Sleeping dogs

Psychologist believes that dogs dream about the humans they love

 of time we are curious what are our pets dreaming about, are they dreaming for us or their favorite food?

A Harvard psychologist, Dr. Deirdre Barrett has been studying humans sleep behaviors for years now, along the way of the studies Dr. Barrett also learned some things about animal’s dreams.

Dogs just like many mammals have almost the same sleeping cycle as humans and according to Dr. Barrett, “That certainly makes it the best guess that other mammals are dreaming, too.” He reported in an interview with People.

Just like humans, dogs undergo a stage that is called Rapid Eye Movement or REM, and it’s the phase in the cycle when mammals experience dreaming.

When Dr. Barrett asked what dog’s dreams about he answered: “since dogs are generally extremely attached to their human owners, it’s likely your dog is dreaming of your face, your smell and of pleasing or annoying you.”

Dr also answered the question if we can do anything to ensure that our pets only dream about pleasant things he said: “The best way to give ourselves or our children better dreams is to have happy daytime experiences and to get plenty of sleep in a safe and comfortable environment.”

Seeing a dog sleeping always gives you a peaceful feeling, no matter what they dream about.

Yelling at dogs leaves them scared for the long-term, study reveals

 Yelling at dogs leaves them scared for the long-term, study reveals

By Hannah Frishberg

Even treats aren’t as much fun for traumatized pups.

A heartbreaking new study finds that screaming at dogs scares them for the long-term — and patience is a far superior method for training them, Science Alert reports.

 “Specifically, dogs attending schools using aversive-based methods displayed more stress-related behaviors and body postures during training, higher elevations in cortisol levels after training, and were more ‘pessimistic’ in a cognitive bias task,” researchers found.

 Researchers — led by biologist Ana Catarina Vieira de Castro of the Universidade do Porto in Portugal — recruited 42 dogs from schools that used reward-based training, and 50 dogs from aversion training schools.

During the study period, pups taught with yelling and leash-jerking were found to be more stressed, with higher levels of cortisol found in their saliva.

“Our results show that companion dogs trained using aversive-based methods experienced poorer welfare as compared to companion dogs trained using reward-based methods, at both the short- and the long-term level,” the researchers write in the paper published by biology news service bioRxiv.

 “Specifically, dogs attending schools using aversive-based methods displayed more stress-related behaviors and body postures during training, higher elevations in cortisol levels after training, and were more ‘pessimistic’ in a cognitive bias task,” researchers found.

Pups that experienced calm, gentle teachers, however, performed better at tasks researchers assigned to them, such as locating a bowl with sausage in it — in a roomful of empty-but-sausage-smeared bowls.

More harshly trained canines were slower to locate the treat bowl, which authors interpreted to show that their experiences had made them more depressed, less hopeful hounds.

The biologists also analyzed dogs during training to look for “stress behaviors” such as lip-licking, paw-raising, yawning and yelping.

 “Critically, our study points to the fact that the welfare of companion dogs trained with aversive-based methods appears to be at risk,” the researchers conclude.

Interesting

Dogs have slits on the outside of each nostril, which allow him to exhale without disturbing the scent particles in front of his nose. Breathing out the side slits helps release air while holding scent particles in the nostrils, so that a dog isn’t as likely to lose a scent

Crazy

If dogs had crime scene photos

Zen and Eli...on Zens first day home