Is Cesar Millan God?

Not even spelled backward. The crux of it: Habituation and extinction are an incomplete, to be charitable, explanation of what happened with Jonbee. Rather than simply habituating Jonbee to touch and teaching him that fighting for control is a waste of energy, Cesar did do what he set out to do. He got Jonbee to [...]

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English toy spaniels

This photo comes from W.E. Mason’s Dogs of All Nations, which was published throughout the 1910′s. This breed of toy spaniel has a very strong influence from the pug. As I have noted before, the original toy spaniels were more like the papillon, although without the spitz characteristics. Crosses with the pug  are believed to [...]

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Arctic fox vixen and kits

Source. This footage was taken on Svalbard. Arctic foxes are notoriously unafraid of people, and early Arctic explorers even kept them as pets. They are very closely related to the swift fox of the North American prairie.  Traditionally, kit and swift foxes were considered to be the same species, but it was found that in [...]

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Brown Hyenas hunting fur seals

Source. The brown hyenas of Namibia’s Skeleton Coast are known to hunt Cape fur seals in this manner. In two of Namibia’s official languages (German and Afrikaans), the name for this animal is Strandwolf.  It literally means “beach wolf.” Sir David Attenborough also makes a mistake in this piece. Did you catch it? It’s the [...]

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Ted Kerasote Interview

Source. This is my favorite dog book. It is probably the most important dog book to come out since Lorenz’s (very flawed) Man Meets Dog.

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Monogamy in Poison frogs

Very interesting stuff

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Reconstructing the Quagga

Source.

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Chat?

I’m going to be off and on all day today. So I’m setting up the chat room a bit early. I would like to know what you think of the new design. I think our threading issues are over.

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The Truth about Greyhounds

Discussions about dogs can get quite heated. Anyone who frequents this blog certainly would be aware of this fact. On another blog, a post appeared about possible end of greyhound racing as a commercial gambling enterprise. In the comment section, a great debate erupted about whether racing greyhounds’ high incidence of osteosarcoma was the result [...]

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The pigs

These piglets are red river hogs or, as Camera Trap Codger called them in German,  “Pinselohrschwein.” The scientific name is Potamochoerus porcus. The genus name is derived from the Greek words for river (“Potamos”) and pig (“Khoirus”). The species name is the Latin name for the word pig (“porcus.) I figured that a lot of [...]

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