Dogs On Trains!

The Financial Times has an AWESOME story about the dogs who live--and travel on--the Moscow Metro. Some just live in the stations while others actually take the train and travel to different stations, often on a regular schedule. A Russian biologist is studying how, in the last 30 years, the dogs have begun to develop their own unique doggie culture, noting that as dogs grow more wild they still lack aggression while remaining socialized to humans, uninterested in affection but willing to coexist and understanding how to use humans for food (ie, using their big brown eyes.) And, as it turns out, our pack has something in common with the Russian dogs!

A pack of dogs, however, can hold a dominant position over other packs and their leader will often “patrol” the other packs by moving in and out of them. His observations have led Poyarkov to conclude that this leader is not necessarily the strongest or most dominant dog, but the most intelligent – and is acknowledged as such. The pack depends on him for its survival.

I am most impressed with these dogs, who now have their own site, Metrodog, where people post pictures and videos of the dogs they come across. I have decided that I need to get out and see the world myself so I am going to learn to ride the train. I plan to enlist the help of my local stray/ train enthusiast and ride the rails:

But before I start my life as a rambling dog, I think I'm due for a nap. The world can wait.

Wally's Umwelt

This review of Inside a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know has been near the top of the NYT Most E-mailed stories all week. And why not? Who doesn't want to know what's going on between our ears? For some of us it is a theme park of thinkerating. For others, grey space. (Ahem, OBST.)

There was interesting stuff like this

A dog’s vision affects its sense of time, too. Dogs have a higher “flicker fusion” rate than we do, which is the rate at which retinal cells can process incoming light, or “the number of snapshots of the world that the eye takes in every second.” ... This is more than a game of fetch; it is a profound, existential realization: “One could say that dogs see the world faster than we do, but what they really do is see just a bit more world in every second.”

Or this:

Countering the currently fashionable alpha dog “pack theories” of dog training, Horowitz notes that “in the wild, wolf packs consist almost entirely of related or mated animals. They are families, not groups of peers vying for the top spot. . . . Behaviors seen as ‘dominant’ or ‘submissive’ are used not in a scramble for power; they are used to maintain social unity.”

So let's see how much you have learned. Below you must study my pictures and guess what my expression tells you about what is going on in my noggin...

A. Robert Reich's column in the NYT was an informative defense of a single payer system, though I do believe he is overly optimistic about the political possibilities for passing said legislation.
B. Mmmmm.....bacon.
C. I should recite a little Seamus Heaney, ahem,:
Up, black, striped and damasked like the chasuble
At a funeral mass, the skunk's tail
Paraded the skunk. Night after night
I expected her like a visitor.
D. Oscar's looking at my butt, isn't he?
E. I wonder if I'm taller than Robert Reich. And also, he's looking at my butt again, isn't he?

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Match 'em!

Dogs on TV!

Last night I watched this show on Nature called Dogs Who Changed the World. Number of interviews with me? ZERO? Obviously a fraud. But the second half is on tonight so we'll see what they have to say about me. It has some interesting stuff like an interview with this Swedish dude who thinks all dogs originated in East Asia (no wonder I have so many friends in Singapore and Malaysia!) And the lame humans needed us to populate arctic areas. And to domesticate other animals like sheeps and goats. So we pretty much have kept the human race going. Wait--is that a good thing?

Here's a cool map where you can see where the oldest dog breeds are from. There's no corgador but that's because the map is the oldest breeds, not the ALL TIME GREATEST.

Learning to Listen

MSNBC has been running a story about talking to a listening to (hey--pay attention to the latter!) your pet. It discusses how you apes could be a LOT less annoying if you would just learn to pay more attention to our cues.

Here is a short quiz in Wallyology. Can you tell what I'm try to say with each of these looks?



A) Why is that hand behind me and not petting my sweet spot?
B) Dick Cheney is flauting the law AGAIN.
C) I'm hungry
D) Why are they taking my picture when there's snot coming out of my nose?


A) Is it time for bed yet?
B) I'm pretend-yawning to put the moves on my date
C) I'm hungry
D) I'm actually doing an ABBA sing-along


A) Monday again?
B) Can we please turn away from Fox News? I'm losing brain cells
C) I'm hungry
D) Global warming, civil war, famine, health care crisis. Can you apes do anything right?

A) What? Sissy's going to the vet?!
B) Barack Obama has chosen my remix of ABBA's Wallyloo for his campaign song?
C) I'm hungry!
D) Is that the ABBA Gold DVD?!?

If you answered C) for all of the above you are correct. Also, I do love ABBA.

In the News

Two Very Important News Stories caught my attention this morning. The turmoil in the Palestinian Authority? No. The anticipated imprisonment of Scooter Libby? No.

Why would we care about that when there are stories about naughty dogs and rampaging squirrels! Priorities!

Randy Thai sniffer dogs fired:

Two Thai street mutts who became ace sniffer dogs at an airport near the notorious "Golden Triangle" opium-producing region have been fired for urinating on luggage and sexually harassing female passengers.

I'll have to tell my ma ape she needs to change her work behavior. (I kid! I hope...)

German Squirrel on Rampage Injures 3

An aggressive squirrel attacked and injured three people in a German town before a 72-year-old pensioner dispatched the rampaging animal with his crutch.

No wonder my sissy spends all day at the window watching the squirrels in the tree; she is anticipating hordes of invading German squirrels! Normandy in reverse. With squirrels.

Gettin' Tail

The most e-mailed story in the Grey Lady is about DOGS! It's about how scientists have begun decoding our feelings via our tails. According to their study you can tell a lot about a doggy mood by the angle of our tail in addition to things like whether it's wagging, how vigorously, etc. They say--wag to the right is happy and wag to the left is anxious.

My ma ape is intrigued. I have a very expressive tail that sometimes curls over my back, sometimes trails behind me, and usually hovers somewhere in between. I'm ADORABLE when my tail is down but that often means I'm nervous. Tail up means excitement. We may have to document this photographically which is a wonderful opportunity to post more pictures of my bum, eh?

My sissy's tail is not quite as exciting or versatile as mine but we'll have to keep an eye on her. She is a very anxious girl so she should be a left-sided wagger, eh? Interestingly, my ma ape's FIRST dog had NO TAIL. He was a Pembroke corgi and my ma ape said he would wag his BUTT (which was fluffy like mine, no word on the pertness).