dogs

[Skeptic Ginger]

And you'll have to admit to some confirmation bias/ selective memory creeping in here that helps reinforce the idea in our heads that dogs "know" when we're about to take them for a walk.

e.g.,

How does recognizing the conditions they are wrong and the conditions they are not make for confirmation bias?


They do also whine sometimes just to be let out of the kitchen. When my son is home, the dogs are out of the kitchen except when we are eating and I don't let them beg (we don't eat in the kitchen). When he's not around, I sometimes leave them in the kitchen to keep them from following me around the house if I'm busy particularly moving about. They get underfoot.


I'm not trying to argue they read minds. I don't believe that is the most likely explanation. Confirmation bias is one possible explanation. But so is some cue I'm creating that I haven't figured out yet.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

This was the thread I was thinking of, and you might find a couple of others if you search for "Jaytee", the dog's name.

Thanks for hunting that up.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Not mine! She runs 'round in circles, all the while I'm pointing and shouting "Right there!!!!" Same with squirrels.

What's weird is my dogs can smell (or hear?) moles in the ground. They are relatively successful catching the moles, (meaning one catch per hundred holes they dig in the yard ). It takes fast digging, not random luck. The moles would be able to escape any slow digging if it were just luck.

Yet the dogs cannot smell a fresh trail. Or perhaps they don't get the concept.

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

I had a cat who could understand what pointing meant. I regret neutering that cat.

 

[Amapola]

How does recognizing the conditions they are wrong and the conditions they are not make for confirmation bias?


They do also whine sometimes just to be let out of the kitchen. When my son is home, the dogs are out of the kitchen except when we are eating and I don't let them beg (we don't eat in the kitchen). When he's not around, I sometimes leave them in the kitchen to keep them from following me around the house if I'm busy particularly moving about. They get underfoot.


I'm not trying to argue they read minds. I don't believe that is the most likely explanation. Confirmation bias is one possible explanation. But so is some cue I'm creating that I haven't figured out yet.

I think what Ehocking is trying to say here, is that you may be ignoring the misses and remembering the hits. For instance, your dogs ARE wrong about when you want to go out and that annoys you. If they were actually reading your mind, they would be right all the time because they would KNOW that you were really going to take them out.

And being in the same house with your dogs allows them to hear you, to smell you and pick up cues you may not be aware of. When I am teaching people how to handle horses I have to teach them to be aware of very tiny cues that horses give about what they are going to do next - well, your dogs are *experts* in the tiny clues that you give about what you are going to do next.

So again, I think they are incredibly observant and clever about it, and I do not believe they are reading your mind. I don't think this takes away anything from dogs at all; to be able to do this is very difficult. If you don't believe me try and do it yourself with another animal, one you are not familiar with. I think you will find it is very difficult and an amazing ability.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think what Ehocking is trying to say here, is that you may be ignoring the misses and remembering the hits. For instance, your dogs ARE wrong about when you want to go out and that annoys you. If they were actually reading your mind, they would be right all the time because they would KNOW that you were really going to take them out. .....

I know that is what he meant. But I have been a skeptic long enough to know all about selective memory and confirmation bias. In my very first nursing job more than 30 years ago I mapped out the births in our 35 bed hospital compared to the lunar cycle over the course of a year to show the other nurses that selective memory was fooling them. The data confirmed it.

My point is, I am considering the "misses", I'm not oblivious to them. I haven't started a written record and I know that could resolve the question. Maybe I will if I decide I have enough time.

 

[Pup]

But you know, it's really no more amazing than a skilled poker player's ability to read opponents and make what appear to be miraculous calls and lay-downs.

This.

I can tell when my wife is coming home, by the sound of the engine almost a quarter mile away and the way she slows down approaching the driveway. My hearing isn't better than any other human's, but we live on a very quiet road, so I can hear each car individually, and they come off a hill so the acoustics are good, with the hill as a backdrop to reflect the sound.

If I had doggy hearing and a doggy obsession with greeting my people, I'm sure I could do as well or better even in a noisy environment.

 

[Verde]

My morning ritual is to put on sunglasses, take a leash off the peg. The dogs know it is time for a run in the back field, and go crazy.

I am going to the grocery store. I put on my sunglasses and pick up my car keys. The dogs go crazy, waiting for me to fetch the leash. I don't do that. I leave the house and they whine, but they are very happy to see me when I return. Perhaps because they know they will get a puppy cookie each.

I love my dogs. Not one has ever shown any paranormal ability.
Dogs are not the smartest critters on this planet.

V.

 

[Bikewer]

All I have to do is put on my tennis shoes... The labby thinks we're going for a ride. He associates this with no other footwear.

Years ago, we had a shepherd and my wife swore he knew when I was coming home to the minute; he'd get up and go to the door 30-40 seconds before I walked in.
Mystery solved, he recognized the sound of the car from as much as a block away. It was an old clunker with a rather ratty muffler. We had a new exhaust system put on and the poor dog was clueless for at least a week.... Till he caught on to the new engine note.

 

[Piggy]

Did they find anything out worth knowing?

It depends on your definition of "worth".

For instance, do you think that a greater understanding of the extent and limits of plasticity in visual and auditory cortex is "worth" re-wiring ferrets' brains so that signals from their eyes go instead to the parts of the brain meant to be hooked up to their ears?

 

[Piggy]

If I remember correctly, Richard Wiseman had a chapter about it in Paranormality. There was a dog whose owners claimed it could tell they were coming home, and there was a series of tests that were filmed. I'm pretty sure there has been some discussion on this forum about that (there was some dispute about the interpretation of the results), but I don't have time to follow that up right now. I'll post a link later if I find it (and no-one else has beaten me to it).

My father claimed that his dogs knew the days of the week, based on their changed behavior on Thursdays, when his wife would return home.

My grandmother thought that was a crock.

I agree with my grandmother. They were reacting to his change in behavior. There's no way on God's green earth that a dog has any sense of a 7-day week.

 

[angrysoba]

That pseudo-research involving this ability has always intrigued me. I've seen very convincing video documentation of dogs sensing their owner's return. But with all TV programs like this, they aren't scientific studies. I'd love to see some valid research of the phenomena. If true, I wonder if it would qualify for the MDC?

There's a book about this by a guy called Rupert Sheldrake who says it all comes down to morphic fields (well, duh!) or something. When someone once suggested to me that this involved some really mysterious cosmic forces I think I laughed so hard I left a mess behind. Fortunately my owner had a pooper scooper ready.

http://www.amazon.com/Dogs-That-Their-Owners-Coming/dp/0609805339/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

 

[angrysoba]

My father claimed that his dogs knew the days of the week, based on their changed behavior on Thursdays, when his wife would return home.

My grandmother thought that was a crock.

I agree with my grandmother. They were reacting to his change in behavior. There's no way on God's green earth that a dog has any sense of a 7-day week.

What about working dogs that are on duty from Monday to Friday?

 

[Piggy]

Hounds are a bit different to train as they are not 'bred' to take commands from people... and humans follow them to whatever they are baying at.

Interesting point!

They both know when to expect my wife or I to arrive home and can pick out the sound of our cars from a good distance. They are almost always surprised when one of us comes home early. If we are late they usually look at the door and out the windows and begin pacing around. They will do that for about an hour and then settle down, then periodically go check the door and look out the window.

I once read in a book that cats don't have good long-range vision and it seemed to me this was baloney, based on my cats' behavior regarding birds.

I confirmed the bogosity of the claim when I bought a different truck.

Before then, I noticed that the cats tended to hang out in the windows facing the road about the time I'd come home from work, and when they saw me approaching they'd jump down and be waiting for me in the kitchen. And I wondered if they recognized the vehicle, or if they just jumped down whenever anyone drove by.

(I live on a dead-end in an area that's mostly farmland, so there's very little traffic.)

When I started driving the other truck, they'd stay put as I approached the house.

But after a few weeks, and some experience crawling around the truck in the garage, they came to recognize it, and went back to their old ways of autodefenestration at the sight of my approach.

 

[Piggy]

I had a cat who could understand what pointing meant.

Wow. I've never seen that in a cat. Very interesting.

 

[Piggy]

What about working dogs that are on duty from Monday to Friday?

That wouldn't matter.

Their perception of the "day" would still be tied to cues from human activity. It wouldn't actually be a perception of a "day of the week" at all, but only a discrimination between days on which A happens and days on which B happens.

Human beings cannot keep track of days of the week for extended periods without some sort of external technology -- even a technology as crude as scratches on a wall -- and dogs have a much more limited ability to deal with abstractions, so it would not be possible for them to keep track of abstract concepts such as workdays and weekends in their heads.

 

[Apology]

Wow. I've never seen that in a cat. Very interesting.

I've trained most of my cats to understand pointing. Put a treat on the floor, point at it, repeat until the cat learns that pointing = yummy discovery. I've had a few that could be coaxed to remove pesky spiders and such for me that way.

It does take persistence to train them to look where I point. I don't recall having a cat under a year old learn to look where I'm pointing. Just like humans, all cats are not created equal intellectually, so I've had some that just didn't get the lesson as well.

My father is legally blind. We have a gray cat that has learned that, in order to get my father's attention (and treats) he needs to tap my father on the arm or leg with his paw. The cat learned that this technique also works on everyone else, and as I type this, he's tapping me on the ankle, so I suppose it's time to pay some attention to my cat.

Edit: If I wanted to get all imaginative behind it, I could claim that the cat "knows I'm talking about him" and that's why he's tapping. However, being dull in the imagination department, I figure that the cat "knows I'm ignoring him" and that's why he's tapping me.

 

[Piggy]

I've trained most of my cats to understand pointing. Put a treat on the floor, point at it, repeat until the cat learns that pointing = yummy discovery. I've had a few that could be coaxed to remove pesky spiders and such for me that way.

It does take persistence to train them to look where I point. I don't recall having a cat under a year old learn to look where I'm pointing. Just like humans, all cats are not created equal intellectually, so I've had some that just didn't get the lesson as well.

My father is legally blind. We have a gray cat that has learned that, in order to get my father's attention (and treats) he needs to tap my father on the arm or leg with his paw. The cat learned that this technique also works on everyone else, and as I type this, he's tapping me on the ankle, so I suppose it's time to pay some attention to my cat.

Cool.

I haven't tried systematic training for pointing. If I want them to follow a point, I have to almost be touching the thing I'm "pointing" at -- e.g. a bit of cat food they dropped on the floor that I'd like them to eat so I don't have to clean it up.

But all my cats have been trained to ask for attention by raising a paw, and to understand that I'm not going to give them a scratch if I say "No, baby".

The older sister used to have a problem of asking for attention by placing her paw on me with claws extended. With some training, she has corrected that problem, so if I'm lying in bed or on the couch and she wants attention, she'll brush the tip of my nose with the fur at the end of her knuckles.

The younger sister trained herself not to get on my lap unless I'm wearing dungarees. (Otherwise, the kneading of her claws on my leg hurts me.)

 

[Kleonaptra]

Ok this is going to sound really weird coming from me..

Animals are magnificent cold readers. Most humans cant imagine the scale on which an animal is cold reading them. I know jack about dogs, but I know a lot about horses. People often tell me they have a psychic horse, because I have spiritual views and they think I'll be on board with it. I'm not opposed to the idea of a psychic horse, but I know its extremely unlikely.

I explain a horses supreme auditory capability - that they can hear the slightest change of your heart rythym and tiny changes to your breathing. I explain the olfactory capability, that they can detect faint changes in your pheremones that you arent aware of. Horses put this together and use it to their advantage. I usually fail to convince them the horse isnt psychic, since we cant test it, neither of us can prove it, but I feel sorry for the horse because I know its going to be 'humanised' and they will soon return to me with the same training deficit.

 

[Piggy]

Horses put this together and use it to their advantage.

You are correct, sir!