Well I had a pretty great birthday.  It began with a long walk in the morning – which was fun.  It was  a crisp, sunny day. 

 Happy birthday to ME!  Yup.  It’s my special day. Parteeeeee.  But first – a complaint…

Einstein told me that dogs at the age of 7 are considered veterans.  I don’t like that term.  First of all, I was never in the military.  So I’m not REALLY a veteran. And I don’t like the term “senior” dog either.  I mean I’m still wild and crazy.  I haven’t slowed down ONE bit.  Age is just a number.  That’s what my human always says.  Unless….being a senior dog gets me discounts at the pet store.  Cheaper biscuits?  I’m in.

My human was looking through some old video footage and she found a couple of baby vidoes of me.  This one I have posted before – but I’m so adorable it bears re-posting. Note the old carpet – with the chewed corner.  HEY – that was BEFORE the FG!!!!!!!   Anyway…..that was several carpets ago….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wa-M1HEtOk

This one was newly found old footage.  Here Einstien is teaching me to talk.  I catch on quite quickly.  And you can also see Paxton’s big head for a second or two:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTIoC-tATk8

This one is only10 seconds long.  It shows me looking utterly dazed but oh-so-cute:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U0oOMtJgdM

Yup, I’ve grown up a bit since those old days.  Look how different my coat color was – I was a lot darker back in my early days. And my how the world has changed.  When I came along, my human had like 6 Friends on Facebook.  And she has LOTS more now – all because of me.  I’m a Friend-magnet.

Today for my birthday, I have a request – just like last year.  That every reader does one nice thing for someone else today.  And as I have wished in the past – it doesn’t need to be anything huge- like giving a charity a contribution (although that would be nice!) – it can be as simple as holding a door open, smiling at someone passing by, calling an old friend, sending someone a quick e-mail greeting, playing an extra game of fetch with your dog, giving your dog an extra treat….and think of me when you do it!

Today is a HAPPY day.   But tomorrow, please make sure to read my blog and I’ll tell you about a problem I am having….But before you worry – NO – it is NOT health related.

Have a good one.  Peace and paws up.
Seizure free days: 43

So it’s funny how the FG tries to scare my human when she takes him out at night…

It is getting dark so early in the evening now.   By the time she gets home from work, feeds us, and eats something herself, it is already starting to get dark.  And of course, when we go out for our last pee of the night (ALWAYS on a leash) it is completely dark out.   The FG is funny, he will sniff around and then suddenly look up – and stare into the woods.  He does this QUITE often.  And sometimes he will jump backwards – like something is out there.  My human heard a rumor that a bear was back in the vicinity – not specifically back in our neighborhood – but not too too far away.  So with that in mind, she usually hurries back in the house when the FG does his scary look.   He told me he does it just for fun.   Did I mention that I am really beginning to like this guy more and more.   It’s only taken 2 years.

And speaking of bears….have you seen THIS video?

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dHz3BfeJdA

How crazy is THAT?!  I think Einstein would probably end up as a bear appetizer if he ever ran into one.  He would bolt over barking like mad.  Mind you, any bear in his right mind would take off in the other direction to get away from his barking.

Anyway, today is Thursday….Which means tomorrow is FRIDAY!!!!!!!!  And we can’t WAIT!!!

Have a good one.  Peace and paws up.
Seizure free days: 41

October 24.  And on this day in 1901, a woman by the name of Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel. A few days before her – a cat went over in the same barrel to test it out.  The guinea pig, make that the guinea cat, survived so Annie decided to give it a go herself.  She survived.  But she didn’t advocate that others try it.

Well here’s an interesting bit of trivia that I came across.  Do you know what a Vernepator Cur is?  It’s a breed of dog!  Mind you, it’s extinct.   You may know it by its more “common name.”  A Turnspit dog.  Still puzzled?  Well the name describes exactly what the terrier-like breed was bred to do – they turned the spits over open fires in kitchens in the UK and apparently in America as well – from around 1750-1850.  The dogs were put on a wheel-like contraption and basically ran and ran, turning the spit over the flame.  Kind of like being a hamster in one of those rolling cages.  Because it often took a long time, many households had more than one dog to do the job.  Supposedly they were one of the reasons for founding the SPCA.  Some resources say that the dogs were also taken to church and used as foot warmers.  Go figure.  Not a job I’m applying for.  The foot warmer maybe, but forget the running wheel.

When I did a little search in Wikipedia, I found at least 50 breeds of dog that are now extinct.  One breed, the Welsh hillman dog, was an ancient herding breed that was almost extinct in the 1940’s.  One source said the last female was purchased in 1974, and the owner – not realizing she was so rare, had her spayed.  Oopsie.  Wouldn’t that just ruin your day – learning that you caused the extinction of a species.

However,  I DO wish we could just cause the extinction of ticks.  That would be a different story.  After my pest blog the other day, I have heard about ALL kinds of options that people have found helpful – so here are just a few:

• Possums.  We don’t have any in Nova Scotia – but apparently they LOVE ticks.  I’m thinking the Department of Natural Resources would probably rather that I not go and import a bunch of possums and let them lose in the wild though….

• Guinea hens – also love ticks as a delicacy.  Now those we could get. 

• Natural EM Tick collars – someone has offered to make me one – and I’m excited to be a guinea pig.  Not a guinea hen – a pig.  She may be making them for sale – but until then, if you want to read about them – they are here: https://homeopawthic.com/natural-tick-collars

• Wondercide products:  https://www.wondercide.com/pets/dogs/flea-treatment-for-dogs  I haven’t tried these.  I do need to be careful if they contain Rosemary, but if not – I could give them a shot.

• Glady has used 1/2 teaspoon of real Brewers Yeast in her dogs’ food every day.  Glady has owned many dogs – and has never had a flea or tick problem.

Thanks again for the suggestions – I’m happy to share others that come along.

Well time to go and make my breakfast kibble extinct.

Have a good one.  Peace and paws up.
Seizure free days: 39

October 22. And according to the crazy calendar it is National Nut Day.  Sounds like every day in our house.

The circle of life….

So what is a human supposed to do?  

Anyway,  another new dog study just came out at Emory University.  They wanted to see just how we dogs understand language.  Sure – we respond to words like “sit, stay and down” – when we want to – but what is really happening in our brains when we hear those words.  Do we really understand them?

What they did was train dogs to retrieve two objects when they would hear the name of the object.  Lots of dogs can do that – remember that Border Collie who could discriminate the names of hundreds of objects?  Anyway, they trained the dogs to differentiate the two objects by name.  Then they put the dogs in a brain scanning machine – and did what is called an fMRI.  While in the scanner, the humans would hold up the two trained objects, one at a time and would then say the name to the dog.  They would also hold up the name of an unfamiliar, non-trained object and call it something weird – like a bobo. 

Now what they expected to see was that the areas of the brain that are known to interpret auditory information, would basically light up or show more activation for the familiar trained objects.  They found the opposite – there was more activation for the unfamiliar words.   The researchers hypothesized that (in basic terms) the dogs were working hard to please their owners – so were trying harder, therefore there was more activation for the unfamiliar words.  This is actually opposite to what one would see in humans – who show greater activation in their brains for known words.

The researchers also found that a variety of different areas of the brain were activated in dogs as well.  Unlike humans – where you can GENERALLY predict where the activation will be seen.  However, they noted that part of the problem with showing the exact area of activation has to do with the fact that they were using a variety of dogs so the sizes of the brains varied – and it is a bit more difficult to map the areas and make comparisons. 

So what is the bottom line takeaway message? Well we dogs DO understand words.  But in terms of training us to do new tricks, another study pointed to the fact that we dogs may respond more quickly to visual and scent cues than to verbal cues alone.  Which for me makes some sense- I can hear the word “treat” and I’ll respond- but let me see it or smell it – and boy oh boy my responses are much quicker!!