Penny and the overly big stick

I like to see Penny solving problems for herself, when possible, because I think it's good for her to stretch her mental capabilities.

Yesterday she arrived at the door of the car - after a delightfully muddy swim - with a big stick in her mouth. It wouldn't fit through the door as she was carrying it. I hoped she might figure out to turn it sideways, as she has done in the past, but more often than not she can't be bothered with all the mental exertion of problem-solving.

In this case she waited for me to solve the problem for her.

I found it interesting to watch her body language as she coped with the stick that wouldn't fit. Here are some of the things I noticed:

She slowed down as she approached the car and realised there was a problem;
her tail drooped;
she licked her lips;
she looked away from the problematic door and stick;
her ears flattened;
she scratched her chin;
she looked at me for help.

Many of these are classic signs of stress, but I think it was good for her to face the situation and try to work it out. I think she was experiencing eustress rather than distress.

Here's the whole incident, if you feel like looking at it:

dogs can extrapolate

Recently, my sister worked on a new quilt. As I walked through the room where she had thrown the work-in-progress across a lounge chair, it passed through my mind to wonder whether she should move it before Penny jumped up on it. (It was full of pins, so don't think I was worrying about the quilt, lol. I was thinking of Penny getting hurt.)

Penny does not get on our furniture. (Well, beds are another story...) She will jump up onto a couch of comfy chair only if her special quilt is lying there, ready for her.

I've heard it said that dogs don't extrapolate, that is, they don't use given information to judge an unknown situation. But in this instance, Penny decided that one quilt is like another. Sure enough, she decided to nap on the unfinished quilt. 

a new toy to make Penny think

I bought a new toy recently, despite my decision to stop buying unnecessary 'stuff' for Penny. (But I can forgive myself for this broken resolution, because someone has to spend money and keep the economy ticking over.)

It's called 'dogit' Mind Games and on the manufacturer's site there's the cutest video clip of a puppy playing with it. I think it would be great for a puppy, but I must admit Penny solved it in seconds.

However, I think it's a well-designed toy. It's made of sturdy plastic and sticks to the floor with suction cups, so that it avoids the problem of the Nina Ottosson toys of the whole thing moving around the floor as the dog investigates. (But I LOVE the Nina Ottosson toys in general and find them more challenging than this one.)

This game involves three different types of activity and here we are trying the first one, in which she simply has to pick up the green pieces to find the food under them:



Penny liked finding the treats, but it was fairly straightforward. So we tried the next activity:



And then I set the toy up for the next type of game:



And Penny tried it.



Overall, I'd say it's a good game.

In a comment on my last post about activities to keep Penny thinking, Jess the Dog Shopper mentioned a game where dogs have to fetch a toy that matches the one the human is holding. (At least, I think that's what she meant.)

Well, of course that was an excuse to pop into my favorite pet shop, Murphy's in Hawthorn, to buy a set of new toys. I could have bought a new copy of a toy we already have, but I thought it would be better to get two new ones so they could age together, with the same appearance and smell.

Two toys looked good, so I bought a pair of each.



I was attracted to the little animal toys because the label said 'eco naturals' but when I got them home and looked, there was no information on the label about why they should be called 'natural'. And they're made in China. Seeing I have the greatest respect for Murphys as an ethical business, I'll assume the toys are as good as they look.

Penny loved the little creatures. They seem to have a squeaker and what might be a little crackly bottle inside. However, I don't let her have toys unsupervised, unless they are specifically 'home alone' toys like Kongs.

Anyway, back to the game. As I've learned from reading Honey's blog, I started with the simplest version of the game. Penny sat in the kitchen while I hid one little creature-toy. I came back with the other little creature in my hand, held it near Penny's nose so she could sniff it, and said 'Find this one'.

She already knows to wait in the kitchen after I've held a treat or a toy near her nose, waiting for me to hide it at the other end of the house. But this task is different, in that she sees me with a duplicate of what she's meant to find.

I was amazed. She shot off into the other end of the house and came back with the matching toy. Then she waited for her reward - the exactly identical one I was holding!

I guess it's a reward because she wants the one I have.

At last, at long last, we have a game that doesn't involve food. Hooray!

After we had played a few times with the little creatures, we played with the dumbell-ball toys.

Next step will be to put two different toys at the other end of the house and see whether she can bring the correct one back. But we won't move to that step until she's had lots of success with this simpler version.

increasing a dog's vocabulary

After watching more of the BBC television programme, 'The Secret Life of Dogs', I was amazed by the canine genius who has a vocabulary of more than three hundred words. Betsy can bring on command a huge array of named objects. And, if you watch the video clip, you will see that she can even conceptualise from a scale model of an object to the thing itself, and even from a photograph, which I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't seen it on the BBC.

Now, Penny isn't a genius, that's for sure. But, until she had surgery on her cruciate ligament and we stopped most of her activities, she was using her brain for tricks, doggie dancing and training, every week, if not every day.

When we were told she needed to take care with the leg, we began to restrict her activities. We eventually resumed walking, and now swimming, but we forgot about the intellectual stimulation she needs.

So, it's back to training for Penny. Here's a video of our usual amateurish style of 'kitchen training'. We're challenging ourselves to increase Penny's vocabulary and I reckon by the time she's 110 (human) years old, she should know as many words as Betsy.

trying out the Nina Ottosson Dog Casino

Boredom warning!!

This is a long video of Penny trying out our new Nina Ottosson Dog Casino toy. I'm only posting it because I think people thinking of buying the puzzle might like to see this warts-and-all tryout of it, with no footage cut out.

It's six minutes long, and seems a bit like watching grass grow, lol.

(And the title is stupid, because the last word, 'Casino', is missing in the title. But it took so long to upload that I'm not willing to do it again.)

the nina ottosson dog casino

It seemed a good time to try out our new Nina Ottosson toy today, as Penny was having kibble for her breakfast - boring stuff!
So we got the box out.



It's one of the hardest puzzles, level three, so we knew we'd have to take it in stages.



First I put the puzzle on the floor, taking out the little bones on top that stop the drawers underneath from moving in and out.




I let Penny see the drawers pulled fully out.



She watched with interest as I placed a piece of food in each little drawer.



And, last of all, I pushed the drawers in part-way, so she could see and smell the food.



I have a video clip of her trying it out, but it's very long and probably boring, to be quite honest. But I'm going to upload it here as a separate blog post, because I think it's worthwhile for anyone thinking of buying this toy. It's a warts-and -all look at how a dog approaches the task for the first time.

new toy available in Australia for intelligent play by dogs

I'm a sucker for a good dog toy, so today I just couldn't resist the wooden Seek-A-Treat, when I visited Murphys to buy one of my favorite dog foods - Ziwi Peak canned tripe, venison and lamb.

Perhaps I was attracted by the bright packaging - after all, that's what it's for, isn't it?



Penny found one part extra easy, because she is used to moving parts in slots to get at what's underneath. But this one had another, not-so-familiar aspect. She had to turn a little lever in order to get at a treat under a separate flap. It was great to see her puzzling over it, but when she began to chew on the toy, I solved it for her this time, as I don't want her starting bad habits with her puzzles.

persistent little dog solves a problem

On PetPlace there's a link to a funny video clip of a little dog trying to carry its soft toy through a small gap. I thought it was lovely.

Reminds me of Penny trying to get a long stick through one of our doorways.

avoiding guilt about our care of our dogs

Sometimes I think I must be silly to get involved in so many dog activities. Over the last few years Penny and I have done flyball, lure coursing, tracking, agility, tricks, canine freestyle, swimming, and probably best of all, walking together.

I buy her Nina Ottosson toys where she has to figure out how to get her dinner out of the puzzle.

I make puzzles and toys.

I try to challenge her thinking whenever possible. (Yes, dogs do think!)

When is enough enough? As Patricia McConnell asks on her blog, The Other End of the Leash, where do we draw the line on activities designed to keep our dogs interested and happy?

I don't know the answer. I only know I love seeing Penny's eyes sparkle and her tail wag.

I'm a great believer in choice and could never come at the idea that an obedient dog, one that leaps to obey without thought, is the ideal dog. Penny chooses to obey (sometimes after thinking about it longer than I like, actually), rather than acting on a conditioned response. Which, by the way, makes me think of the funny video clip on Noah's blog today.

So I loved reading what Patricia McConnell wrote about the value of choice on brain development.

One the books I’ve been reading on brain plasticity mentioned increased dendritic branching (connections between neurons) when caged rats were allowed to voluntarily exercise. That’s a good thing for the brain, and can lead to all kinds of positive benefits, not only enhanced mental function but also to a better ability to handle stress, for example. But here’s the kicker: there was no effect when the rats were forced against their wheel to exercise, even if it was for the same amount of time. Forced exercise may be good for physiological health, but not necessarily for a healthy brain.

It's a great post, and I suggest you might like to go over there and read it.

Major breakthrough in dog intelligence

After many months of painstaking research, Penny has solved the almost-impossible problem of how to retrieve two Whirl Wheels from the river. I post this photo here as proof of the success of her studies.



There is one small problem. So far she has not been able to replicate the results, but she's intending to get back to the research lab (aka Yarra River) as soon as possible to continue her investigations.

the Nina Ottosson intelligent toys are selling in Australia

Today I received an email from VCAworld.com to say they are now stocking the Nina Ottosson toys!

They said they will be receiving a small shipment of the Nina Ottosson toys this week. This is a pre-launch stock arrival so stock is extremely limited. They will be looking to launch the range early next year.

Woo hoo! These toys are wonderful.They said any enquiries can be sent to info@vcaworld.com

They've got the plastic range, and seem to offer the Dog Twister, Dog Casino, Dog Finder, Dog Tornado, Dog Spinny, Dog Brick, Dog Smart.

If you go to the Nina Ottosson site, you can check out these toys.

In plastic, Penny has the Tornado and the Brick, and they're both good.

These are not "home alone" toys, though. They need the human to be there all the time when the dog is using them.

Nina Ottosson toys free shipped from Clean Run

Penny was excited when a big parcel arrived yesterday from the US. We had taken advantage of the free shipping offer by Clean Run.

Well, she wasn't all that excited at first. But I was. I opened it immediately.



I'd been wanting to try out the wooden Nino Ottosson toys, because I thought Penny would be able to get a better grip on them than she manages with the plastic ones.

So far we've only tried the simple first level of the Dog Fighter. As suggested, I put it on a stool rather than on the floor. And, yes, she finds the wooden pegs quite easy to manage. In fact, I was surprised at how quickly she succeeded in moving the first peg along the slot in order to lift it out and get a treat. (I haven't edited this clip at all, so it is clear what the timeframe was for succeeding with the new toy.)



Here's the second try, a couple of minutes later. (Because she tried chewing it, the peg did get a few tooth marks in it, but she soon realised that technique wasn't working.) It was a very hot day, so as soon as her nose told her there were no more treats to find, she settled down again on her mat in front on the fan.

trying out a 'fun-for-dogs' toy

Here we are, trying our own version of one of the toys from 'fun-with-dogs', the German site devoted to enhancing human-canine interaction. (If you click on the British flag you will get the main page in English.)



And I'm just gob-smacked by the wonderful games on the page devoted to a competition to find the most creative toy. You don't need to read German, because the photos speak for themselves.

I think I love the last one on the page best of all. An old hand-puppet has become a friend that only opens his mouth to reveal a wonderful treat when the dog offers an interesting behaviour. The reward is for creativity, for thinking up - and offering - a new behaviour.

more studies of canine cognition

Slavenka has posted a link to an article in Time magazine about a study at Duke University in the US. The study will look at canine cognition. The article says

The work of these researchers won't just satisfy the curiosity of the millions of people who love their dogs; it may also lead to more effective ways to train ordinary dogs or--more important--working dogs that can sniff out bombs and guide the blind. At a deeper level, it may even tell us something about ourselves.

As I said when I wrote about a similar study at Harvard University, I don't see why we always have to relate such studies to some imagined benefit for humans.

But I guess they wouldn't get any funding otherwise.

An interesting point in the study is the idea that only dogs and humans can readily understand what is meant if someone points to something. A chimp can follow the gaze of other chimps and figure out what they can and cannot see, but chimps need lots of training to understand the significance of pointing. Yet young puppies can do so.

Penny understands pointing, but I thought we had taught that skill to her. Now I wonder whether she was genetically programmed to pick it up easily.

studies into canine cognition

Harvard University's Canine Cognition Lab is studying dog behavior and they want volunteers for their 'non-invasive' experiments. If I lived in the local area I'd be hot-footing it into the lab. I reckon it would be fun! There's a short video explaining what they want.

One thing that always strikes me is the necessity for scientists to validate their research by saying it will help us understand human behaviour. Why can't we get away from seeing ourselves as the only species worthy of our interest? The rationale for the study is to discover 'those aspects of the mind that are uniquely human'. You know what? I'm actually interested to know about the cognition of the other species on this planet - the planet that the dogs and the dolphins and the fish and the snakes and the bees aren't polluting out of existence.

And as for the idiotic first comment on the article in the Boston Globe about this study... Well, don't get me started on the cognitive capabilities of the human species!

Apologies for the rant. Sometimes I just have to let off steam.

great new intelligent game for dogs

While I was visiting Johann's blog, I saw a new game for dogs. It can be used as an intelligence-enhancing activity, or as a way of feeding a meal. It's the Aikiou (pronounced IQ).

On Youtube there's a video clip of a Welsh corgi trying it out it. It's one of the better clips I've seen, because the dog seems to be unfamiliar with it and the clip shows the whole process of learning to use it, I think.

a dog thinks through a problem

Today two household humans and a non-dog-owning visitor witnessed Penny solving a spatial problem. She had been outside with us as we looked around the garden and she missed out on coming in through the door with us, so she had to come in through the little swinging doggy door.

But there was a problem. Penny had a stick in her mouth and the stick was too wide to fit through the door. She tried a time or two but got stuck. So she took a grip on one end of the stick and tried to open the door with it, but couldn't get enough pressure on the swinging door to make it open. We stood and watched her, convinced there was some level of problem-solving occurring. However, it seemed more of a trial-and-error process than a logical thought sequence.

But...she stepped through the door without the stick, seemed to be considering the situation and then pushed the door open with her head, grabbed the stick end-on and pulled her head back into the room.

It sure looked like problem-solving to us.

Here's the door.





And here's the stick after some enjoyable chewing. (It was a soft stick so we thought it was safe to leave her with it. Anyway, any dog who had worked so hard deserved the enjoyment of the fruits of her labor.)

playing with toys that enhance dog intelligence

Penny played with her Nina Ottosson dog toys tonight. Walks have been shorter than usual lately, for no special reason except that we've been low on energy, so I thought meal time could be extended for some doggy mental stimulation.

I was pleased to hear from Johann The Dog that these toys will soon be available in Australia from VCA World. I wish they were bringing in the wooden ones, but they will only import the plastic ones. However I don't see anything on their site yet.

I've always been interested in activities designed to enhance intelligence in dogs, as I've posted about time and again.

We used the Nina Ottosson Dog Tornado. This game has levels of difficulty, so first we tried it with the simple task to turn the bone and find the treats.



Then we tried it with two plastic 'bones' inserted in the lower levels, which makes the game much harder and requires a lot of persistence by the doggy player. (Penny is very persistent!) She became frustrated because her teeth couldn't get a grip on the slippery 'bones' - I think this is a drawback to the game. So I attached some string to the bones and she was immediately successful. (It's easy to slip a piece of string through the holes in the top of the bones and knot it so it doesn't slip out.)