Does your dog misbehave?

[babylonsister]

:evilgrin:

Dogs Imitate People
Dogs Instinctively Imitate the Behavior, Movement of Their Owners, New Study Says
By Bill Hendrick
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD


July 30, 2010 -- Dogs just can’t help it. They automatically and voluntarily imitate the behavior of their owners, even if it costs them a snack.

A new study by scientists at the universities of Vienna and Oxford says it provides the first evidence that dogs copy at least some of the behaviors and body movements of people in spontaneous and voluntary ways.

Friederike Range, PhD, of the University of Vienna and author of the study, says 10 adult dogs participated in experiments with their owners.

All of the animals received preliminary training to open a sliding door using their heads or a paw, after watching their owners get down on their own hands and knees to use their heads or hands to perform the same tasks.

The pooches were divided into two groups, Range says. One group of dogs received a food reward when they copied what human owners did. Dogs in the second group received a food reward when they did the opposite.

But the researchers say all the dogs seemed bent on copying their owners, even if it meant getting no reward.

more...

http://pets.webmd.com/dogs/news/20100730/dogs-imitate-people

[icnorth]

1. Closely aligned with the brains of the repub nation. n/t

[beac]

2. Oddly, my dog has watched me fold laundry hundreds of times,

but he never jumps in to help. ;)

Interesting article. Dogs are fascinating creatures.

[Mariana]

8. I had a dog that tried to make snowballs

after I'd made some and thrown them for her. She watched me gather the snow with my hands and pack it, then she got down on her belly and tried to gather snow the same way with her paws. I bet if there were any possible way for her to fold clothes, she'd have done it.

[KurtNYC]

15. I will let mine watch me do my income taxes

...hopefully he can hold a pen...

[woodsprite]

22. Noelle used folded laundry to cover an accident she had in the house.

It had to be intentional - she used hubby's Microsoft shirt to cover the pile with. It was still neatly folded.

I wish I could get her to act nice around people who come in, like extended family. We try for 3 hours, but then end up putting her in the kennel so we could have a relatively quiet dinner. I guess shepherds are just protective by nature, but you don't know which end to believe. She's barking and rumbling up front, but her tail is wagging in the back. I'm pretty sure I don't do that. ;)

She does keep the cat off the furniture and counters, which she had to have picked up from us.

[beac]

28. Maybe she was expressing her opinion on all the confusing changes in

Windows 7? :shrug:

I have read that with a territorial dog you should not make a big deal (no "HELLO doggie! We're home!") when you come into the house, i.e. ignore the dog for a few minutes and only acknowledge her when she calms down. Similarly guests should ignore the dog at first and speak to her only when she's calm.

The German Shepard we had as a child would let me pull her tail and hang all over her, but woe to the poor visitor who arrived unannounced-- she once kept a friend of my mom's trapped in her car for 15 minutes until the friend finally thought to honk the horn as a distress call. The protective instinct is strong.

[northernlights]

26. mine are so lazy, even watching me work bores them til

they just wander off and take naps. x(

Seriously, though, they rarely seriously misbehave. Luna is still unlearning the undesirable behaviors he came with (rescued from death row at 7 months after months in a Georgia pound, and abused somewhere along the way) and Jakey went through a very naughty phase due to serious frustration caused by 2 years of healing and recuperation from a spine injury. But with his back and hips healed and swimming and jogging back on the routine, he's back to being a perfect doggie. :loveya:

[Dappleganger]

3. We have three dogs.

One recently adopted 7 yr. old yellow lab, a dapple doxie from a rescue (7 months at that time, now 3) and a dapple doxie from another rescue but we had her since she was a puppy (now 3 as well).

The yellow lab is very social and compliant, she aims to please and will do whatever you want.
The male doxie (rescued later) is a bit spastic but also compliant, he runs circles around you to get attention. We've had some discipline problems wrt chasing the kitties but he will mind us.

The female doxie who I've had since she was a little thing is a rebel and believes the entire world revolves around her. She is sweet as can be and sly as a fox. She'll do what I say when I am in the room but as soon as I'm gone she's off doing her own thing and can be quite devious.

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

4. My Dawg Maya is a Chronic Humper.....

Huh. :)

[MineralMan]

5. Zat ees not my dog!

[TNDemo]

9. Great minds...

posting at the same time.

[MineralMan]

13. Indeed....

[a la izquierda]

6. Hmm, perhaps it's my husband...

who jumps fences and chases cats. We don't know where our dog got it from.
We have a 4 year old Vizsla/Boxer mix who's quite rambunctious (the fence jumping cat hater). Then we have a 2 year old Chiweenie and he's a little nutter too. Finally, we just found a 3 pound Teacup Chihuahua. He likes to have his way with the 65 pound Vizsla. Hah!

[TNDemo]

7. That is not my dog.

Sorry, was having an Inspector Clouseau moment.

[Steely_Dan]

10. Love The Reference...LOL...n/t

[pipi_k]

11. If the humans are the "pack leaders" as they're supposed to be...

then it makes sense that dogs would imitate their behavior.

This is something I've been thinking about for the past couple of days myself. I have two young German Shepherds who lived in a kennel till they were ten months old, intended to only be bred, but their owner died, and the daughter wasn't sure what to do with them for a while and eventually put them up for adoption.

They're sisters...very sweet. Unfortunately, not well socialized. I live in the woods so there aren't a lot of visitors, and both of them become violently ill in the car, so taking them anywhere is torture for them.

Anyway...my point here was that whenever we do get visitors, they bark and show lots of fear. And what I realized was that, since I myself have lots of different anxiety disorders, one of them involving people coming into my house, it's quite possible my pups are "reading" my anxiety and responding to it with anxiety of their own, triggering all the fear barking.

On the positive side, though...we have "sing alongs" here...human howling that prompts the same kind of howling from the pups. Pack bonding, sort of... :)

[babylonsister]

19. Oh, to be there for a sing-a-long!

Sounds terrific!

[pipi_k]

24. Yep....we did it with our other dogs too....

I think in some ways it helped to solidify pack feelings between three female dogs who might otherwise have tried to rip each other's ears off. We never had any major scuffles...just a few of what I called "snarl fests"...usually some posturing over a coveted toy or something.

Same thing now with our two sisters. People have given some pretty dire warnings about adopting female siblings, but in the 14 months we've had them, nothing major has happened. I hope that continues...

but anyway, yes...it's a happy time for all.... :)

[DFW]

12. No.

But if I had one, he/she probably would.

[Ohio Metal]

14. I can believe this is true.

My dog catches frisbees with his paws. No matter how much I try to train him to use his mouth, it's always the paws. He also lays around on Saturdays and watches MST3K. He's a good dog.

[ensho]

16. as a kid I crawled thru a newly made dog door to show our Cocker

Spaniels what to do. lol

[pipi_k]

18. Hah...reminds me of the time we got a rescue dog

that was almost five years old. We already had three others...two females and one male. The first time she saw the other dogs go out, she sat and watched as the other dogs used the doggy door to go out into their yard.

It was hilarious as she sat with her head cocked to one side as she watched the other dogs magically appear and disappear into the wall.

One could almost see the little doggy wheels turning in her head. Then she tried it.

Oddly enough, she was the only one of the dogs who learned how to unlatch the hook and eye lock on the swinging gate we had between the living room and kitchen, which was where the dog door was. We would lock the gate at night to keep them from going out during the night and barking at the night critters. One morning, the gate was unlocked and they were all out in their little yard. Mr Pip and I both accused each other of having forgotten to lock it the night before...then one day we "caught" this dog using her nose to push the hook up out of the eye to unlock the door. She was a German Shepherd...very smart.

One of the others was too, then there was a Black Lab and Mini Schnauzer. The other Shepherd was also very smart, but she either never learned or never cared about unlocking the gate. :)

[Stuckinthebush]

17. Cats, on the other hand, looked at their owners with disdain

flipped their tails in the air and walked away.

:D

[MindPilot]

20. My dogs have become experts at laying on the couch and watching TV.

They're good at drinking beer too.

[pipi_k]

25. What's their favorite TV show?

Do they like sports?

or do they enjoy what's on National Geographic Channel, or maybe the Home Shopping Network?

[frogmarch]

21. My dog is perfect, but

I adopted him only a year and half ago (when he was around five years old) and he was perfect then, so his former owner must have been a perfect person.

[Raschel]

23. My dog is bossy.....hmmm.

[flvegan]

27. So THAT's where all my beer goes while I'm at work.

Dammit.