Not a Blog Post

The sisters (upper R), and the books they've so far published through Weird Sisters Publishing.

By Jan S. Gephardt and G. S. Norwood

Fair warning: This is not a blog post. G. and Jan are both dealing with health issues. This is beyond writing a blog post about taking a sick day (besides, Jan already did that). Neither one of us is feeling energetic enough to create a complete, well-rounded blog post this week. Since both of us have lifetimes of experience in deadline-driven careers, this is a hard thing to admit.

But sorry. This is not a blog post. We have been a lot more “on the ball” on past occasions, however. So instead of offering a new post, we thought we’d offer kind of a smorgasbord of some favorite past posts.

Artwork ©2019 and 2020 by Chaz Kemp. (Courtesy of Weird Sisters Publishing).

Not A Blog Post, but Several

First, how about spending some quality time with pets, through some of our favorite past blog posts from G? If you’re familiar with the work of G.S. Norwood, you know her dry wit and her keen observer’s eye.

She has brought those qualities to her ongoing urban fiction series, the Deep Ellum Stories. These, not incidentally, include a range of wonderful animals, including Tidbit and Morsel, Ms. Eddy’s feline siblings who are considerably more than they seem. Then there’s Ace, the reformed Hell Hound, and even Fred, the back-yard mosasaur.

Read more about them in G’s novelettes Deep Ellum Pawn and its follow-up, Deep Ellum Blues. And stay tuned for G’s upcoming story, Death in Deep Ellum (set to be finished after she gets well). Meanwhile, even while this is technically not a blog post, we hope you enjoy this trio of G’s blog post “pet-classics.”

G's cats in art and life L-R: Ms. Eddy’s cat Tidbit, as envisioned ©2019 by Chaz Kemp, and Tidbit’s real-life inspiration, G’s cat Scrap, complete with her trademark curly tail. (The Weird Blog).

 

Cats in Space?

G. S. Norwood examines the roles of dogs and cats in Weird Sisters Publishing's fiction, and makes the case that there will be cats in space. We hope you’ll enjoy her post Cats in Space?

Because – can we talk? – if we humans actually do take to the stars, we won’t want to leave our companion animals behind. Science fiction is full of cats, dogs, and other critters who’ve voyaged with us in our fictional forays into the Final Frontier. If art mirrors life, there will be canine and feline spacefarers traveling with us.

Meanwhile, we think you’ll enjoy this post.

In just one year, the scrawny, snotty-nosed little calico G. found in the shelter underwent a remarkable transformation. But she still likes to cuddle. (Photos from G. S. Norwood’s private collection).

 

The Universe Gives Me a Cat

Urban fantasy writer G. S. Norwood, open to everyday magic in reality, says sometimes "the Universe gives me a cat," when she heeds intuition. What do you do, when the Universe has decided to give you a cat? Here’s G’s story.

Dog trainer Cesar Millan is fond of saying “You don’t always get the dog you want, but you get the dog you need.” We think that definitely goes for cats, too! Did G. get the cat she (didn’t know she) needed? Decide for yourself.

Clockwise from the top: “Sheriff” Zoe, a rather “wolfy” Chess on the prowl, and Kata with all-black Tam in G’s back yard. (The Weird Blog).

The Texas Pack

The Norwood household not only includes cats. It has a full cast of canine characters, too. G.S. Norwood introduces readers to The Texas Pack, her four border collies who each have distinct personalities, and who have informed her fiction.

Do you recognize any of the personality types she profiles in her blog post? Perhaps you’ve known dogs or other companion animals with similar approaches to life. Whether they’re interacting with humans or with each other, their personalities shine through.

Prequel novella The Other Side of Fear, with Books One and Two of the XK9 “Bones” Trilogy: What’s Bred in the Bone and A Bone to Pick. Cover art ©2020 by Lucy A. Synk, and ©2019 and 2020 respectively, by Jody A. Lee. (Courtesy of Weird Sisters Publishing).

 

A Blog Post Series for Dog Lovers

Science fiction writer Jan S. Gephardt has done a different take on blog posts about pets – specifically dogs – and their unexpected capabilities. Even if this is not a blog post, if you’re in the mood for one, why not give these a try? Her series on canine cognition outlined some of the research she did for her science fictional universe. As veteran sf readers know, the “science” in science fiction means that writers ground their stories in actual, real-world scientific ideas.

Jan’s stories feature a pack of uplifted police dogs called XK9s. They help uphold the rule of law on Rana Station, their adopted space station home. Written as adventure mystery stories, they also offer glimpses of the sometimes-humorous ways in which truly sapient dogs might interact with the human world.

Hundreds of people have enjoyed her XK9 “Bones” Trilogy, a series of books which has earned some excellent niche rankings. The first two are available now from a variety of booksellers worldwide, as either ebooks or paperbacks. The third book in the Trilogy is set for release in 2023. Some may prefer to take a “test drive” with her prequel novella, The Other Side of Fear. It’s also available widely for sale as an ebook or paperback. Or get it FREE as an ebook if you sign up for Jan’s feature-packed monthly newsletter!

A Finnish study demonstrated similarities between domestic dogs’ and humans’ “social gazing” behavior. (Artdog Adventures Blog).

 

Dog Cognition: How Much Does Your Dog Understand?

How much does your dog understand? A lot, actually, and on a more sophisticated level than many people think. “The Artdog” begins a new series on the research that convinced her dogs could someday be uplifted to be sapient beings.

Dogs may even be likelier candidates for future uplift than primates or cetaceans, for several excellent reasons. And seriously! What pet-parent wouldn’t love to know what their companion is trying to communicate sometimes? If only they could tell us in words! Turns out, maybe someday they can.

Can a dog read? “Reading Dog” Fernie (here with his human, Nik Gardner) inspires elementary students at Headmaster Gardner’s UK primary school to learn to read. (Artdog Adventures Blog).

 

Dogs: Verbal Virtuosos?

Dogs as verbal virtuosos? When it comes to canine cognition, researchers are finding that dogs are real verbal virtuosos who know word meanings and can combine meaningful phrases. Alert readers of Jan’s novels might also recognize where she got the names for a couple of XK9s, after reading this blog post!

Jan wasn’t just anthropomorphizing (well, some – but not entirely!) when she gave the XK9s the ability to read and compose verbal replies. Until they get prosthetic thumbs, the ability to physically write won’t be in their, um, grasp. But they wield words (sometimes in several languages) pretty doggone well. And here’s her justification for thinking they someday really could!

MRI studies of brain patterns suggest these dogs aren’t just going through the motions. (Artdog Adventures Blog).

 

Could it be Love?

Could it be love? We've long worried that we're anthropomorphizing when we say our dogs love us. But more and more studies reveal the answer to "could it be love?" is YES!

Unfortunately, the video at the end of the blog post Could it be Love seems to no longer be available, but we hope you have seen similar behaviors in dogs (sorry – Jan had no energy to spare looking up a new video, but if you have time to go down a YouTube rabbit hole, we bet you can have fun finding more!).

Do the XK9s love their human partners? Absolutely! Pack is Family for XK9s, and their humans – including a few “extended Pack members” – are included in that circle.

Not a Blog Post, but we Hope You’ve enjoyed it

We hope you have fun reading through this “not a blog post” full of blog posts. We’re hoping and planning for one of us to be back in the saddle with new content for next week.

IMAGE CREDITS

We’ve pulled our images this week from the Weird Sisters Website and from the blog posts featured in this “not a blog post” article. Follow the links to the blog posts for full information on our image sources.

Could it be love?

What's Bred in the Bone:
now available.

Does your dog love you? Or are you just projecting? Scientists try very hard to avoid anthropomorphizing their animal study subjects. Emotions are difficult to measure. But now we're finally getting closer to answering the question, "could it be love?"

This is the third and final (for now) post in a series about dog cognition. In case you missed them, click: "Dogs: verbal virtuosos?" and "How much does your dog understand?" I've also previously written about working dogs on this blog--a post that touched on dog cognition, but didn't go into as much depth.

This series started when I wrote a guest post on dog cognition for Booker T's Farm,  a blog devoted to books and dogs (a great combo!) Their format, however, didn't include the hyperlinks to sources that I'd suggested. (Note: Booker T's Farm also later posted a very nice review of What's Bred in the Bone).

Because science doesn't stand still, there's also some updated information to add. That (and the chance to share links to sources) is why I decided to expand on my August post with this series.

Anthropomorphism

Huckleberry Hound, Snoopy, and Scooby-Doo each created a humorous satire on certain human characteristics, but anthropomorphism gets in the way of scientists studying real dogs. (Images via Wikipedia)

When humans attribute human characteristics or emotions to non-human entities (weather conditions, animals, plants, gods or other things), they are anthropomorphizing. It's an impulse as old as human "behavioral modernity." In fact, one of our oldest artworks is anthropomorphic.

The so-called "Lion-Man of the Hohlenstein-Stadel," also called Löwenmensch figurine, is an ivory sculpture about a foot tall, that was found in Hohlenstein-Stadel cave in Germany. It's the oldest example of what everyone agrees is figurative art,  carbon-dated between 40,000 and 35,000 years old. You might recall dogs have probably been hanging out with humans somewhere in the neighborhood of 32,000 years.

So, yeah. We have an apparently-innate tendency to anthopomorphize all kinds of things (just for fun, run an image search with the keywords "faces on inanimate objects"). And while Huckleberry Hound, Snoopy, Scooby-Doo, and dozens of other anthropomorphic dogs might be fun ways to poke humor at certain types of human characteristics, but they do nothing to help scientists understand real dogs.

The right chemistry

A Golden Retriever who passes out hugs in New York City, a demonstrative rescued pit bull, and a Bernese Mountain Dog puppy who leans on his human and pulls him closer (Photos: varied sources/First for Women).

The human tendency to anthropomorphize may be hard to control for, but blood chemistry is entirely another matter, when we ask, "could it be love?"

Several studies have shown that oxytocin levels (the so-called “love hormone”) rise in both dogs and humans during interactions. When the human smiles, they look at each other, and when they snuggle, or when dogs are caressed, both release more oxytocin. Some researchers believe this mutual reaction is key to dog domestication.

In humans and other animals oxytocin is "correlated with the preferences of individuals to associate with members of their own group." Thus, it's not surprising that it's been found to be important in bonding between mates and mothers and their infants, as well as humans and companion animals.

Could it be love? Check the MRIs

At left, parallel brain structures in human and dog brains activated in response to stimuli (in this case words, but in other studies it's been smells) at Hungary’s Eötvös Loránd University. (image: Andics et al./Current Biology) Center: Border Collies and Golden Retrievers pose with the MRI in the Hungarian lab. (Photo: Borbala Ferenczy) At right, fMRI scans from Emory University show brain activity associated with decision-making. Similar studies using fMRI have demonstrated emotional reactions that parallel those of humans. (Photo: Berns et al./SSRN).

Oxytocin isn’t the only scientific proof that it could, indeed, be love. Studies of dogs in MRI scanners show the brain structure (caudate nucleus) associated with anticipation and positive feelings lights up in dogs when they smell the odor of a familiar person.

Other MRI-scan brain studies reconfirm the dogs' verbal recognition skills, and offer the beginnings of understanding how dogs make decisions.

And then there’s body language. How can you mistake the message of the facial expressions,  the wriggling body, the wagging tail? How can you mistake the hugs?

Could it be love? Watch this compilation of dogs greeting their returning soldiers home from deployment, then decide. What do you think?



Dog owners know: dogs “get” us, in a way few other animals do. After 30,000 years, even the scientists are beginning to agree.

IMAGE CREDITS: The cover art for What's Bred in the Bone is © 2019 by Jody A. Lee. Many thanks to Wikipedia for this images of Huckleberry Hound, Snoopy, and Scooby-Doo. Thanks and hugs to First For Women and their adorable photo feature, "12 Adorable Pics of Dogs Hugging their Humans for Valentine's Day," the source of the "Dog Hugs" composite. For the "Dog Brain Scans" composite, I wish to thank Wired Magazine, Attila Andics and Current Biology, photographer Borbala Ferenczy, and to Wired Magazine, Gregory Berns, and SSRN. Finally, many thanks to YouTube and FunnyPlox, for the video of dogs greeting their homecoming soldiers.

Dogs: verbal virtuosos?

What's Bred in the Bone:
now available.

Could our dogs be verbal virtuosos? Perhaps more than we may think!

This is the second post in a series about dog cognition. In case you missed it, click: "How much does your dog understand?" I've also previously written about working dogs on this blog--a post that touched on dog cognition, but didn't go into as much depth.

This series started when I wrote a guest post on dog cognition for Booker T's Farm,  a blog devoted to books and dogs (a great combo!) Their format, however, didn't include the hyperlinks to sources that I'd suggested. (Note: Booker T's Farm also later posted a very nice review of What's Bred in the Bone).

Because science doesn't stand still, there's also some updated information to add. That (and the chance to share links to sources) is why I decided to expand on my August post with this series.

If only dogs could talk!
I am certainly not the only person who's ever wished her dog could talk. They usually manage to express themselves clearly enough to tell us when they're hungry or want to go out, but I sometimes would swear they're just as frustrated as we are.



We need a for-real "Dr. Dolittle interface" of some sort! And it's possible we may be getting closer to one, but more on that in a bit.

Dogs can't (quite) speak our languages, but there's growing scientific agreement that they understand what our words mean. We also now know that understanding is aided by the tone of our voice.

And it's long been clear they can and do respond to our wishes, cued by words (sounds) we’ve taught them. (Scientists haven’t, as far as I know, done studies on “selective hearing” in dogs who choose not to respond. But perhaps that's an indicator of intelligence, too).

The (so far) unparalleled Chaser
Probably the most famous canine “verbal virtuoso” was Chaser, a border collie who belonged to a psychology professor named John Pilley.  Pilley and Chaser were able to demonstrate that she had a vocabulary of 1,022 different nouns (the names of toys), and that she could comprehend (by reacting appropriately to) sentences containing a prepositional object, a verb, and a direct object.

Pilley memorably showed her talents to the world on TV. There's an episode of 60 Minutes in which she starred. It first aired in 2014, but it's still available online. Pilley and Chaser also demonstrated her smarts to Neil DeGrasse Tyson on an episode of NOVA on PBS.




Yes, but could she also read?
Chaser understood more than 1,000 nouns and could correctly follow verbal commands using different verbs and objects, but I haven't found any evidence online that she could respond to written symbols. That doesn't mean, however that a dog can't do that.

While it's true that dogs can’t read the way humans can, it is possible to teach them to recognize individual written words (visual symbols) and respond to them as if they were spoken commands.

Several different dogs have been taught to do this, as an inspiration for elementary students just beginning to read. The largest “written vocabulary” I found online was four words, demonstrated by a Labrador Retriever in the UK, named Fernie.

"Reading Dog" Fernie and his human, Winford Primary School Headmaster Nik Gardner, demonstrate two of the written commands Gardner has taught Fernie. (Photo by SWNS / David Hedges, via the Telegraph UK).

Mini-Aussie Mia and chocolate lab Fernie are both employed as inspirations for young human readers. They're going "one better" on the many school-certified dogs around the world who help children improve their reading skills (and sometimes get helped in return).

Meet Stella, the world's most recent dog star
Just this month, a new canine verbal virtuoso came onto my radar. Stella, a Catahoula / Blue Heeler mix, is the dog of speech pathologist Christina Hunger.

She wanted to teach her dog to communicate using sounds--and her professional background gave her the technology to try it. As News 18 described it, "Christina designed a Voice Output Communication Aid on cardboard. The device is normally used to help low or nonverbal people to communicate."

Christina has documented Stella using two or more words in sequence, and notes her technique is improving all the time. In Christina's latest post, Stella's vocabulary had grown to 22 word-buttons, but a more recent video from Welfare of Dogs documents 29 words.



Stella and Christina's use of adaptive technology brings other animal word-use experiments to mind. You may remember Koko the gorilla, who used American Sign Language and whose vocabulary surpassed that of the amazing Chaser.

There also was an experiment with teaching orangutans to use iPads for communicating information such as what they wanted for dinner. The program, from Orangutan Outreach, is called "Apps for Apes." It was designed to draw attention to them, more than it was a serious effort to advance the science of communication with the animals. I reported on it in 2013 when the Kansas City Zoo adopted the program, but I haven't been able to find information more recent than 2015.

We're still not quite ready to swear in a K9 officer to testify . . . or are we?
The decision to give my fictional XK9s a vocalizer has its roots in both wish-fulfillment and the potential I see in contemporary adaptive and communication technology. But another inspiration was an overheard comment from a police commander that for well or ill a K9 can't testify in court. No, we haven't quite come that far.

Except maybe in Punta Gorda, Florida.

In 2012, a defendant called a K9 as a witness for the defense. Deputy Franko, K9 Azor's handler, had given defendant Rodney McGee a ticket. What happened next?  Reporters who covered the story at the time explained.



No, K9 Azor didn't have much to say, after all. But we can't really know what he might have said, if he'd been trained on a sound board like Stella's. Imagine a K9 trained on one that said things such as "suspect," "drugs," or "explosives."

Stay tuned. At the rate things are going, real-live XK9s may come sooner than we think!

IMAGE CREDITS: The cover art for What's Bred in the Bone is © 2019 by Jody A. Lee. Many thanks to YouTube and Vines Motion for the "Funny Talking Dogs" video compilation, and to NOVA on PBS, for the video of Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Chaser. The photo montage of Fernie the "reading dog" is courtesy of SWNS / David Hedges, via the Telegraph UK.  I'm grateful to Christina Hunger's Hungerforwords YouTube channel for the video of Stella using multiple words, and to The Leak Source on YouTube, for the report on K9 Azor's trip to court. I appreciate you all!

Dog cognition: how much does your dog understand?

What's Bred in the Bone: now available.

Back in August, I wrote a guest post on dog cognition for Booker T's Farm. That blog also later posted a very nice review of What's Bred in the Bone. Booker T's style, however, didn't include the hyperlinks to my sources that I'd suggested.

Because science doesn't stand still, there's also some updated information to add. I've previously written about working dogs on this blog. So I've decided to expand on my August post.

How much do dogs really understand?

Have you ever wondered how much your dog knows? Does she really understand your facial expressions and gestures? Is his behavior mostly instinct and the impulse of the moment, or is it rooted in more complex thought processes?

Recent studies suggest the answers to all of these questions are “more than you might think.” Just how much your dog understands is still being studied, but it’s already clear we have more in common with our canine companions than we might imagine.

This puppy, buried in a Stone Age grave along with a man and a woman in Oberkassel, Germany (today in a suburb of Bonn) shows signs that it died of distemper, and would likely have been cared for over a period of many weeks. Sick though it was, its people apparently loved it. (screen capture from a video by University of Alberta, via National Geographic).

An ancient bond
Humans have a longer history of evolving side by side with dogs than with any other domesticated animal species. Archaeologists have found dog remains with a human burial as long ago as 14,000 years ago. But geneticists have found mutations that would suggest a more domesticated diet that date back some 32,000 years.

There's even a sandstone cliff in Saudi Arabia that offers pictorial documentation of a man hunting with dogs (on leashes?) that’s more than 8,000 years old. This video is short, but informative:



So dogs and humans have had a pretty long time to get used to each other. How much have we “rubbed off on each other”? Some researchers say quite a lot! Neither humans nor dogs would be what we are today, without each other.

That’s true physically, but studies in dog cognition also tell us it’s true in terms of dogs’ brains. This first became clear when dogs showed they could easily understand gestures such as a human pointing to an object, although chimpanzees could not. They are more tuned in to what humans are doing.

Watch the eyes (and the eyebrows!)
Researchers also have shown that dogs pay attention to where we are looking , and recognize the difference between happy and angry human expressions.

According to a study from the University of Helsinki, "the social gazing behavior of domestic dogs resembles that of humans: dogs view facial expressions systematically, preferring eyes. In addition, the facial expression alters their viewing behavior, especially in the face of threat." (Photo: S.Somppi Ja 123RF.DOI: 10.1371/Journal.Pone.0143047)

Moreover, recent studies have established that dogs have more facial muscles than wolves. The muscles that move their eyebrows and give them such expressive faces developed after they'd become a separate species. In other words, they have puppy-dog eyes, and they are not afraid to use them.

Believe it or not, this reflects sophisticated dog cognition. Along with the "pointing tests," it shows that that dogs have a "theory of mind. That’s the ability to intuit how others see the world and even, to some extent, know what they’re thinking," according to studies done by Duke University researchers.

Dogs may not be as smart as humans (yet), but their cognitive capabilities run deeper than many people imagine. We'll look at more aspects of this next week, in my mid-week post.

Till then, I'd be fascinated to learn your thoughts on this post, and read any stories about super-smart dogs you have known, if you'd care to share them in the comments section.

IMAGE CREDITS: The cover artwork for What's Bred in the Bone is © 2019 by Jody A. Lee. The photo of a puppy buried in a Stone Age grave is a screen capture from a video by University of Alberta, posted by National Geographic. The video about the ancient Saudi Arabian petroglyphs of hunters with dogs (on leashes?) is courtesy of YouTube and Science Magazine.  The illustration that describes where dogs typically look at faces depicting emotion is from the University of Helsinki, by S.Somppi Ja 123RF.DOI: 10.1371/Journal.Pone.0143047. Many thanks to all!