THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

This is an honest question! I’m truly curious what you think.  The editor of the Bark Magazine asked me to write my next column on whether male and female dogs need to be trained differently, and whether they perform differently. I have some thoughts about it, but I am primarily interested in what YOU think! I’d especially love to hear from trainers or people who have had a good number of dogs, so that they have seen a good ’sample size’ to use to compare the sexes.

I must say, I take this on with trepidation! Would it be less potentially controversial to talk about the Iraq war or the recent election?! I’ll tell you what my experience has been (and what I’ve heard others say so far) after I’ve gotten a good number of comments…

The face of Mike, shown below, is suggesting he’d love to know what you think. (owned by a great guy name Rich, from Chicago, Illinois, member of the Wisconsin Working Stockdog Association…

So much to say, so little time! First off, I thought I’d let the folks who get WPR daytime know that I’ll be a guest on Larry Meiller’s show tomorrow at 11:45. It’ll be a hoot to see him. I’m feeling sort of smiley-silly about it, so watch out what you ask me if you call in!

Second, here’s a photo of Lassie with her canine chiropractor, Dr. Mark McCaan (spelling?). We go in every month (Willie every other), and there is simply no question that it helps her 15 year old body (almost, she’ll be 15 in 3 weeks!). The effects are immediate and obvious. If I skip them she develops a significant limp originating in her right shoulder. If I stay on schedule she still clearly has some arthritis (treated in many ways, not just chiropractic). [Did I mention, that in spite of Dr. Mark’s kindness and care with her old body, Lassie is never thrilled about going to the vet clinic? Look at the faces below… talk about absolute opposites of emotional expressions! Lest you are worried about my Lassie girl, she looks exactly like that in the car too… no one does ‘disdain’ better than Princess Lassie!

I was talking to a dear brother-in-law on my way there, and had the conversation you well might have had too…”Yes, really, there really are canine chiropractors and yes, really they can do amazingly wonderful things for a dog’s body, just as is true in human medicine.” (And what wasn’t said was “Yes, really, I know she’s a dog but she’s my dog and I love her like family and I am lucky enough to be able to afford it and look at all the money that people spend on golf clubs and fancy shoes so why the heck shouldn’t I spend the money on my dog!) My brother-in-law is a dear, understanding man, so I don’t think he was being judgmental as much as he was being surprised.) But it seems so common to hear from journalists whose editors want them to write a “CAN YOU BELIEVE HOW MUCH PEOPLE SPEND ON THEIR DOG!” story. Well, yes, some of us do, because we are lucky and can afford it. Is that really so strange or terrible? I wrote in For the Love of a Dog that one interviewer wore $400 shoes while asking me, incredulously, if people really paid money to have acupuncture done on their dogs. I was very polite when I answered, honest.

It’s winter at the farm.. we just got the barn shoveled and scrapped and brushed and bleached in time. Snowed a little last night, 14 degrees on the kitchen thermometer this morning. I am NOT ready. Apparently, Willie is:

Next post will be about great research that’s piling up on my desk… all done on species other than dogs, all relates to us and our dogs directly!

It’s a wonderful thing to hold a book you wrote in your hand, long after the writing and the editing and the discussions with the publishers about cover photos and who to ask for quotes on the back… My new book, Tales of Two Species: Loving and Living with Dogs just came from the printers, and I have to admit it feels good to see it. It’s a collection of essays written over the years for Bark magazine, published by Dogwise (who I call the Amazon of dog books). Working with the editors of Bark has been a joy, and collaborating with the folks at Dogwise has been equally delightful (I presume you are not shocked to learn that this is not always the case between author and publisher? I have been exceptionally lucky with my national books, having wonderful editors at Ballantine who have become dear friends. However, I have heard lots of nightmare stories from other authors. . . (no I’m not telling!)

Here’s a couple of excerpts from the book:

From the essay “Canis Cousins? Unraveling ancestral ties” in the section on Genetics, Ethology and Behavior:

“Dogs aren’t wolves, pure and simple. Except, uh, they are. Sort of. Sometimes. Lest you think I’ve lost my mind, I’d like to explain why the statements “dogs are wolves” and “dogs aren’t wolves” are equallycorrect. I’m writing about this issue because it’s inherently a confusing one, and if we really want to understand our dogs, it’s important to get it right.”

From the essay “A Peaceful Walk in the Park: Strategies for defusing tense encounters while walking a dog-reactive dog:”

“It’s okay!” she waves, her two Golden Retrievers racing toward your dog like cheerful, caramel-colored tsunamis. “My dogs LOVE other dogs,” she gushes, while your mouth goes dry and your heart stops, then resumes pounding so hard you think it might thump out of your chest. It doesn’t matter if the approaching dogs love other dogs–not if your dog barks and lunges every time she sees something with four feet. It’s YOUR dog who is the problem, and there you are, trying to be responsible, keeping your dog leashed and under control, while those around you let their dogs run free and turn yourrelaxing walk into a stress test.”

And finally, from an essay titled “Rites of Passage: Navigating the loss of a beloved dog.”

“Tulip was as beautiful in death as she was in life. Her long white fur covered her thin old body like a fluffy blanket. Her eyes were peacefully closed, and she looked as though she might wake up at anymoment and plunk her huge white head in my lap for petting. Tulip died at the admirable age of 12 years, 10 months, a legendary length of life for a Great Pyrenees. But this is not an essay about Tulip, although like many of our dogs, she deserves an entire Library of Congress written about her. Rather, it’san essay about coping with the death of our beloved dogs, and specifically, about how best to cope in the hours right after they die.”

[and how can I resist a photo of Tulip when she was still alive, taken by Amanda Jones?]

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The book is a “curl up n the couch with your dog” kind of book, so I guess it’s release at the onset of winter is well timed. At least, it’s definitely November here in Wisconsin… look at the difference between the pictures of the Japanese Maple in front of the farm house a month ago compared to now…. ah, the greys of November. Tomorrow the high is supposed to be 34, with high winds and sleety rain. This does not bode well for the planned “clean out the barn” day tomorrow, which includes scrubbing the cement barn floor with bleach after all the old straw and manure is hauled out by a bobcat (not the living breathing kind) and two strong neighbor boys (and okay, me and Jim). Wish us luck!

First off, thanks to everyone at All About Dogs and all the participants of the seminar in Woodbridge, VA. Every audience has a personality all its own (anyone every done temperament tests on audiences?), and this group was a delight from beginning to end. About 150 people and I spent the weekend in an inquiry about emotions, ethology, people and dogs. And as usual, I learned a lot. Several people reported that they too had played the music from Through A Dog’s Ear, (designed by a musicologist and a veterinary neurologist to soothe and calm dogs) and that they had seen impressive results. One person said her dogs now lay down and go to sleep as soon as she turns on the music. (Don’t expect miracles though… no sound is powerful enough to sedate an exercise-starved puppy who just got out of his crate!)

I remember learning in graduate school about a French researcher (my apologies, I don’t remember the name) who played classical music to pregnant women as they lay down to nap. Unlike puppies, humans can hear well in utero in the last month (at least) of development, and the unborn babies could hear the music being played perfectly well. We heard a tape recording of what the music sounded like in utero… (yep, they put a microphone inside some incredibly agreeable woman!). It sounded like the sounds you hear when you are underwater, which makes perfect sense if you think about it. But you could definitely discern the melody.

It turned out that, after birth, the babies who who heard the music while their mother slept during the last phase of pregnancy would go to sleep almost immediately when the music was played again. That finding supports the claims of the authors of A Dog’s Ear, (and of my own research in the 80’s) that sound can influence the behavior of the receiver, and can act to soothe and relax the individuals who hear it.

Over all, it was a great weekend, thanks to the hosts and a wonderful group of people in the audience. (And oh, those demo dogs! Can I PLEASE take them all home with me?) Here’s a fun shot of all the great folks at All About Dogs:

On an altogether completely different note, here’s something else I am happy about. I bought a new, quite expensive ram who was delivered last week, and was a bit concerned because he didn’t seem to be that interested in the ewes. He was also much shorter and smaller than I expected; the breed does tend to be very short in the leg (think Corgi), but I still was surprised at how very short he seemed, based on his hunky photo sent by the breeder. So I was a bit worried: In the past my new rams have been crazed as soon as they were introduced into the flock, but this guy seemed a bit, uh, lackadaisical. I switched his name from Fabio (see his glam shot below) to Ferdinand, after the bull who just wanted to pick flowers. The breeder, a wonderfully responsible woman at Crane Creek, suggested I try what’s called “breeding paint,” which you smear on the ram’s brisket and then gets transferred to the butt of the ewe if she’s been bred. So Monday morning Jim and I mixed up a bright red powder with olive oil (no kidding, someone asked if we added garlic), and smeared it all over the chest and brisket of the ram.

Because I had liked the way the ram had been acting around one of the ewes when we caught him, I went back to check just a few minutes after we smeared on the paint. Sure enough, Brittany had a bright red butt! And this morning I discovered red everywhere… the ram has been a busy boy, and has bred 4 ewes in 24 hours. The only problem is that the barn pen looks like a scene from a slasher movie. I expect people to knock breathlessly on the door to tell me that something is terrible wrong with my flock.

Based on all the above, the perfect name for the ram has now come to me: ROBERT REDFORD, Redford for short. Very very hunky and handsome, a class act all around, but shorter than you expected.

Here’s his hunky glam shot and a shot from “the morning after”: (he’s the one on the far left)

I’m off in an hour to Virginia to do the For the Love of a Dog seminar on Saturday (about emotions in people and dogs) and a half day version of Both Ends of the Leash (focusing on how OUR behavior influences that of our dogs). Both seminars are fulfilling to do, I love doing them both. Spending a day on emotions—the basis of our bond with dogs if you think about it—is always wonderful for me. Every time I give the seminar I learn something new, and every time I end the day overwhelmed at the miracle of our relationship with a entirely different species. Think about it: two very different species with individuals who will risk their life for a member of the other species. That’s amazing, truly amazing.

On Sunday we’ll become field ethologists observing the always interesting behavior of people and dogs, focusing on communication. What signal does your dog respond to when you say “sit?” It well might not be the word… do you move your head? move your arms? Does your dog even notice the word, if he’s busy watching your body? And when you do talk, how do you use your voice? Can you use it like a singer, and make your voice model what you want your dog to do or feel? We practice in the seminar (okay, it gets a little noisy when everyone practices at once!) and leave even more conscious of how our voice and our movements are always ‘talking’ to our dogs, whether we know it or not!

I’ve gotta run, but here’s the words that end Saturday’s seminar, after a discussion of why we love dogs so much. It’s a testament to my soul mate dog, Luke, taken from the end of the book, For the Love of a Dog.

There’s a stone I had made for Luke at the top of the hill road, where the pasture opens wide and the setting sun highlights the words carved into its face. “That’ll do, Luke, that’ll do.” The words are said to working dogs all over the world when the chores are done and the flock is settled: “That’ll do dog, come home now, your work is done.” Luke’s work is done too. He took my heart and ran with it, and he’s running still, fast and strong, a piece of my heart bound up with his, forever.

Here’s me and Lassie up the hill, in a beautiful photo taken by Amanda Jones.

I’m getting pretty bleary this mid-afternoon, having stayed up late last night, like much of the country, watching the election returns. As the evening progressed, I found myself on the floor, with Lassie on one side, and Willie on the other. Both of my paws were busy, stroking and petting my dogs non-stop, in my attempt to maintain a modicum of calm. No matter how you feel about the outcome, it was a historic night for our country, and like many others, I was wired, and didn’t go to sleep until well into the morning hours.

As I lay beside Willie’s warm body and stroked Lassie’s buttery soft fur last night, I thought about how wonderful it is that the dogs and I had never had heated, or even heart-felt discussions about politics, the election. . . or anything else for that matter. What a gift that those of us who have dogs can have such close social relationships with sentient beings, and yet base that relationship on something other than words. Not that I don’t enjoy a great discussion, I do. But there’s a cost to speech, as I said in Dog is My Co-Pilot, quoted in For the Love of a Dog:

“Words may be wonderful things, but they carry weight with them, and there’s a great lightness of being when they are discarded . . . Some of my happiest moments are when Luke and I sit silently together, overlooking the green, rolling hills of Southern Wisconsin. Our lack of language doesn’t get in the way, but creates an opening for something else, something deep and pure and good. We dog lovers share a kind of Zen-like communion with our dogs, uncluttered by nouns and adverbs and dangling participles. This connection speaks to a part of us that needs to be nurtured and listened to, but that is so often drowned out in the cacophony of speech. Dogs remind us that we are being heard, without the additional weight of words. What a gift. No wonder we love them so much.”

I hope your dogs (and cats and horses and parrots) are providing you with warmth, nurturance and provide a welcome counterpoint to the amazing complexities of human life and language. How lucky we are to have them! Here’s a puppy, thanks to photographer Patricia Thomas, who looks more than ready to be someone’s special friend!

The last great talk in the Play Symposium at APDT was a wonderful presentation by Karen B. London. She begin with the belief that play is under-utilized as a reinforcement and tool to treat aggression-related problems in dogs. Several types of behavioral problems were listed as being amendable to using play, including over-arousal, frustration-related aggression, the fear of strangers and reactivity to other dogs.

Dr. London reminded us that play is so useful because it 1) is a high energy exercise that can motivate dogs and channel their energy in positive ways, 2) play is a skill if you think about it, and it can be used to teach incompatible behavior (go get your ball instead of barking at the stranger) and also can be used to help dogs learn emotional control, 3) an increased amount of play can improve the quality of life of many dogs (and their humans too!), 4) play has a positive effect on emotions (there’s some great research on this, see “Affective Neuroscience: the Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions” by Jaak Panskepp and 5) being able to play with their dog as a ‘treatment’ can increase client compliance. This last point I think is especially important. As Karen noted, so many of us see people who are deeply ashamed of their dogs, and who are nervous and afraid of their dog’s behavior. Creating a scenario in which they can channel both their dog’s and their OWN energy toward play gives them a chance to feel happy when they are with their dog–which is, after all, why most of us have dogs in the first place!

Speaking of happy, here’s a happy story! The photo below is a dog who came to the Humane Animal Welfare Society in Waukesha, WI and ended up, for a few hours, at my farm last Saturday. Khris Erickson, the Director of Behavior at HAWS, had suggested that he might be a great therapy dog for a friend of mine. She declined, but I fell in love with “Fluffballs” face, and hoped he might make a good play mate for Willie. (Okay, yes, I am talking about getting a pet for my dog. Will has his own chiropractor, his own chinese medicine vet (well, they are shared with Lassie) and now I’m looking for a dog for him to play with. I know, I know. . .) Truth is, I don’t really want another dog right now, and Will plays at least once a day with Lassie, but it is SO good for him to run run run run with other dogs. He gets to on ocassion, but I know it would be good for him to do so on a daily basis…

And so, Fluffball came to the farm to see if he’d be a good playmate for Will (and me too, I’ll admit…), and proceeded to ignore Will and ignore Lassie and walk on perfect heel, off leash in a distracting woody and pasture environment, beside Khris and I. This dog wanted people people people, he had little interest in other dogs, but was exceptionally sweet and biddable around anything with two legs. I’m thrilled to say that’s just what he got. Andrea, aka “The Book Queen” here at the office, was looking for a dog for her dear mum, and the rest is history. Mum and “Charlie Murphy” are now cuddling together every night, cozy as cozy can be.

Life is good.

Two more posts about play from presentations at APDT: this one about play between people and dogs, and a post coming on Friday regarding Karen London’s presentation on using play to treat aggression-related behavior problems.

I spoke in the afternoon about play between people and dogs. It’s a rich topic, with many nuances and complexities, and I only I had 45 minutes to address it, so I focused primarily on two issues: the importance of clear signals and the importance of pausing to allow emotional arousal to keep from overwhelmed our dogs.

CLEAR SIGNALS: Play bows in dogs are truly unique; there is no other species that I could find that had quite as clear a signal that means “Hey! I want to play, and everything I do next is meant playfully!” (Also see my post on Oct 21st.) In relation to that, I discussed the research of Rooney, Bradshaw and Robinson (2001) who video taped people trying to get their dogs to play (without using toys.) They found that people tried a variety of actions to get their dogs to play, some were effective and some weren’t. (And there was no correlation between how frequently someone tried a behavior and how effective it was! I just love that.. it is so human.)

People, ineffectually, tried whispering, patting the ground, kissing the dog and barking at the dog (to name a few). The effective signals were play bows, lunge toward and away (also called “start/stop” in other literature), running toward and away and adding vocalizations to other actions. I video taped a raft of cooperative people replicating the above, and here’s what came up:

1. People are REALLY bad at playing bows, unless they are willing and able to get down on all fours! (We’re just not designed to do it, you really need 4 legs after all.)

2. Running, as Rooney et al found, is a powerful way to elicit play (and has it’s dangers too… see Play Together, Stay Together by Karen London and me.)

3. “Start/Stop” is the easiest way to get many dogs in a playful frame of mind, but again, can elicit mouthiness or nipping in dogs if you’re not careful.

Keep in mind that the research kept toys out of the picture… as many of your comments have noted: there’s nothing like picking up a toy in front of a toy-loving dog to say RECESS! LET’S PLAY!

The other primary point of my talk was that dogs tend to play hard and fast and then pause, so that play sessions look like strings of play PAUSE play play PAUSE play PAUSE. This is especially true when they are play fighting (and less true, I suspect, when they are chasing and running). Given how many aspects of play, especially play fighting, are the same actions you see in serious fights, it makes sense that something needs to be built into the system to keep them cool. My suggestion is that we need to explain this to our clients in beginning family dog training classes… I think every beginning class should include a “How to Play with Your Dog” section in it. People are going to do it whether we bring it up or not, and besides emphasizing the value of object play, we can give them guidelines and boundaries about other types of play. We all know that play can go bad in a hurry (”I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.”) and it’s important for us to help owners avoid that.

Overall, I argued that play is a wonderful, wonderful way to enhance our healthy relationships with dogs (and is probably one of the reasons dogs and people get along so well.. play really isn’t that common among adult mammals) BUT, we need to be sure dogs understand when we are and when we are not playing, and play in such a way as to avoid over arousal. Karen London and I talk at length about the value of play, and how to do safely and constructively in Play Together, Stay Together (linked above)… I’d love to get your feedback on the booklet if you have it, on whether you include “How to Play” in your family dog training curriculum and/or more on how YOU play with your dog.

Here’s me playing silly with the same statue from the last post….

Pia Silvani’s, Director of Behavior and Training at St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center in New Jersey, gave a talk at APDT that focused on play between adult dogs, and it was a fantastic presentation. The best part of the talk was her videos of dogs playing–both appropriately and inappropriately. My absolute favorite was a video of two Tervurens meeting, greeting and eventually playing together beautifully. It was a like watching two strangers meet each other, and end up dancing as if they were on Dancing with the Stars. Several things stood out in the video that are, I think, important aspects of healthy dog play.

First of all, the dogs were able to meet each other one on one, without other dogs around. So often it seems that dogs get introduced into a ‘pack’ and are overwhelmed by 3 or 5 or 7 other dogs all trying to get access to them at the same time.

Secondly, the dogs weren’t forced into anything; they were able to approach and withdraw often, which is another way that dogs can avoid too much pressure during a greeting. This reminds me of the Ph.D. research of Dr. Anneke Lisberg from the University of Wisconsin, who did some of the first real research ever done on scent marking in domestic dogs (familiarity breeds contempt in science too!). She found that dogs entering a dog park were most likely to be the ones urinating after a greeting ritual with the resident dogs, and that the “newbee” often ended a close encounter by trotting a few feet away and urinating. Dr. Lisberg speculates that the entering dogs can avoid tension during greetings by walking away from close contact w/ other dogs and urinating a few feet away. It would be as if the dogs were providing information about themselves in their urine, on the ground, to avoid all those noses stuck up under their tails. Interesting, isn’t it? This makes me think about indoor day care facilities, where dogs are inhibited from urinating… I wonder if that causes problems? It does seem, on reflection, that all dogs should be able to meet and greet outside where they can use urine to communicate.

Thirdly, the Terv’s in Pia’s talk began to play with lots of play bows and ’stop/starts,’ done with a good distance between them. Gradually, as their play continued, they began to play closer and closer to each other, and finally began to make contact only after several minutes of mutual play. It really was one of the loveliest examples I’ve seen of two dogs reading one another and politely beginning a relationship.

Contrast that with the video she showed of a poor (Boston?) little dog being tossed into the mosh pit of a busy day care. The dog was literally swamped by 5 or 6 (I’m guessing here) other dogs who overwhelmed it, ran after it, surrounded it and basically terrified the poor thing, giving it no chance to get a breath much less manage to be appropriately greeted. Thank heavens, there are many, many day care facilities who are very careful when they introduce new dogs, starting with a one-on-one session with a known “good greeter” and then gradually introducing them to the entire group… would that they all did this, yes?

I’d be curious about your experiences with your dog, both while greeting and playing with unfamiliar dogs. My Willie, aka “I-came-with-so-many-issues-Trisha-called-me-the-Spawn-of-Satan once,” plays beautifully with other dogs IF I manage the introduction so that he doesn’t get overwhelmed. First impressions matter with dogs too, don’t they?!

Here’s Pia mugging with a statue in Louisvile:

Speaking of great play between dogs, I recently visited some dear friends who I met through our mutual love of Great Pyrenees. Here are 2 photos of Czar, Tundra and Osa the Newfie playing as beautifully as dogs can play. What a joy it was to watch them!

And here’s yet another view of fall at the farm. Sorry, I just can’t stop myself.

Camille Ward and  Barbara Smuts gave a fascinating talk at the APDT Play Symposium on “Play and the Development of Social Relationships in Litters of Domestic Dogs.” Their research (and that of their colleague, Erika Bauer) has focused on play in the domestic dog. They discussed two issues related to play in both puppies and adult dogs:

50/50 Rule: Years ago a scientist hypothesized that, for play fighting to work, the participants would have to switch roles about 50 % of the time. In other words, related to dogs, half the time one pup  should be on top in the “assertive position,” and the other pup should be on top the rest of the time. As Camille explained to us, this speculation, as often happens in science and other fields, slowly turned into “fact” (without the benefit of any actual observations or research!)

For example, look at this quote from “The Development of Aggression” by Tremblay, Hartup and Archer, 2005:

“For play fighting to remain playful, it needs to follow the 50:50 rule (Aldis 1975; Altmann 1962). That is, each pairmate has to win close to 50% of the playful encounters.”

Camille and Barbara tested this assumption in 3 litters which were observed as they developed in about 2,000 instances of play between two individuals (at 3-8 weeks, and at 10-23 weeks for 2 litters, and the third litter also at 27-40 weeks). They found that the 50/50 rule did NOT apply–12 of the 15 pairs in the first 2 litters observed did not reverse roles symmetrically. As a matter of fact, one female from the third litter was ‘on top’ 100% of the time, but her litter mate still initiated play preferentially with her.

In an earlier study, Dr. Erika Bauer and Dr. Smuts also tested the 50/50 rule in adult dogs at a dog park, and Dr. Smuts reported that there too, the 50/50 rule was not upheld. (By the way, it wasn’t reported at APDT, but this work also found that role reversals…. you mount me and then I mount you back….occurred during certain types of play, but not others. Chases and tackles were initiated by either partner, but mounts, muzzle bites and muzzle licks were consistently performed by the same dog. Perhaps certain types of play may be good indicators of social relationships between dogs?  Let me know if this fits with your own observations of play between your dogs or your dog and friends at the dog park.

Another aspect of Dr. Ward’s talk was about partner preferences. She found that (out of 1,300 instances of play initiation), the young puppies from 3 to 8 weeks showed no partner preference, the 10-23 week old pups the same, but the older juveniles (27-40 weeks) began to show strong preferences to play with one other individual from their litter. This preference was stable across time periods, and suggests that dog often form long lasting bonds with other dogs that should be acknowledged. The fact that some of our dogs become close friends with other dogs is, of course, not news to us, but I think it is important to remind ourselves that long-term stable relationships with another dog might be important to the dogs who live with people but not another member of the same species.

I think about that with my Will, who plays with Lassie several times a day, but I wouldn’t say they are close friends.  Will adores a  young Cavalier King Charles Spaniel… Brody, who comes to visit on occassion, but is moving to Florida soon. I’d love to get Will  a play mate, but hesitate to get another dog during Lassie’s last years. I am pretty darn sure she is not interested in sharing any more of  my attention… it’s tough, isn’t it, when you know one dog needs something that is the opposite of what the other dogs needs.  Will does have some other play buddies, but I think I should go out of my way to find him more; he and Brody seemed to have a special connection. I wonder if he will miss him? (I will! Not to mention missing his human!)

Speaking of play–here’s my colleague and dear friend Dr. Karen London, ‘playing’ on our way to dinner in downtown Louisvile.