Interaction with humans

A study by Monique Udell and her team, from the University of Florida has found how dogs think and learn about human behaviour and how they respond to their body language, verbal commands, and their attention.  The study suggests it is all down to a combination of specific cues, context and previous experience.
Udell and her team carried out two experiments comparing the performance of pet domestic dogs, shelter dogs and wolves by giving the animals the opportunity to beg for food, from either an attentive person or from a person unable to see the animal.
They wanted to know whether the rearing and living environment of the animal (shelter or human home), or the species itself (dog or wolf), had the greater impact on the animal's performance.
They showed, for the first time that wolves, like domestic dogs, are capable of begging successfully for food by approaching the attentive human.
This demonstrates that both dogs and wolves have the capacity to behave, observe and respond to a human's attention.
In addition, both wolves and pet dogs were able to rapidly improve their performance with practice.
The authors also found that dogs were not sensitive to all visual cues of a human's attention in the same way.
In particular, dogs from a home environment rather than a shelter were more sensitive to stimuli predicting attentive humans. Those dogs with less regular exposure to humans did not perform and responded as well.

Facelift

A St Bernard dog has been given a "facelift" to stop his skin folds from rubbing on his eyes.
At the age of two Boycie suffered from excess skin folds, which left him without sight.
Boyce, who is being cared for by the Dogs Trust, in Canterbury, had a section of skin on the top of his head removed so the rest of his skin could be "lifted" and stitched back together.

Belle, one year on

Belle left us on 4th October 2010.  She is still very much in our hearts.

Bulgarian Shepherd

Ancestors of the Bulgarian Shepherd Dogs are the dogs of Central Asia – Afghanistan and Iran area where the migration process of the ancient Bulgarians began. It is also named Karakachan Shepherd after the Karakachans, Balkan nomadic shepherds.  It is a mountain livestock guardian dog used to herd, to escort and guard sheep and goat herds.  The dogs are found in the Balkan peninsula but also on many farms in the US.

Putin, the softy!

Vladimir Putin hugs a Bulgarian shepherd dog, after receiving it as a present from Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boiko Borisov in Sofia, on November 13, 2010.  Looks a bit like Ozzy.

Dog food

Look what I saw on Waitrose's tins of dog food.  It's Ozzy!

In the dog house

Ozzy peed up against my leg.  Not a little widdle either.  I had to change my trousers and my shoes when I got home.
I stayed calm and told him in no uncertain terms that I was not happy with him.  I put him in a submissive down position.  He did not seem to care.
I am trying to work out why this happened and am doing some research on this.
Yes, he was marking his territory because there were others dogs around.  Yes, he wanted to show me or them who was boss.  The latter is unacceptable.
I'll keep you posted.