Imitation In Dogs Matches Humans and Apes 181
sciencehabit writes "The next time your dog digs a hole in the backyard after watching you garden, don't punish him. He's just imitating you. A new study reveals that our canine pals are capable of copying our behavior as long as 10 minutes after it's happened. The ability is considered mentally demanding and, until this discovery, something that only humans and apes were known to do."
THAT explains it! (Score:5, Funny)
Stop chewing on your wife's best shoes and the dog will stop doing that too! Oh and also don't chew on the sofa cushions either.
Re:THAT explains it! (Score:5, Informative)
That's behavior that most mammals do when they teethe due to physical discomfort.
Just give your puppy his own chew toys that he KNOWS are his and quickly correct him when he tries to chew on things not his and he'll soon learn what he can and can't chew on. Of course, different breeds are easier to train than others so YMMV.
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Whoooooooosh!
Re:THAT explains it! (Score:5, Funny)
Dog: Woooooooofsh!
Re:THAT explains it! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: THAT explains it! (Score:5, Funny)
If your dog misses a joke in the next 10 minutes now you'll know why.
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The first rule in training puppies is that you need to be at least as smart as the puppy.
Re: THAT explains it! (Score:5, Interesting)
Easy fix... put the shoes away. It's all about operant conditioning with dogs. I suggest an e-collar, an alternative him to chew on, and positive reinforcement when he does something you want. I hear imitation also works, you could fetch some of his toys to chew... ;-)
The other neat thing that dogs can do is figure out what you mean when you point at something, apes just can't seem to grasp this. NOVA did a documentary that attempted to qualify ape intelligence by showing the diffrences between human children and other animals. It was eye opening, particularly the use of tools and the crafting of weapons to kill prey by chimps. I think animals are a lot smarter then we give them credit for, anyhow here is a link: http://m.video.pbs.org/video/1200128615/ [pbs.org]
Re: THAT explains it! (Score:4, Insightful)
E-collar? Put that on your kid and see how they react (or Children's aid). The latter two suggestions are the right answer. If you have to resort to shocking your dog then you are doing something wrong.
Your second paragraph is very true, we are becoming more and more aware that animals are not purely instinct driven. Well they are but so are we, we just don't realize our needs and wants are just that.
Re: THAT explains it! (Score:5, Funny)
E-collar? Put that on your kid and see how they react (or Children's aid).
There are a LOT of children that need that. I fully support the deployment of these things in schools for kids that are troublemakers.
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We cant keep them on the engineers of programmers here. They are too clever and find a way to remove them.
The Marketing and Sales department, Yeah, they cant get them off even if we told them how.
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Positive reinforcement does more than negative, just like dogs.
I wish the world would understand that this is a general principle that applies in most situations.
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Although there might be a colonel of truth in the concept. Perhaps a proper stance a corporal punishment is key?
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Sorry, I'm not sure if you're kidding with me, or if you don't know the difference between principle and principal.
Either way, here you go [diffen.com].
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I'm guessing you don't do much with children.
Not anymore, no. I used to work in a day treatment facility that had nothing but students with behavior issues (among others with genuine development issues).
Time and time again, positive reinforcement with these students only worked to let these kids continue to behave poorly. I'm all for positive reinforcement, but unless you back it up with real consequences, it is completely ineffective in many cases.
But go right ahead, keep giving kids positive reinforcement up until they do something illegal and/or
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Also, consider that children, especially in a school setting, are often at the mercy of their social standing, unlike your pooch at home.
The punishments that are given to one student for specific behavior set the tone for similar potential behaviors from other students.
I certainly hope my children are not taught by a feel-good everything is happy teacher that refuses to discipline a child. If the child is throwing pencils several hours every day, what positive reinforcement are you going to use to get th
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I know a lot of people's kids who should be hooked up to a car battery rather than just an e-collar.
Sometimes, one painful lesson is a much stronger NO that is needed.
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E-collar? Put that on your kid and see how they react (or Children's aid). The latter two suggestions are the right answer. If you have to resort to shocking your dog then you are doing something wrong. Your second paragraph is very true, we are becoming more and more aware that animals are not purely instinct driven. Well they are but so are we, we just don't realize our needs and wants are just that.
Hey buddy. I use a shock collar on my dog and I don't shock her at all. So you ask, why do I have it? Because she's a hound, and I like to let her roam freely whenever safety allows. The problem? She's a hound. She gets onto a scent and does not want to get off of it. She completely stops hearing my voice. Here is where the shock collar comes in handy. See it does more than just shock. I can also make it beep. And that beep snaps her out of her sniffing spree. It also works great when she's too far
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Beep collar. Okay, that can work.
I've had eight dogs over 35+ years, and tried to use a radio collar only once, and only for a brief time. There were RC hobbyists and ham radio nuts in the neighborhood and someone's equipment was causing false signals to the collar. Perhaps the new ones have better protection from that now.
Every dog I've owned has been trained with a silent whistle in "Come", "Drop", and "Stay" commands. I carried the whistle on my key chain. Its effective range was over a quarter mile o
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Beep collar. Okay, that can work.
I've had eight dogs over 35+ years, and tried to use a radio collar only once, and only for a brief time. There were RC hobbyists and ham radio nuts in the neighborhood and someone's equipment was causing false signals to the collar. Perhaps the new ones have better protection from that now.
Every dog I've owned has been trained with a silent whistle in "Come", "Drop", and "Stay" commands. I carried the whistle on my key chain. Its effective range was over a quarter mile on open fields, far beyond my yelling distance, and comparable to the range of a radio collar. Advantages over the radio collar is that the whistle was always with me, there were no batteries to bother with, it was unaffected by water, it was not a potential noose (collars can get hung up on wire fences, etc), and the big one: with distinctive patterns of long and short blasts, it can deliver more than one command. Such as "Drop, Stay" when the dog had gotten on the other side of a busy road.
High tech is kewl. Appropriate tech is better.
So there are advantages and disadvantages to both technologies. We go to the dog park on a regular basis and there are often 8 or more dogs there. With the collar, I can get her attention only, and not bother the other dogs at the park. It is also waterproof (a must because my beast loves the water). It also has different channels, with support for up to 4 collars at a 300 yard range. I thought about the whistle, but it just wasn't ideal for the dog park. I've left the collar turned on for about 4 day
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I left something out in my description of using whistle commands.
I often had two dogs at a time. I learned early on that I needed a distinctive whistle pattern for each dog, basically a "Pay attention!" command, to be followed with the action command. So basically I gave each dog its own name in whistle-speak. The equivalent of teaching "Diogi! Come!" "Juna! Stay!"
As Wolters said, the first command every dog needs to learn is their name. That is a command, and the command is "You, pay attention to me!" Sa
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I don't usually respond to ACs, but this is an exception.
Read Wolters' book, Family Dog [goodreads.com]. Do try to remember the guy was not a writer but a dog trainer. The writing is good enough to get his message across. This is a very quick read, but also a book to come back to, time and again.
Then read Monks of New Skete books on training german shepherds and other breeds: How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend: A Training Manual for Dog Owners [goodreads.com] is the one to start with. The monks are both articulate and highly skilled in tr
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... with distinctive patterns of long and short blasts, it can deliver more than one command.
Your dogs know Morse code? I'm impressed!
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I find too many people are quick to know that there understanding encompasses "the right answer" for all dogs. After the first year+ of trying hard and working with trainers to use redirection and positive reinforcement without and positive punishment, I have to say that the e-collar has been an indispensable tool for my dog. And yeah, I put it on myself to see what it feels like at various levels. It goes from 0 to 127, and I typically use it on him at 20. I've given myself a 60, and am very hesitant to go
Training schools (Score:2)
I think there are a lot of dog trainers who are "positive reinforcement only" and probably ties into some kinds of animal welfare philosophy somehow.
We went to dog training at the local humane society with our 10 month old rescue (half pit bull, half great dane, 95 lbs now at 2 years) and the focus was 100% on positive reinforcement.
We found that for some behaviors it was just not effective -- ie, barking out the window at passers by. It worked well for some things like sit, stay, and come, but for behavio
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E-collar? Put that on your kid and see how they react (or Children's aid). The latter two suggestions are the right answer. If you have to resort to shocking your dog then you are doing something wrong.
Oops, I'd better take it off. Hold on while I take off his muzzle, remove his leash and collar, and put him back in his cage. Oh wait, like you, I just confused my dog with a person.
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Tabasco or some other such sauce can work as well. And is cheaper.
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It really really depends on the dog.
A friend had a shitzu who wouldn't stop barking. Put one of those collars on it that zaps it, and it barks until it's practically cooked. Put one of those collars on it that sprays in its face, and it keeps barking.
After she went through every technique anybody could recommend, she had no choice but to have the dog debarked. The dog never stopped barking -- leaves, shadows, wind, you name it
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The other neat thing that dogs can do is figure out what you mean when you point at something, apes just can't seem to grasp this. NOVA did a documentary that attempted to qualify ape intelligence by showing the diffrences between human children and other animals. It was eye opening, particularly the use of tools and the crafting of weapons to kill prey by chimps. I think animals are a lot smarter then we give them credit for, anyhow here is a link: http://m.video.pbs.org/video/1200128615/ [pbs.org]
Since becoming a dog owner I have been surprised by what he seems to understand. As you said, he understands what I mean when I point to something. But he has even followed commands the first time I have given them, with no training. The very first time I told him to go to bed, he hopped off my bed and got in his own. Once when I was walking him in the snow he got cold and wanted to go home. He started down the neighbors driveway and resisted me when I tried to get him to come back to the street. Fina
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"The other neat thing that dogs can do is figure out what you mean when you point at something"
I think it depends on the dog, my Lab/Collie crosses have no problem with this, but my parents Jack Russel/Doberman cross (yes, really, and no we don't know) just walks up and sniffs and then licks your finger if you point at something.
I find dog intelligence does vary a lot from breed to breed.
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Jack Russel/Doberman cross (yes, really, and no we don't know)
Well, I can guess. I met a guy once who had a Dachshund/Doberman mix; I asked him how that happened and he said he got the dog from a breeder who specializes in this cross, and did it by holding up the male Dachshund behind the female Doberman while they did their thing. Neither dog seemed to object, so what the hell ...
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Pointing is definitely learned in humans, too - or at least it is with my kids. If you think about it, it's a pretty crappy way to indicate something unless your heads are nearly together or you are far enough apart that you can interpolate the line between the person's face and finger.
Or if it's a huge alien spacecraft and so accuracy doesn't matter much.
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Re: THAT explains it! (Score:5, Interesting)
More to the point, dogs and man have co-evolved. They are symbiotic species: they evolved in such a way that each species had a much better chance of raising progeny to mating age than either species had on its own. That's a strong natural selection process.
Part of this is that dogs and man learned to communicate with each other to a greater degree than dogs in a pack communicate with each other. They seek eye contact and use a rich gesture language to communicate their feelings to each other. Human pointing is an extension of that. The evolutionary advantages of pointing are pretty much obvious.
It should not be surprising that many of man's social structures-- lodges, tio-spayes, clans, small villages, high school cliques, gangs, etc-- are more dog-like than they are ape-like. Humans would not be like they are if they had not teamed up with dogs.
Re:THAT explains it! (Score:4, Funny)
Stop chewing on your wife's best shoes and the dog will stop doing that too! Oh and also don't chew on the sofa cushions either.
Also, it's a very good reason not to have sex with your wife in front of your pets.
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Stop chewing on your wife's best shoes and the dog will stop doing that too! Oh and also don't chew on the sofa cushions either.
I'm not allowed on the sofa :(
Re:THAT explains it! (Score:5, Funny)
My Jack Russell is pretty good at copying. He now sits up against the back of the couch and watches T.V. He'll snipe your beer, right from the bottle. Sleeps on his back with his head on the pillow. Shits on the neighbors lawn. Just like me!
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Re: THAT explains it! (Score:2, Interesting)
I know there's some debate on this subject, however, my beagle will track across the screen and howl at any dog-like (or horse-like) image. I was curious if it was an audio cue, but she does it with the sound off, too. She doesn't react to a CRT, but pretty much any LCD or plasma (and not the fast refresh ones. The plasma in question is maybe a first or second gen plasma) I've run into has been good enough for her. Trying to watch Up was a funny experience. She freaked out the second the dog first appeared.
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So when i see a dog licking the balls (Score:5, Funny)
I know i shouldn't kiss the girl that owns him
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So, why does your dog do that to my leg? Just what have you been letting him watch you do?
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You just lost my dog's rape fight. /Willard reference.
MPIAA (Score:5, Funny)
I did not copy that song! I Swear! It was my dog!
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But who did he learn it from smart guy!
The only thing my dog copied from me is my smartness.
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The only thing my dog copied from me is my smartness.
That, and drinking from the toilet.
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That, and drinking from the toilet.
I wasn't drinking, I swear! I was splashing toilet water [google.com] on my face. (My french cousin told me it makes me more attractive to women...)
Bah. (Score:3)
"Doggie see, doggie do" just doesn't have the same catch as "monkey see, monkey do".
Especially the "doggie do[o]" part...
Crows also learn and imitate (Score:2, Interesting)
I've seen a scientific documentary that shows how crows can learn just by looking at other fellows and imitate them to solve practical problems.
Human, apes and dogs are hardly the only species to do so.
fridge (Score:2, Interesting)
my old dog watched me open the fridge one day, and carried on doing it and emptying the contents until a child lock was put on it
That explains it.. (Score:4, Funny)
So this is why I see many fat dogs lately..
Dogs are no dummies (Score:2, Interesting)
Dogs have been scrutinizing us humans for 400 centuries, so they're experts at understanding our moods and behaviors.
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You are missing the word "consciously" in there somewhere.
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Cats Can Do This, But Most Can't Be Bothered (Score:5, Interesting)
As for imitative behavior, he loves to watch me wash dishes. Turkish Vans are fascinated by water (in nature they swim for fun and fish for food), so he has to be on the counter watching whenever I'm washing dishes. He sees me apparently rubbing my "paws" together under the stream of water, and if I turn to put the dish in the drying rack, he will invariably start pawing at the stream of water, and then rubbing his paws together under the stream. He's invariably very confused because he doesn't understand what this accomplishes, but he keeps doing it because he sees me doing it.
Cats have the intelligence to imitate behavior, but they don't exhibit it because most domesticated cats do not have the pack mentality. They do their own thing unless there is a reward for doing your thing. You hear about people teaching their cats to flush the toilet, but that's usually because they're fascinated by the "reward" of getting to watch the whirlpool. Turkish Vans and dogs, however, will do things because they see you doing it and they want to win your approval by doing what you do.
depends on how the cat was raised (Score:2)
Cats are a product of their upbringing and environment, like many critters, people included.
Cats that grow up in very active households tend to be very sociable towards strangers (same for "shop" cats). Cats that grow up spending their lives with someone who doesn't socialize much, tend to be more skittish of strangers. Cats that grow up by themselves tend to be more sociable towards humans; cats that grow up with another cat tend to be more social with the other cats (playing, following, snoozing, etc.) an
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They do, which many youtube videos show. :)
So it is a mixed blessing.
This is ridiculous (Score:3)
Mimicry is perfectly standard behaviour for animals. There have been studies on how parents teach their offspring how to hunt dating back decades. This applies on land, on/under water and in the air. Most of the studies I have heard about involve mammals or birds, I can't remember any involving reptiles, fish or (in particular) insects. Some larger spiders may have this ability - ones large enough to eat small ground-nesting birds for instance
.
The article itself is more about adapting behaviour by watching humans and that is self-limiting, apart from speech there is not much useful a bird can learn that way. I have a neighbour who used to look after the garden before it was turned into a lawn. Back then he had a fan - a blackbird which would hang around when he was digging, waiting for worms to be unearthed. It presumably recognised my neighbour as non-threatening and the digging as the same thing it would do but on steroids.
I was attacked by a goose a few years back. We were sitting outside and someone had fun throwing it scraps, closer and closer to me. It tried to drive me off by driving at me while hissing and flapping its wings. I joined in the fun by advancing on it, hissing back and 'flapping' my arms the same way. Communication was achieved, goose withdrew to a safer distance.
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I was attacked by a goose a few years back. We were sitting outside and someone had fun throwing it scraps, closer and closer to me. It tried to drive me off by driving at me while hissing and flapping its wings. I joined in the fun by advancing on it, hissing back and 'flapping' my arms the same way. Communication was achieved, goose withdrew to a safer distance.
You were lucky. Usually geese go for the legs in such situation. Especially if you wore shorts. Geese just love to pinch human legs...
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And if you bend over, they will go for your eyes.
Did you hope they'd go for your ass?
Since they have poor 3d vision
Maybe farting might help?
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Well that explains why my mutts are always farting (Score:2)
Was wondering what the hell those dogs eat. They're always loafing around the house, stinking up the place with their nasty farts.
Oh. Now I get it.
Damn dog (Score:3)
Still won't do my taxes.
Chickens (Score:2)
My 2 anecdotes are about chickens. I keep a couple of bantams, more as pets than anything else.
At a stage the one hen hatched a batch of chicks. Because the chicks can't fly or hop much yet (I've seen adult chickens fly a remarkable distance quite gracefully, and hop over obstacles 2-3 times their height with a single wing flap, much like a human would use his arms for balance when hopping over something), they can't get onto the perch in their coop for the night, so mom and chicks slept on the ground. The
shows how little we "know" (Score:3)
My cats, both of them will attempt to do stuff like reach for the door knob to open closed doors. They are round knobs so they can't do it. But they know what they need to do. One of them has opened a bag of litter and knocked it over when we were out so she could do her business in it after the door to the room with her litter tray blew shut in the wind (I kid you not).
Animals are a lot smarter than we give them credit for, a lot of the tests they "fail" is likely because they are simply differently motivated.
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my friend's dog does this (Score:3)
Close the bedroom door! (Score:2)
I'll have to remember that...
Many animals are mimics (Score:2)
Parrots also copy (Score:2)
Parrots are intelligent enough to watch what you do and copy your actions to duplicate the effect.
You cannot leave keys near my parrot as he will get hold of them and try the keys in the padlocks on his cage until he unlocks them. He knows this as he's seen me do it.
Awwww! (Score:2)
He thinks he's people!
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I used to have a cat that stood on her back legs and rattled the door handle when she wanted to be let in or out. But apparently this sort of mimicry has only just been expanded from monkey behavior to dogs. Do any of these scientists ever go outside the labs in their mother's basement and actually observe the outside world at all?
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If you want to show them how to do something it can work when you take them and make them move in the way they have to move. That way we managed to teach one cat how to open doors, which was not such a good idea though
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Yeah, our smart dog has just now figured out how to turn doorknobs. Luckily, it only works when the door opens inwards. He'll let himself into the house but can't let himself out. Unless I turn a door around...
Also had a cat that would jump up and hold on to doorknobs until they opened.
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Pretty much every daily task we do is mimicked, no one is born knowing how to use a shovel or how to put an object in a box until they are shown. In most cases for humans we only have to be shown once and then we can do it the rest of our lives but we have a little more thinking muscle to work with than a dog. Its not too surprising that they have the capacity to copy actions, what is really cool is that they have to map the action from a two legged human action to a four legged dog action. I'll bet the dog
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Re:Humans Co-evolved with Dogs! (Score:5, Insightful)
Dogs didn't evolve from wolves. Dogs were bred from wolves. There is a world of difference. And that breeding program was designed to maximize certain aspects of canine intelligence. A dog is a man-made creation that has no relation to evolutionary development. In this light, the fact that dogs exhibit mimicry while almost no other animal does is not surprising.
The difference is purely semantic. The difference is that dogs didn't evolve from wolves through natural selection, they evolved via human selection (which may still considered natural), but it's still an evolution.
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So, you're saying he is anti-semantic?
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The difference is purely semantic. The difference is that dogs didn't evolve from wolves through natural selection, they evolved via human selection (which may still considered natural), but it's still an evolution.
I've seen a few articles, like this one [nationalgeographic.com] that suggests wolves domesticated humans ... or this one [nytimes.com] that wolves/dogs domesticated themselves ... to co-exist.
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Cro-magnon killed some wolves, saw the pups and took them back to cave; food is food. Eventually someone liked them enough to keep around (keep pests down, alert to sounds, are cute, etc) and the ones that bred and stayed friendly and neonatic (shorter snouts, less aggressive) kept breeding.
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The speculation that I've read most recently from dog behaviorists (because there isn't enough evidence in the archeological record) is that solitary wo
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Makes sense. Just about every village had a garbage pile nearby (good for archaeologists) and the age of dogs splitting off from wolves parallels human transition from nomadic to sedentary.
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Thia is what passes for research these days.
Did you know that angry people are more likely to yell?
Did you know that 87.3% of facts in internet articles are made up?
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I had a border collie when I was a kid that would figure out just about anything. Opening doors, the refrigerator, digging up holes (and filling them in after getting an earful from my dad)... The most impressive thing she ever did though was picking vegetables from the garden. She could smell when they were ripe, and one year all the cantaloupe seeds that were planted sprouted. We had well over 400 cantaloupe that year, and it was very time consuming to pick them all. We would wake up in the morning w
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