between dogs and humans.
Pariah, primitive and landrace dogs found around the world
From Pet Connection 
https://www.uexpress.com/pet-connection/2020/4/27/first-dogs
By Kim Campbell Thornton
Andrews McMeel Syndication
One of the things I enjoy about travel is seeing different dogs around the world. Last year, I went to Ethiopia in search of wild dogs — rare and endangered Ethiopian wolves (Canis simensis) — but I also saw many domestic dogs in forested villages and high-altitude plains, sometimes with flocks or humans, but more often trotting along on their own business.
No matter where you go in the world, you are likely to see some canine representative who looks much the same as the earliest-known dogs, based on rock art or remains of dogs discovered by archaeologists. Whether they are called aboriginal, landrace, pariah, primitive or village dogs, and whether they are found on islands or mountains or in dense forests, they tend to have a similar form: medium size, prick ears, wedge-shaped head, curved tail and short coat.
Color and coat vary. In the Seychelles, an archipelago off the east coast of Africa, and in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean, I saw mostly tan or brown dogs. In Ethiopia, I saw many black-and-tan and black-and-white dogs as well as ones dressed in basic brown. Sometimes they have feathering — or furnishings — on legs, ears and tail, or longer fur, depending on where they evolved. Sometimes these dogs have maintained a particular look over centuries simply because geographic isolation ensured that they did not interbreed with dogs from other areas.
Pariah-type dogs who live on the streets and forage for themselves, as well as those who live in homes as companions, can be found from India to Taiwan to Thailand and everywhere in between. You may have a dog who looks like this in your own home, mixed or purebred.
Some purebreds who live in our homes and sleep on our beds still maintain primitive behavior characteristics, such as reproducing only once a year. The Federation Cynologique Internationale — Europe’s answer to the American Kennel Club — has a “primitive” category of dogs that includes the basenji, Canaan dog, cirneco dell’Etna, pharaoh hound, Xoloitzcuintli, Portuguese podengo and Thai ridgeback. In the same FCI group as primitive dogs are the spitz breeds, including the Akita, Alaskan malamute, chow chow, Finnish spitz, Icelandic sheepdog, Jindo, Karelian bear dog, Norwegian elkhound, shiba and Siberian husky. While in their current forms, most of these breeds are not much more than a century old (no matter what their breed standards say), the types of dogs that were their progenitors have been around for millennia.
The United Kennel Club describes pariah dogs as having short, smooth coats and large, erect ears, saying they are believed to be the ancestors of sighthounds — those tall, skinny, fast dogs such as Afghan hounds, Azawakhs, greyhounds, salukis and sloughis.
Some dogs are considered not purebreds but landraces: domestic dogs adapted to a particular locale or culture. Their characteristics developed more in response to survival in a particular environment than to human design. One such dog I saw on a visit to Mongolia in 2016 is the bankhar, kept by nomadic herders to guard flocks, and able to survive, thrive and work in harsh conditions. That’s more important to their human partners than whether they meet specific criteria regarding appearance or size. Bankhars have greater genetic diversity than their purebred cousins who come from a closed gene pool and are selectively bred by humans for specific physical or behavioral characteristics.
Landraces sometimes become breeds through human intervention. In the United States, for instance, the Carolina dog began as a landrace but is now considered to be a standardized breed, registered by the American Rare Breed Association and the UKC.
Some primitive dogs retain more wild behaviors than others, among them Australia’s dingo and New Guinea’s singing dog. A few live as companions, but more often they live a wild life, fending for themselves.
12 Games for Dogs to Keep Your Pup Entertained and Healthy
- From ApartmentGuide
- We have 12 games you can try playing with your dog
- Stuck indoors? Try out the indoor games and puzzles
- Looking to get some exercise in the yard? We’ve included outdoor activities as well
Similar to humans, dogs need their exercise to stay healthy. While walking your dog can be a good way to release energy, sometimes you don’t have the time or space to go on a long walk. In these situations, use these games for dogs to tire your pup out.
Whether it’s a sunny day and you can spend time in the yard or you’re confined to your small apartment, we have a variety of games for your pup. When playing, be sure to consider your dog’s size and age. Bigger dogs tend to have more energy and might need longer games. Small dogs may tire more easily. When considering age, older dogs are more prone to hurting themselves. This means you may want to choose games that are easier on their joints.
No matter your dog’s breed, size or age, we have twelve games for dogs to keep them healthy and happy.
- Jump to DIY games and puzzles for dogs infographic
DIY puzzles for dogs
You’ve found the perfect pet-friendly apartment and now you need games to entertain your dog throughout the day. Luckily there are plenty of indoor puzzles for dogs that you can try out in the comfort of your home.
1. Scent experiment
Try out a scent experiment with your dog to test its snout. This can be played in a variety of ways. In the most basic version, you’ll hide a treat somewhere and have them find it.
Muffin tray tennis ball game
For this activity, you’ll need a muffin tray, four tennis balls and treats.
- Step 1: Start by having your dog sit. Place a few treats in different cups of the muffin tray as they wait patiently.
- Step 2: Instruct them to find the treats.
- Step 3: Now that they are familiar with the game, repeat step one but this time put tennis balls over the treats.
- Step 4: Instruct your dog to find the treats. See if they can sniff them out and figure out how to move the tennis balls out of the way to retrieve them.
- Step 5: As your dog gets better at sniffing out the treats, set up some decoy tennis balls with no treats under them.
This game can last as long as you’d like it to. For variety, try changing which treats you are using or use a more difficult treat to gobble up like peanut butter.
2. Treat dispenser fun
Give your dog a treat puzzle to figure out. You can either buy a treat dispenser like the popular Kong toys or make your own.
How to DIY a dog treat dispenser
For this project, you’ll need a water bottle, dog treats and a drill.
- Step 1: Wash the bottle so that it’s clean and remove any labels.
- Step 2: Drill a hole in the side of the bottle. The size of the hole will depend on the size of your treats. The hole should be a little smaller than your treats so they don’t easily fall out.
- Step 3: Put the treats in the bottle and screw on the top.
- Step 4: Give the treat dispenser to your dog and see how long it takes them to solve the puzzle.
Be sure you are supervising your pup when they play with this toy. If they manage to chew off the lid or tear through the plastic, you’ll want to take it away.
Active indoor games for dogs
Just because you are confined to your apartment, doesn’t mean your dog can’t release some energy. Try out one of these active indoor games to keep from going stir crazy.
3. Hide and seek
A fun indoor game to play with your dog is hide and seek. Have your pup sit and stay. Then go hide somewhere in the house. When you are hidden, tell them to come. When they find you, reward them with a treat.
4. Stairway race
Release some energy by having an indoor race with your dog. This is best for homes that have carpeted stairways to prevent any injuries. Have someone say, “On your marks, get set, go!” Race up the stairs and see who can make it to the top first. Have everyone in the family race in different heats to determine who is the champion.
Training challenges to try with your dog
While you might have taken a training class when your dog was a puppy, you may not have kept up with teaching them as they grew. Test their mental strength by practicing new skills and learning agility.
5. Practice skills
Test your dog’s memory and obedience by teaching them some basic skills. These can include sit, stay, shake and roll over. Skills are good for a dog of any age to practice. Use their favorite treat as an incentive. Be sure to only reward them if they are successful in completing the action.
If your canine has already mastered these basics, try some more advanced skills. Some advanced dog skills include:
- Play dead
- Crawl
- Kiss
- Hug
- Spin
- Sit pretty
- Bow
- Leash
Practicing these skills will create a deeper bond between you and your pup as well as lead to them being more obedient.
6. Create an indoor agility course
If you are practicing agility with your dog, you can make an agility course with basic home furniture. Learning agility can help solve dog behavior problems, improve their off-leash reliability, build your bond and gain some skills you can show off.
Make a scorecard and see how your pup would fare in a real competition. To learn more about agility, check out the American Kennel Club scoring guide.
Homemade dog agility course
Create your own agility course at home to learn these skills.
- Weave: Set up laundry baskets in a row. Have your dog practice weaving in and out of them.
- Jump up: Have them jump up on a chair or your bed. Practice with different heights.
- Jump through: Hold up a hula hoop and have them jump through.
- Under: Practice going under a few chairs that are lined up in a row.
- Crawl: Get a box and open the ends. Have your dog practice crawling through.
- Over: Rest a pole or broom over two stools. Work on their ability to jump over the pole.
Additional classic games for dogs
These are the games that your dog knows and loves. When you’re at a loss for what to play, try one of these classic games for dogs.
7. Clean up
If you have toys scattered throughout your apartment, clean up is the game for you. A game of clean up will entertain your pup as well as get rid of some of the clutter in your home.
Have them pick up one of their toys and lead them to the toy bin. When their head is over the bin, instruct them to “drop it.” Praise them with words or treats. This process may take a little longer for them to understand so be patient as they are learning. In the end, you’ll be rewarded with a tidy space.
8. Fetch
Fetch is a classic for a reason. This game may seem repetitive to you, but to your dog, it’s endless entertainment. To play, throw a ball of some sort. Typically tennis balls work best because they fit in your dog’s mouth, can be thrown far distances and their color is easy to spot. Your dog will chase after it and return the ball, panting and ready for more.
Many play fetch with sticks they find in the backyard, but this can be dangerous. The stick can easily break down when chewed and the splinters can be harmful to your dog’s mouth or stomach. Be sure you are using soft, pet-safe toys when playing fetch.
9. Frisbee
Another crowd favorite is a frisbee. Frisbee is similar to fetch, but oftentimes your dog is content playing with it alone for hours. Since frisbees have rounded sides, they often roll away. This turns into a game of chase and then a wild battle until your pup comes out of it victorious.
There are two types of frisbees you can purchase. The classic plastic kind is durable, but be sure to keep an eye on how it’s holding up. Sharp teeth can cause the plastic to crack, making it dangerous for dogs to play with and humans to throw. Another option is to get a softer, cloth frisbee. These are good for dogs with more sensitive gums like puppies who are teething.
10. Water games
On a hot summer day, there’s nothing better than cooling off with some water games. Get sprinklers and attach them to the hose in your yard. Be sure you’re using a garden hose that is lead-free. If it’s been sitting out in the sun, run it for a little bit to clear out any bacteria that may have formed.
Set up the sprinkler in an area of your yard that needs some hydration. Turn it on and encourage your dog to jump over it with you. For more dynamic entertainment, get an oscillating sprinkler so your dog can chase it back and forth.
11. Soccer
A game for the whole family, soccer can be an excellent way to release some energy. Get a soccer ball and be sure it’s fully inflated. If a dog’s sharp teeth puncture it, your match will be over.
Familiarize your dog with the ball. Reward them with treats when they push it with their nose. Once they are comfortable with the new toy, try playing pass. Lightly kick the ball towards them and see if they can return it to you. Another option is to set up a goal (could be two sticks that serve as goal markers) and have your dog play defense.
12. Tug of war
Your dog may naturally try to play tug of war with you with something you’re holding. To be sure they don’t destroy your couch pillow or shoelaces it’s important to give them an item they are allowed to play with. Create a tug of war toy with some natural cotton rope. Tie knots in the rope so your pet has something to grab onto.
Many pet parents are worried that this type of game will bring out aggression in their dog. To avoid this, be sure you are playing on your terms. Keep the toy stored out of reach and bring it out when you want to play. When playing, be sure that your dog never touches you. If they do, the game is temporarily over. This will teach them boundaries. In addition to learning these boundaries, they should know how to “drop it” when instructed to. If they haven’t learned this command, it’s a skill you should work on.
Spending quality time with your dog
Partaking in these games for dogs will create a stronger bond between you and your four-legged friend. Be sure to add these skills to your dog’s pet resume when moving to a new apartment.
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