GM News - February 2022

It's February! Let's get down to business :-)

Amanda, David, Rodna & Ruth
Gentle Modern School of Dog Training

Free Webinar: Keeping your dog fit, healthy & happy

Leading Vet and Physiotherapist Dr Naomi Boyd, together with Rehabilitation Therapist Allana Langdon of SASH (Small Animal Specialist Hospital, Sydney - partner of the Dog Lovers Show) will share practical tips and tricks on how to keep your dog fit and healthy. The SASH team will demonstrate

exercises and activities to improve canine mobility, strength, and overall physical health (Naomi and Allana suggest bringing your dog to the webinar and following along with them as they demonstrate exercises),
discuss how to set your puppy up for a long life of good movement, and
how to detect the early warning signs of discomfort or a brewing injury.

There will be a Q&A session at the end.
Date: 9th February 2022
Time: 7PM to 8PM AEDT
Where: Via Zoom – Register

So Emotional . . .

Stanley Coren reviews human philosopy and research on dog emotions over the centuries in an accessible and thought-provoking article: Which Emotions Do Dogs Actually Experience? Do Dogs Have Feelings? The feelings dogs actually experience — and those we project

What emotions would you expect your dog to be capable of exhibiting?
joy, fear, anger, disgust, love, guilt, pride, shame?

"Researchers have now come to believe that the mind of a dog is roughly equivalent to that of a human who is two to two-and-a-half years old. This conclusion holds for most mental abilities as well as emotions. Thus, we can look to the human research to see what we might expect of our dogs. Just like a two-year-old child, our dogs clearly have emotions, but many fewer kinds of emotions than found in adult humans."

So, YES to dog's ability to feel joy, fear, anger, disgust, love.
But NO to guilt, pride, shame - these emotions are too complex for a dog

In many ways, discussions about emotion - human or canine - have pitfalls. Understanding the experience of another being (and offering care and support in return) is subjective and always filtered through our own experience. David is a supporter of Marikja De Jong and her work with horses. Marikja's work is based on the position that science (and our knowledge) can offer us maps to understanding/interpreting living beings but not absolutes. In some senses, it can be helpful as a reference point to think of a dog's mind as equivalent to a 2 and a 1/2-year-old human's. However, it's vital to acknowledge that individuals of any species are complex, intricate, and nuanced creatures. Humility and open-mindedness can benefit all our relationships.

Canine Body Language

It can’t be overstated how valuable it is to become familiar with canine body language: interpret your dog’s emotional state and have insight into the intentions/emotions of other dogs around your dog. (We have excellent guides on the GM website.) Sarah Whitehead has three free webinars

3 Myths in Dog-to-Dog Communication
Signals of Pre-emptive Aggression
The Forbidden Topics of Play, Sex and Conflict

and Sarah offers a free quiz on dog body language - why don't you give the quiz a go? - it will only take a few minutes and you can test your knowledge.
[You do have to provide your details to access your quiz results, however, if you don't tick the box beside the frustratingly difficult to read blue text on black background, I don't think you'll receive ongoing contact from Sarah Whitehead's business.]

A Bit of Fun

Protect My Paws, pet insurance broker, analysed IMDb data to identify the breeds that appear in the most films and TV shows of the past century: The Most Filmed Dog Breeds by G. John Cole. Have a guess at the top three before you check out the results. Here are my clues:

1. Rin Tin Tin
2. Winston Churchill
3. Oh La La

Ever wondered . . .

Dogs Can Distinguish Speech from Gibberish — and Tell Spanish from Hungarian by Annie Melchor in Scientific American
Neuroscientists "Cuaya and Hernández-Pérez work in a research group at Eötvös Lórand University in Hungary that studies the evolution of speech perception in mammals, including dogs, with tools such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which monitors changes in brain blood flow. More blood flowing to a specific region of the brain means more activation—allowing researchers to glimpse changes in brain activity in response to certain stimuli." . . . "Altogether the study shows that the brains of dogs can detect a difference between speech and speechlike sounds and can even tell apart different human languages."