5 Ways Your Dog Senses The World Differently From YouWritten by Charlie Lafave
Do dogs sense things differently than humans do? Well, yes and no. Dogs share same basic senses with us: they see, hear, touch, smell and taste. But level of their senses is different – an important distinction when you’re trying to figure out just what your dog is doing.Sight It was once thought that dogs were “color-blind” – only able to see shades of black and white with some grey, but scientific studies have found that’s not true. Dogs can see in color – ranging from blues and greens to greys and crèmes, and of course, black and white. It’s been estimated that humans can distinguish somewhere between 7 and 10 million different colors. (We don’t even have names for that many colors!) Picture courtesy of Dr. P’s site: http://www.uwsp.edu/psych/dog/dog.htm But dogs have it all over humans in detecting motion – that’s one reason they can detect a cat up a tree at a much greater distance than you can! And their night vision is typically better than ours – dogs have an additional reflective layer in eye called tapetum lucidum, which reflects light back into receptor cells of eye, which not only increases their night vision, but gives them that spooky appearance of eyes glowing in dark. Hearing When your dog is barking like crazy in middle of night, don’t just assume he’s lonely and wants you to get up and keep him company. He may be listening to something that you can’t hear, that’s extremely upsetting to him – like a burglar breaking in your basement window. Dogs can hear at four times distance humans can – that means you might hear something from a 100 yards away your dog could hear from a quarter of a mile away. Their ears are also better designed to gather more of available sound wave – they have 15 different muscles that move their ears in all directions, plus they can move one ear at a time – and independently of other to absorb even more information! Touch Dogs also have a well-developed sense of touch, surprising perhaps under all that fur, although this sense is much less sophisticated than a human’s. Puppies are born with sensory receptors in their faces so they can find mama even if they’re separated before they open their eyes. But they also can sense touch all over their bodies, just as humans can. One reason your dog flops down on couch next to you and tries to snuggle up on a hot day (or any other day for that matter!) is because he likes comfort of feeling that you’re right there!
| | DOG GOES BALLISTIC WHEN JOGGING WITH OWNERWritten by Adam G. Katz
Dear Adam:My dog, Chance, we think is a Golden retriever mix, but he's mostly white with gold patches. Also he's about 2/3 size of a Golden Retriever. He's 18 months old and has been loose-leash trained pretty well as long as you don't let him get distracted. The thing I don't know how to handle is that some dogs that we meet when we're out jogging or walking, he goes ballistic. We have used a choke chain to train him, and it seemed to work well. But there is that occasional dog that we meet will get him so riled that he pulls, then spins, then pulls backwards, then jumps up and down, then spins again - all to get loose to go attack other dog. What are my options? - Greg Dear Greg: My first question is: Why aren't you using a pinch collar? This is advocated ad nausea in book… Furthermore, distractions should not be avoided. They should be actively sought after. Distractions make your dog better. They allow you to teach your dog that you are going to make him behave EVEN AROUND A DISTRACTION.
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