THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

It’s been a busy weekend at Redstart Farm. The weather was cold, cold and windy, then rainy and windy, then just plain cold this morning at one below. But the snow melted enough so that it’s not too deep to work Will on sheep, so Friday, Saturday and Sunday Will and I got to work together. We hadn’t worked in quite awhile, the snow being far too deep for so long, and the month off appeared to have changed the relationship between Will and Redford, the ram. A few months ago the ram confronted Will and Will did exactly what he should have: when Redford walked straight up to Will and sniffed his face, Will lunged forward and air snapped, just enough to back Redford off and take charge.

However, on Friday afternoon, things were different. This time Redford put his head down and charged toward Will. (When sheep challenge others they actually tuck their heads down so far that their noses point under their legs toward their tail. That leaves nothing but the hard, bony plate on their forehead facing the dog, other sheep or unfortunate person. Take it from one who knows.. you don’t want to be struck by one of these, it’s like getting slammed into by a large hammer. There is a reason, after all, that they call it ‘ram power.’) I suspect that Redford has been here long enough now that he feels more confident than he did earlier. He’s bred all (or most) of the ewes, he’s been here now for almost 2 months and I think he’s starting to make his move as head mammal in the barn yard. As as fond as I am of Redford, and as important as it is to have my sheep handled kindly and gently, there are some rules here, and I’m afraid Redford is going to have to learn that he needs to ‘listen’ to Will (even if he doesn’t say ‘Ba Ram Ewe’ like Babe did in the movie!)

On Friday, instead of standing his ground, Will ran back a few yards, clearly intimidated. Compounding this was the fact that the place Will needed to stand to get the sheep where I wanted them was in deep, drifted snow . That put Will at an even bigger disadvantage. However, Will came right back in when I encouraged him, and we split off three young, healthy ewes to drive up the hill and work in the high pasture. The oldest ewe of the group, Brittany (yes, she got pregnant at an early age, whereas her cousin Paris never got bred at all) had clearly observed what happened between Will and Redford. She turned to face Will every 10 yards or so, but he held his ground and she never charged. It took us quite a while to get them up the hill though, with Brittany making an end run to the right or left every few yards. I’m sure that wouldn’t have happened if Will had held his ground when Redford charged. Sheep aren’t anywhere near as dumb as many think… they are excellent observers and have no trouble sensing any kind of weakness in a dog.

Saturday and Sunday I took the entire group up the hill (except for the 2 ewes in the nursery, see below) and Redford did a lot of challenging of Will, but the first time I encouraged Will to ‘get in’ and he did, charging toward Redford a few steps, but not touching him. After that Redford has been turning away after a 2 or 3 second stare down with Will. You can probably hear me say ‘GOOD DOG” from your place every time that happens. As a blatant coward myself, I can’t blame Will for being intimidated, and I’m so proud of him for hanging in there. I’m sure Redford is going to go after Will again, and have high hopes that they can get this settled soon and without much conflict… Will is absolutely brilliant on sheep in many ways (lovely, open flanks; exceedingly biddable; great natural balance) but he is without question almost too easy to handle. It’s great for me, having not trained a young herding dog in 12 years (!), but dogs who are as easy to handle as Will at young ages are often less powerful than the ‘perfect’ dog.

I’ll keep you posted on the Will and Redford saga; I’ll try to get some photos of the face offs, but it’s hard to get pictures and be there for Will when he needs me…

Meanwhile, here are some animals on Redstart Farm. The white lamb below is NOT supposed to be here. I’ll explain soon!

The two deer below are coming every day now mid-day to the back yard. Both these photos are taken out the kitchen window. As a biologist, I know that deer are over populated, and I willingly allow neighbors to hunt my land to help keep the numbers down. Ah, but these two? What a perfect example of the conflict between being a “holist” (as in Aldo Leopold’s argument that our duties aren’t to individual animals but to ecosystems) and an “individualist” (as in Regan or Singer’s arguments about animal rights.) Now that I am becoming familiar with these 2 deer, they are no longer members of a population, they are individuals… and I can’t help but hope no one shoots them…

I just finished Everett’s book Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes, and a more thought-provoking book I can’t imagine. As I mentioned in my earlier blog, the author spent much of his life over the last 30 years with a hunter-gatherer tribe, the Piraha, in the Amazon basin. Everett began his work as a missionary and a linguist; his work with the Piraha changed his faith, but not his dedication to studying language.

What makes the book so interesting is his discussion about what the Piraha culture has to say about the derivation of human language. Everett is very clear: he argues persuasively that both Chomsky and Skinner got it wrong (in relation to language). In brief, Chomsky argued that language is innate in humans, and that there are universal ‘laws’ of grammar that are passed down genetically. Skinner argued that all language is learned and that genetics had nothing to do with it.

Everett argues that neither are correct. He presents a compelling case that language and culture can not be separated. He suggests that culture and environment play a significant role in shaping not just language, but how individuals see the world. From this perspective, grammar (a major focus on linguists for decades) is far less important than “culture-based meanings and constraints on talking of each specific culture in the world.” He says that studying linguistics apart from anthropology and field research is like studying chemistry apart from chemicals and the laboratory.

It is not surprising that I am impressed with this argument, given that it fits into my world view as an ethologist: that arguments about “nature versus nurture” are as meaningless as arguments about which is more important, the ingredients or the recipe, to the success of an omelet. (Starting with hard boiled eggs wouldn’t work out too well.)

Speaking of ethology, I’m reminded of how the sensory system of each species creates a different reality than that of other species. For example, because bees see colors that we don’t (we even call colors we can’t see variants of ones we can–”ultra violet” for example), their visual reality is completely different from ours. While we might admire the pure yellow petals of a composite flower, bees see a far more complex bloom with lines and stripes pointing like arrows to the nectar within. Thus, there really is no such thing as one “reality,” and Everett’s work reminds us that that is true within our own species.

The Piraha are only interested in events that were personally witnessed by the speaker, are unable to interpret two dimensional photographs, (practice and training helps a bit, but not much), use no numbers, love to talk but talk about a narrow range of subjects, and most amazingly, seem never to worry. They don’t even have a word for “worry.” This does not mean they live an idyllic life, not by a long shot. They can suffer terribly from disease, predation and romantic entanglements gone sour.

And this is why I’m writing about them here: Everett’s work brings up the question of “what is unique about being a human?” and “what do we share, and not share” with other animals, like our dogs? The lines are getting more and more blurry, aren’t they? Surely dogs live more in the present than most of us.. but how much of that is innate, and how much is cultural? I’d argue that most dogs are a LOT happier than most people… how much of that is innate, and how much cultural? And has living with humans affected dogs such that our culture has influenced their behavior? You’re probably aware of Brian Hare’s work on communication between people and dogs in which he argues that dogs are innately better at reading ‘pointing’ signals from humans than non-domestic canids and even chimpanzees. (I’ll write more about this some time, I have some questions about it.). Could it be that dogs learned to worry from living within a western culture? (Can dogs worry? Do they? Is “worrying” different than experiencing anxiety?)

Lots to think about. Meanwhile, it’s New Year’s Eve morning and I’d better get back to my pathetic attempts to keep up with my email before I take a few days off. We got a lovely light snow last night, the sun is shining, and I’m yearning to get back home to Jim, Will and Lassie. We are awaiting (at least Jim and I) an unplanned set of lambs from Snickers and Truffles, who were bred by some ram lambs when they scrambled over a fence downed by a fallen tree. I’ve been worried the lambs would be born when it was brutally cold and we’d go out to the barn to find frozen baby lambs. But I’m going to take a page from the Piraha… worry? What’s that?

I hope you have a thoughtful and loving New Year. It’s been quite a year, hey? I hope, whatever is happening in your life, that you are able to be ‘in the present’ as much as you can, and to savor the beauty that surrounds us all. Here’s a detail of the barn door in the snow . . .

Jim, Will, Lassie and I are having a heavenly break over the holidays. Lots of time off, lots of movies, lots of snow shoeing and, for Jim, endless shoveling. For the first time ever I am contemplating getting a snow blower. Boooo.. another machine, another something that breaks down and won’t respond to positive reinforcment. Yeah…. less back breaking work for Jim, and less time for me looking out the window worrying about him. I do some myself, but my back is pathetically problematic so I don’t do much. (Car accidents, 15 foot falls off of hay wagons, fainting in the hot sun and breaking your tail bone turn out to be things that are bad for your back. Who knew?)

I am reading a book sent by one of my sisters (Wendy Barker, a brilliant poet and creative writing professor, if I do say so myself, completely objectively of course) and it is tremendously thought provoking. Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes is a story about the author, Daniel Everett, and his life with a hunter-gatherer tribe in the Amazon. More importantly, the book uses Daniel’s discoveries to question our understanding of the nature and nurture of language. The tribe, known as the Piraha, have no language to describe numbers… never do they say one, two, three, for example. They also live and describe all events as being in the present (I am oversimplifying here). I’ll write more about this in the next blog, but what makes this book important, (and relevant to animal lovers) is that the tribe do not use what have previously been thought of as “universal” aspects of human language and cognition. Daniel’s 30 years of work with the tribe suggest that culture plays a far greater role in language than previously thought (a la Noam Chomsky for example.) This is especially interesting if you are interested in comparative cognition… what goes on in the minds of other animals compared to what goes on in ours. I’m not done with the book yet, more to come, but I do recommend it highly.

Meanwhile, here’s a little of Wisconsin winter. The little round dots are dried apples that haven’t yet fallen off the tree. A White Tail Deer comes every day to paw the snow, in hopes one has fallen, which I presume they do throughout the winter. (She also is enjoying munching on a pumpkin I left out on the porch, which then froze to the porch and was immobile until the brief thaw we had this weekend.)

Your comments have been so interesting about the ‘fair’ and/or “jealous” issue that I thought I’d respond in another post for everyone to read. I’ve included some of your comments, because they add so richly to the discussion.

First off, I agree with many who’ve commented that we need to be very cautious about making interpretations from the results of this study. The bottom line is that while the dog’s responsiveness degraded, as expected, if the food reinforcement was taken away, it degraded faster if another dog was observed receiving reinforcement. That was the “inequality aversion” that the authors mentioned (and yes, I believe it was the media that added “fairness” and “jealousy.” The dogs also could receive one of two rewards, brown bread or sausage. While a similar primate study found that the subjects responded differently to a ‘high quality’ versus a ‘low quality’ reward, the dogs are described as not caring. I’m especially cautious of interpreting this result as a meaningful species difference: who knows if the difference between what the primates got was the same as the difference between brown bread and sausage? (Have you ever had real European brown bread? I’d fly across the Atlantic just to get some if I could afford it… But perhaps it is a species difference in that dogs are scavengers and many of them love just about any kind of food. One of my BC’s, Pippy Tay, loved the sunflower seed shells under the bird feeder. The shells. LOVED them. Go figure.)

Here are some of the many interesting comments re the ‘fairness’ versus ‘jealousy’ issue:

Dee Says:

. . . in my American mind jealousy has to do with a perceived loss of interaction or affection, while fairness has to do with the inequality of reward. In this instance, and at least at first glance, the dogs seem to be refusing to work because of the inequality in earnings/rewards rather than protesting that the other dog was receiving more attention, but that’s where this study becomes very tricky…

It seemed like this was a good time to look up the dictionary definitions: Here is the result from Word Dictionary (my beloved huge dictionary is at home, I’ll look it up there over the holidays):

JEALOUS “feeling bitter and unhappy because of another’s advantages, possessions or luck.

FAIRNESS not exhibiting any bias, and therefore reasonable or impartial.

This fits a bit with what I had been thinking; Here’s my take on it: I think of jealousy as a relatively simple kind of emotion. As I said in the book For the Love of a Dog, although some scientists think jealousy is an emotion that requires “Theory of Mind,” or being able to think about the thoughts of others, I’ve always thought that it was relatively simple version of the core emotion of anger: “You’ve got it, I want it, I don’t have it, I’m not happy about that at all.” It seems reasonable to label that as a kind of frustration, which is a kind of anger, don’t you think? Note what Jennifer said in relation to that:

Jennifer Says:
My inclination is to say that the study may have been measuring something else other than the dog’s attitude in response to the other dog being rewarded…….Frustration is a far less sophisticated emotion than either jealousy or fairness (which I believe are fundamentally different from one another) and, thus, in the spirit of assuming the least complicated explanation as necessary to explain an event, I’m going to side with frustration.

So interesting… is jealousy more complicated than frustration? I’m not sure. I completely agree that ‘fairness’ is another issue. My interpretation of fairness leans toward the concept of social justice. Of course, we use the term in at least two ways: “That’s not FAIR!” a child might say if his brother or sister gets something bigger or better. Surely that’s the simplest version of ‘fairness’ but it’s hard to separate it out from jealousy or frustration. But what if one child (or dog) watched two OTHER children or dogs getting, or not getting an expected reward. Then what would they think? It seems to me that the most sophisticated version of fairness would relate not so much to how one is treated oneself, but how others are treated, according to some social code. Does that make sense? (That’s the study I’d love to see… how would a dog respond if he saw another being treated inequitably?!)

There are lots of other interesting comments, don’t hesitate to read them all in the earlier post, and add yours here or on the first one. Meanwhile, I’m not sure if Lassie’s chinese medicine veterinarian will make it out in yet ANOTHER snow storm. At least it is no longer 10 below and windy. Poor Lassie urinated in the house yesterday morning. I took her outside just to pee and she looked at me and ran to the door. It was brutal, truly. It’s been quite a winter already, and it’s not even the end of December yet. (Didn’t winter just start the day before yesterday? Geeez.)

Here’s a photo from last winter, (and we have MORE snow so far than we did at the same time last winter!)

But here’s some things to warm your heart: first, Jim’s famous Christmas cookies, that we decorated in yet another snow storm last week:

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And least but not least, have you seen this? A friend sent me the url, and I can’t imagine a better holiday present to dog lovers. Here’s hoping that you and yours are able to forget about life’s troubles for a few days, and envelop yourself in love, care and gratitude. HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM TRISHA, LASSIE AND WILL.

AMAZING HOLIDAY DOG VIDEO!

Here’s a question for you, based on a column I’m writing for The Bark magazine. The editors asked if I’d write a column about “training old dogs.” (The column on training male versus female dogs will be in the next issue… stay tuned!). The question: how does your training vary (or does it?) once your dog becomes geriatric? I’ve started the column already: “Lassie doesn’t sit anymore, at least, not when asked.” I’m basing this introduction on the fact that about six months ago, my 15 year old Lassie looked at me blankly when I asked her to sit.

She’s going deaf, so I thought perhaps she didn’t hear me. I gave her our usual visual signal. Nothing. Then I lured her down with a piece of food. She looked up at my eyes and stared at me. And rather than trying any longer, I thought: “Oh, I get it. Either it hurts her to sit (she’s named Lassie for a reason after all, and basically did everything and anything anyone asked for 14 years) or she’s just simply done performing now that she’s the equivalent of a 90 year old woman. Sort of the canine equivalent of “When I am old I will wear purple.”

Here’s the thing. I treated it completely differently than if it had been Willie. Basically, although I’m still teaching Lassie some new things, which I think is good for her, I’m giving her a lot of ‘old dog’ passes. She is almost deaf, losing her sight, playful but frail and I suspect that her mind feels a little fuzzy sometimes. What do you think? Do you give your old dogs ‘passes’ too?

On the home front, it was 10 below this morning and windy. I’m going to keep this short because Lassie was so cold outside I’m not sure she even peed last time I took her out. I’m going to run home to let her out again. Thank heavens I got in and out of Washington DC between storms. It is absurd here… 10 inches Friday (totally snowed out of my office, couldn’t even think about leaving the farm), more the day after and now they’re predicting a total of another 13″ in the next two days. Geeeez. Being on the Diane Rehm show as without question the highlight of the month. I unabashedly adore her, although I realize such praise is terrifically uncool (”don’t gush” a producer said to me once). She is the best interviewer I’ve ever worked with, and the fact that she was such a supporter of my radio show is a great compliment indeed. Here’s a photo of her and her Maxie, who amused us all by playing with the toy I’d brought while we did the show.

And here’s Will, who unlike me and Lassie, seems oblivious to the cold. Ah youth!

First things first! Lassie’s party was a joy. Many of her friends came to talk, eat and belly rub, and Lassie proclaimed it good. Very good indeed. Lassie reveled in the attention, Willie got tons of petting too and we all ate ourselves silly. Only downside is that I forgot to take photos (camera out and at the ready on the counter…) of Lassie and all her friends. Big disappointment, I have a photo of my first Border collie Drift, at his 15th birthday party, and it means a lot to me to have it. He died 2 months later and I think that’s part of what motivated me to have this one, and I’m so glad I did. However, I fully intend and expect to have a rip roaring 16th birthday party for Lassie next year, so I’ll just get a photo next year.

Here’s a picture after the party of Lassie delving into the box of yummy dog food brought by her dear friend Rick and his GSD Ava.

DOGS, FAIRNESS AND JEALOUS

You’ve probably heard about the research from Austria that suggests that dogs have a concept of fairness and/or jealousy. By the time you read this I’ll have probably talked about it on the Diane Rehm show, but it deserves some attention (and some critical thinking on our parts.) Basically, the researchers taught dogs to ‘give paw’ for a treat, then sat them down side by side and rewarded one dog for a correct performance but not the other. The unrewarded dog’s responsiveness degraded quickly, and he or she stopped performing as taught. This would be meaningless; you’d expect a dog to stop responding if the reinforcement dropped out completely, however, the performance dropped FASTER if the non-reinforced dog saw the OTHER dog getting reinforced for the same behavior. That’s the kicker (though is left out of several of the news posts….).

So here’s a chance to engage our critical thinking. Some news posts call this evidence of jealousy. Others say it proves that dogs have a sense of fairness. Question one: are those the same? If not, then which does the study support?

I’ll weigh in with my own opinions later this week. (And my apologies for being slow to comment on the comments. I read them all with tremendous interest, but fighting the ViRus Wars last week got me way behind….)

Here’s the post I thought I’d lost! (Will my viral-hazed brain ever come back to normal?)

Hey, I am back among the living. Not much energy, pretty slow in the head, but actually eating real food again (well, still can’t eat chocolate, which along with fresh spinach and warm bread is the only real food there is). Willie is back to dropping toys in my lap (even when I’m lying flat on my back on the couch, so I think it was much more than lack of movement that changed his behavior. I’ll write more in the comments under the last blog.)

I wanted to say a few words about Des Moines, and the Animal Rescue League of Iowa who sponsored it. First off, Paula Sunday and all her staff were wonderfully accommodating, even changing the plan and letting in over 200 people in by the time 9:00 rolled around Saturday morning. I asked the folks that came to say hello:

They were a great group of people, I enjoyed spending the day with them immensely.

In the morning we focused on dogs who are reactive to unfamiliar dogs (I put the word “aggression” in quotes in the title because so many dogs who look aggressive actually have no intent of harming anybody or anything, but all that barking and growling sure can look scary.) We worked with a Corgi named Vadar who had come into Angie’s home with lots of lots of “issues.” (I just love that way to describe a range of trouble! As in: “I have “issues” with computers when they don’t work right for me.”) Angie and family have done a great job with Vadar, and things are good at home but Vadar is your basic bark/lunger at dogs on the street, especially ones bigger than he is. We taught Angie and Vadar an “autowatch” in about ten minutes (it was scary, he learned it so fast) and had a great first session reinforcing him with treats when he looked at Angie as another dog approached. Here’s Angie and Vadar (and me), Vadar with his “I am the perfect dog” look on:

After Vadar we worked with a Golden cross named Casey who fit into the ‘reactive’ mode in that when he sees another dog that he can’t get to, he begins to spiral up into being frustrated and emotionally overloaded (at least that what it looks like to me, obviously I’m just making my best guess about his internal state, but Casey gets SO excited over SO many things and his response to other dogs seemed to be as much about arousal as anything else). Casey also did a great job with “watch” (look at your owner instead of barking at the dog) and also learned the “Emergency U-Turn” that owners can use when they get surprised by a dog who shows up unexpectedly.

Obviously, all these types of issues deserve lots and lots more time and attention than I can write about now (see the booklet Feisty Fido for more about teaching some of these techniques), and we talked about so much more than the few things I’ve mentioned here (including CAT, teaching “Where’s the Dog?” and reinforcing for looking versus looking away) BUT, here’s a wonderful email from Casey’s owner that came a few days later:

I wanted to tell you that I practiced some of the information I learned yesterday with Casey (the golden mix demo dog) and they worked! I was clicking through TV channels and the Animal Planet had some dog dancing show which he reacted to like always – running to put his face against the screen and bark at the dogs. Sometimes he is so wound up he even turns around in circles but he wasn’t doing that yesterday. I can call him away from the TV so I got him over by me and said “Do You Want a Treat?”. He gave me the quizzical, cocked-head look that he often gives when I ask him questions and followed me into the kitchen without a backward look at the TV.

I thought I would try “watch” and started in another room. It was going well so I moved closer and closer to the TV until we were about 3 feet from the TV and I even moved so my back was mostly toward the TV so Casey could hardly help but see the dogs. Except he wasn’t looking at them — he was staring at my face so intently that he would barely even glance at the dogs on TV to give me the opportunity to say “watch” – he was already watching!

I couldn’t believe what a difference happened so fast. Usually he will run from anywhere in the house to bark at the TV if he hears or sees ANYTHING from there that even remotely might be a dog or other animal. It gives me hope that it might work with other live dogs when we’re out walking. Thanks so much. Julie

Yeah, positive reinforcement, hey? Now Julie’s job is to be sure that Casey only gets the treat for looking at the dog, so that the dog itself is the precursor to the treat. (If your dog won’t stop staring, take your eyes off him or her, move around, etc.) Keep up the good work Julie!

We spent the afternoon on a too-cute-for-words Jack Russel Terrier (mostly?) who came to Sundie and her daughter Lucia with lots of problems, including serious resource guarding. They’ve solved a lot of problems by keeping up toys and treats, but every few months Buster goes after their other male, and the fights are serious. After getting a solid foundation of information, we broke into groups and brain-stormed some treatment suggestions, which included lots more mental and physical exercise and lots more training that will give them control over all the dogs, including having Buster (and family) MASTER a few essentials cues like “Enough,” “Get Back” and “Stop,” all taught with positive reinforcement as if they were circus tricks. There was lots more of course, including clear cautions that this kind of issue (there’s that word again) is difficult to completely turn around, but it was a very interesting and rewarding day. Look at the reinforcement Animal Rescue of Iowa arranged for our afternoon break:

All in all, a wonderful day!

Tall Two Leg Female can’t write today, because she is busy arranging for my very special birthday party. If it is anywhere around Is It Time for Dinner Yet? time, then I am getting the attention that I so deserve as you read this. I am sorry that Tall Two Leg Female and Tall Two Leg Fuzz Face Male did not ask all of you. I do not understand why not. I think you should be here to rub my belly.

Here is what I sent out the Two Legs I was allowed to invite:

Dear Two Leg:

Please don’t tell anyone I’m writing this but I turn fifteen years old on December 7th. I think everyone should come and pay attention to ME that day but Tall Two Leg Female and Tall Two Leg Fuzz Face Male are leaving AGAIN that weekend and I think they’d better be here to keep Willie in his place.

I want you to come and rub my belly and tell me how pretty I still am, and give me treats and everything. Tall Two Leg Female said you could do that on Saturday December 13th at 2:30. She said she’d have snacks and drinks and no one needs to bring anything except I am hoping you will bring your undying admiration for ME. It would be fine if you brought your REAL animals (the ones with muzzles who are able to smell things and have the right amount of legs for cowpies’ sake) if you wouldn’t mind leaving them in the car for the party so that I can be the CENTER OF ATTENTION, as I should, and then we could all go on a walk up the hill together if you would like that. Just as long as the REAL animals are nice to me, because I am deaf and getting fragile but am ever-so pretty still…

If you could write me back on this clicky-clacky thing then I’ll know how many of you are coming. Please let me know by at least 5 dark times before the party.

Lassie

Tall Two Leg Female says she already sent this flat thing that is me but isn’t me to you, but I asked her to send it again because it shows how very beautiful I am even though I am 15 years old now:

Boy is this going to be short.  Stomach flu. Not good. Will spare you all details, but been sick (as a dog? where did that expression come from?) Been sick for 3 days, huge snow storm kept friends out, me in. Jim, my wonderful guy, just took the afternoon off to come out with saltine crackers and ginger ale for me. Heaven.

Wanted to write about the seminar in Des Moines, the participants and hosts were so wonderful.  Stay tuned, don’t have much vertical time in me yet… BUT here’s the question: All of Monday and Tuesday, when I was flat on my back, young BC Willie never once brought me a toy to throw for him.  To say that’s atypical is understating the matter. Oh sure, he’ll stop when you say “Enough” but he’ll try again in a half hour or so. But he never tried, ever for 2 1/2 days. Why? Did he know I was sick? Or… (more likely?) was my lack of movement acting as a lack of trigger, or inadvertent cue? What do you think?  I am hoping to be back among the living, at least for a few hours, tomorrow, but please excuse my deadbeat lack of responses to any comments.  (But hey, I’ve lost 7 pounds!  I know, I know, it’ll all come back….)

I read Alex and Me over the weekend, and highly recommend it. The book is about author Irene Pepperberg’s life, both as a scientist and as a parrot owner, with Alex, the African Grey Parrot. I’ve known of her research for years, and (full disclosure here), consider her a friend, so I can’t pretend that I’m completely objective. But if you are interested in animal intelligence, animal communication and/or what parrots have to teach us about the minds of non-human animals, this book is for you.

Irene, whose first real friend was a parakeet, left a promising career in chemistry to jump into the controversial field of “language” in non-human animals. No field better illustrates that, although the process of science is objective, scientists aren’t. That is often a good thing: scientists are often passionate about their work and that drive allows them to work through difficult problems, lousy pay (often), and working 80 hour weeks. It also means that individuals feel strongly about some issues, and the question of what goes in the mind of animals like chimpanzees, parrots and pet dogs still can elicit heated arguments among colleagues. Unbeknownst to her, Irene jumped into the field at the heat of controversy about whether non-human animals could use “language,” what “language” studies with primates actually told us about the minds of other animals, and other simple, trivial questions like “what does it mean to be human?” That controversy, and the fact that her training was as a chemist, not a psychologist or linguist, meant that Irene walked an uphill path to get funding and acknowledgment for her discoveries. This book describes her amazing and often difficult journey with Alex, both as a woman and as a scientist.

Irene started teaching Alex (which stood at first for Animal Language Experiment and was changed to Animal Learning Experiment because the word “language” was so controversial) to make sounds to label objects. As most of you know, Alex eventually became the Einstein of parrots, and was able not only to use labels (most of us would call them words!) to identify and request objects, colors, shapes, materials and number), he could also understand abstract concepts like “bigger” and “different” and most interestingly to me, “nothing. (Go teach your dog to fetch “nothing!” Wow, what a challenge! Could we?)

Irene has spoken and written extensively about her research with Alex, but Alex and Me is a personal look at the challenging journey she traveled, trying to get others to accept that a parrot with a brain the size of a walnut could do things only humans were supposed to be able to do. I won’t steal the book’s thunder by telling you all my favorite parts, but here’s one:

Someone sent Alex a toy parrot that was suspended over his cage. He walked up to it and said “You tickle,” his demand (Alex was very good at demands) for someone to tickle his neck. Of course, the stuffed toy did nothing. After a moment, Alex said “You turkey!” and walked off “in a huff.” Irene tells us that sometimes students had said “You turkey” to Alex when he was messing up, and he adopted the epithet for himself. (As anyone who has parrots knows, they are as skilled as we are at delivering epithets. No wonder sailors and parrots go together so well?)

I wish the book was longer, and went into her work with Alex in more depth, but that’s just me being greedy. It’s a fascinating and inspiring book, and if you are interested in both the science of animal communication and animal intelligence, and a compelling story about a woman’s relationship with a one of the world’s most famous animals, this book is for you.

On the home front, winter is here for good. Snow every couple of days, though luckily not too much of it at a time, at least not here in Southern Wisconsin. Here’s a photo looking out my kitchen window, up the hill behind the house to the “orchard pasture” where I can watch the sheep graze in summer.