The Intelligent Dog’s Guide To A Troubled World

What does the trio above have in common?  They’re all very smart and they’re getting an education.  Humans have been up to their scientific studies and The National Geographic –that fine publication that has long been a favorite of Yours Truly– has produced an article about just how smart animals really are (here’s the link to the article: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/animal-minds/virginia-morell-text/1 and they have a number of terrific video and text features that can be found on this page http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/video/player?titleID=1390861263). 

Betsy, the Border Collie pictured above and the covergirl for the March issue, is a particular standout for me (If I travel to Austria, I would very much like to meet her).  She is clearly a bit of a risk taker, though, to let humans know that she “gets it” (Yours Truly has studiously avoided displaying his intelligence for fear of having electrodes stuck all over his grey matter by over-zealous scientists –this blog is my only risk-taking activity, the rest of the time I play amiable but dumb).  This is what they write about Betsy:

Name:      “Betsy”
Species:  Border Collie
Home:     Vienna, Austria
Smarts:   Retains an ever growing vocabulary that rivals a toddlers. How much thought goes on behind those eyes? A lot, in this case. Six-year-old “Betsy” can put names to objects faster than a great ape, and her vocabulary is at 340 words and counting. Her smarts showed up early: At ten weeks she would sit on command and was soon picking up on names of items and rushing to retrieve them—ball, rope, paper, box, keys, and dozens more. She now knows at least 15 people by name, and in scientific tests she’s proved skilled at linking photographs with the objects they represent. Says her owner, “She’s a dog in a human [pack]. We’re learning her language, and she’s learning ours.”  

Today, we move to python-free Vermont to make a pilgrimage to the newly christened Doggy Disneyland, which from what I can gather is some nice man with an ample supply of doggy treats in a cabin plastered with dog photos and stuffed with memorabilia.  Here’s the link http://www.cnn.com/2008/TRAVEL/02/22/dog.chapel.ap/index.html and the beginning of the article’s below.  Also, for those of you –like Yours Truly— who are interested in towns where great inroads are being made to include dogs in daily public life (someday I dream of waltzing into the Met or every bookstore), I’d suggest reading this on Los Gatos in California: http://www.mercurynews.com/valley/ci_8329190?nclick_check=1

I never like to hear of the misfortunes of my canine brothers and sisters and this story from Down Under made me both sad for the dog’s fate and happy that we do not have 15 foot pythons in Manhattan (though I’ve heard they might be living in the homes of a handful of rockstars and tatoo artists).  Apparently the family in the story had also lost a cat and a guinea pig to snakes in recent weeks.  The photo above shows the bulge where the unfortunate dog is currently being digested in the snake’s belly.  The story below is from a newsite in Australia: http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2008/02/27/1811_local-news.html

The fellow above might be tough but now he’s being forced to wear little booties. I can’t imagine needing these for the streets of New York –though sometimes in the winter the ice and snow works its way into your paws and can stop you dead mid-intersection. Here’s the story from SpiegelOnline (http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,537659,00.html):

German Police Dogs Issued Boots

Good news for police dogs in the German city of Düsseldorf: They are getting US-made boots with thick rubber soles so that they don’t cut their paws while chasing criminals around the city.

Police dogs in the German city of Düsseldorf have been issued with smart blue boots to protect their paws.

The dogs will wear the boots while policing demonstrations and patrolling the city’s old town. “When they’re on assignment in the Düsseldorf old town we often get problems with discarded bottles and other rubbish which could injure the animals,” a police spokesman told SPIEGEL ONLINE. The boots, which have thick rubber soles, were bought in the US and the dogs will start using them on assignment in March, once they have got used to them, police said. Since the new uniform policy was reported in the local media the police have been inundated with enquiries from dog owners who want to know where they can get the boots in order to provide protection for their own pets.

Yesterday, J.F. informed me that while he enjoyed the skateboarding dog video and the snow excursions very much, he suggested that since so many readers of the book have expressed such delight in my canine observations that I should share some of them here with the wider world.  This material, he said, should be taken from what publishing wonks like to call the “sacred innards” of a book even if my publisher, or my publisher’s lawyer, tells me not to (J.F. has instructed me to take the phone off the hook and run away from process servers).   So please accept the following free excerpt from A Dog About Town.  In this scene, I visit a Manhattan dog run with Harry, my owner.  In keeping with my philosophical temperament, I reflect upon dogs, their owners and a dog’s nose before my ranging meditations are once again interrupted by the plot of this book that is both a mystery and a comedy (here’s two recent blog reviews http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977243423 and http://fiftybooksproject.blogspot.com/2008/02/dog-about-town-by-j-f-englert.html; and Luvmutt is running a contest: http://www.luvmutt.com/blog/2008/02/contest-let-sle.html).  Enjoy:
The purpose for most canine outings in New York City is bodily necessity.  You can tell a lot about a dog by the way he or she approaches a Number 1 and a Number 2.  There are, for example, the Zigzag Dumpers for whom a Number 2 is impossible if not preceded by a pell-mell dash through the undergrowth with their owners either leashed in tow or shouting from a quarter of a mile away.  Then there are the Squat-and-Drops.  Squat-and-Drops never stand on ceremony.  They couldn’t care less who was in the immediate vicinity.  When they need to do their business, there is no stopping them.  A New York dog run has all kinds.  Plenty of Zigzag Dumpers and Squat-and-Drops, of course, but also the more demure Foliage-Finders, who refuse to be seen in process; the picky Asphalt-Onlys (real city dogs), who never go on grass or dirt; and their opposites, the Earth-Onlys, who never go on the asphalt.  It is tempting to be breedist, assume a bulldog will be a Squat-and-Drop and a poodle a Foliage-Finder, but this would be a mistake.  
The Squat-and-Drops were out in full force when Harry and I arrived at the dog run.  A hyperactive greyhound raced between legs in an attempt to harass an Alsatian; an anorexic toy poodle fresh from the dog show circuit shivered in the chill night air beneath a custom-made cashmere sweater.
Owners fall into categories just as easily as their pets.  There seem to be two major pet-owning characters: the Apologizers and the Apologists.  The Apologizers take the blame for everything their dog does or does not do.  They do so vocally and with body language, usually sweeping gestures of surprise and shrinking postures of shame. The Apologizer seems shocked that his or her dog would push through the legs of a crowd at the intersection or do a Number 2 right in the middle of the street.  The Apologist is the exact opposite.  He –it’s usually a he— seems to take pride when his hundred-pound junkyard dog mounts someone’s long-haired Chihuahua or gobbles down a child’s ice cream.  The Apologist’s animal is like a surrogate free spirit that keeps the owner safely removed from the bad behavior while permitting him to strut the streets of Manhattan with caveman bravado. 
Harry let me off my leash and I snuffled around an oak tree, drawing the layers of smell deep in my olfactories.  Ah, a dog’s nose in the dirt.  If I begin to wax about this wonder, I might not stop and there is a story to tell.  I was about to push my snout beneath another root in search of a smell trail richer and more beguiling than the bouquet of a fine burgundy wine when Harry began to shout.
“Randolph, we’ve got trouble.”