GWL Dog
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https://bigthink.com/life/dog-head-tilting/
or the study, the researchers conducted experiments involving 40 dogs divided into two groups. One group of dogs had proven consistently successful in learning the names of toys (and thus were called “gifted word learners”), while the other dogs were typical in their learning abilities.
“Only a few dogs can learn the name of objects (toys) even after a few exposures, while most (typical) dogs do not,” the researchers noted. “We define the dogs that rapidly learn object labels as gifted word learner (GWL) dogs. We expected that, if head-tilting is related to processing meaningful or relevant auditory stimuli, dogs that learn object labels would tilt their heads more frequently upon hearing the toy’s name than typical dogs.”
The results revealed two main findings. First, only the GWL dogs were able to learn the names of the new toys at levels above chance. But more importantly, the GWL dogs were significantly more likely than the typical group to tilt their heads upon hearing their owners say the name of a new toy.
“Therefore, we suggest that the difference in the dogs’ behavior might be related to hearing meaningful words (for the GWL dogs) and could be a sign of increased attention,” the researchers wrote. “Possibly, head-tilts could also be related to making a cross-modal match in the dogs’ memory (e.g. name to a visual image) upon hearing the toy’s name.”
The results showed that each of the individual dogs in the GWL group consistently tilted its head in the same direction, but some of the dogs consistently chose right while the others chose left. This held true even when the owners altered their positions while giving commands, suggesting that “the location of the sound source can be excluded as a confounding factor,” the researchers wrote.
The authors cannot say much yet about the intelligence of particular breeds. All of the GWL dogs were border collies, but so were most of the typical dogs that could not learn the names of the new toys. The researchers noted that future studies could investigate the behavior with a larger sample size including various breeds.
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Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace. – Mike Ditka
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J.J. (a black lab) belonged to my best friend. The dog lived in the back yard, but was allowed in the house. When coming into the house, he knew to go get his towel and bring it to you. He would then roll over on his back and let you wipe off his paws. You'd hand him his towel back and he would go put it back up.
J.J. had a toybox by the fireplace. You could tell him to fetch whatever toy you wanted to play with and he would bring it to you. When J.J. was through playing, you'd tell him to pick up his toys and he'd scamper through the house, picking his toys up and putting them back in the box.to
My wife cooked J.J. breakfast most Sunday mornings. You could ask him what he wanted - multiple choice, since dogs can't talk - and he'd let you know. Usually, he preferred pancakes and bacon, although he occasionally would rather have eggs and sausage. Or maybe biscuits and gravy. Every now and then, waffles. He had his own plastic plate, since dogs aren't good with china. You could set his plate in front of him and he wouldn't eat until after he bowed his head and the blessing was said.
My friend died with CHF. For the last several months of his life, J.J. spent a lot more time in the house. Usually lying by the recliner, usually getting fed too many of his favorite treats, vanilla wafers. My friend's son moved into his house after his dad's death and while he's a good man, he just doesn't love animals the way my buddy did. Oh, I'd drop by occasionally and take J.J. down to the pond in the summer (he was a terrible swimmer for a lab, but he loved the water) or maybe I'd pick a bucket of figs off the old fig tree and throw a few over the fence to him, just to let him catch them in the air and eat them. But J.J. didn't get near the attention he used to get and he never had anymore Sunday breakfasts.
I got a call one day from my friend's son...He'd found J.J. dead in the back yard. I went over there with the wife, and J.J. was curled up on the back porch, just as he'd slept there most of his life. There are some things I really regret in life. Not burying J.J. was one of them. I was too close to post-op to swing a pick and muck out with a shovel. I probably couldn't have picked him up, he was a big dog. I patted him on the head and said good-bye, closing another chapter in life. I guess the son just chunked the body in the woods, I didn't ask. I don't want to know. I let J.J. down and it bothers me.
He was a good dog.
