Posts tagged "animal communication"

Each week, Ben Westhoff shares the ups and downs of owning Pippi, the dalmatian mix he and his wife, Anna, adopted as a puppy in late 2009.

Anna wrote this week's column.

How do you tell a dog you're sorry? That was my dilemma.

Let me explain.

Pippi greeted me enthusiastically, as usual, when I came home from work recently, crowding me at the door, her tail flapping furiously. The excitement was mutual -- we were both all smiles. At the same time, I wanted to make sure that she didn't get outside. And so, as I struggled with multiple bags of work-related things, I tried to block her in.

Once inside, I looked away from the door while pushing it closed, lost in thought. Pippi was dancing her little jig, her hindquarters wiggling as her tail swept side to side. But as the door closed, she emitted a high-pitched yelp -- I had inadvertently slammed her tail in the door!

Columnist Robyn Todd talks About Exercising With Her Pet at MarloThomas.com
Izzy, a standard poodle, is the apple of her owner's eye. But even when you love your dog more than almost anything else in the world, taking charge of 85 pounds of excitable poodle isn't always so easy. Columnist Robyn Todd writes on the Marlo Thomas website about the pains and pratfalls of exercising with her peppy poodle.

Communicating With Your Dog
Remember in "Up" how Dug the dog wore a special collar that translated his thoughts into human speech? Wouldn't it be cool if that device was real? Sadly, the technology to turn that magical wish into science fact may be weeks or even months away. Until then, you'll have to rely on body language and other forms of non-verbal communication to understand what your dog is thinking. But according to Zootoo, chances are you're close enough to your dog that a lack of language is hardly a barrier to you understanding each other.

Denise Richards Rescues Ailing Dog
Luke was suffering from a broken leg, and he was this close to being put down. Fortunately for him, Hollywood star Denise Richards ("Wild Things," "Drop Dead Gorgeous") was on hand to rescue the ailing pooch. Richards wasn't about to let a few health issues get in the way of saving the lucky dog's life. People Pets has a photo of the adorable mutt posing with his new hotty owner.

Black Pet Syndrome
Halloween is fast approaching, and that means black cats are about to be the toast of the pet population. During the rest of the year, though, black-coated dogs and cats prove less popular than those of other colors when it comes to adoption from rescues and shelters. Petside.com debunks several of the myths that may have led to the stigmatization of pets with dark fur.

It's not just your annoying cousin with the English degree who notices your grammatical mistakes. According to a recent Harvard University study, Cottontop tamarin monkeys have an innate ability to notice when certain basic grammatical rules are violated. Previous studies have shown that these monkeys can learn to understand some basic grammar, but not complex sentence structures (ex. the "if... then..." sentence construction). But this is the first study to demonstrate specifically that they are also able to recognize incorrect word usage.

"We were really curious whether monkeys could even detect the common trend found in human language to add sounds to word edges, like adding 'ed' in English to create the past tense," study author Ansgar D. Endress told National Geographic News.

The study used the nonsense word "shoy" coupled with prefixes and suffixes like "ba" and "mo" to form new words like "bashoy" and "shoymo." One group of monkeys learned words with only prefixes added, and another group learned words only with suffixes. Both heard words consisting of the same "shoy" root word. Eventually, the groups were combined and played audio recordings of a series of words. If a monkey responded in puzzlement to a word that violated that monkey's learned grammar, the monkey was counted as having recognized the error.

The response rate to incorrect words was 52 percent, compared to only 37 percent response to correct words. The results are notable because the recognition was spontaneous. That is, although the tamarins were taught the manufactured words used in the study, they were not trained to recognize the grammatically incorrect forms.

In what other ways do we underestimate our primate cousins? Maybe it's only a matter of time before they learn to use the Internet and pettily flame us on message boards when we make minor mistakes.

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