Day: July 25, 2021

Does Fido ‘Get You’?

It is no secret that I am a dog person….since my earliest memories there has been a canine member of the family and he was a cocker spaniel named Sarge…..and today there is my ‘hunter-seeker’ a Coonhound named MoMo.

I wrote awhile back about how ‘puppy eyes’ was an evolutionary thing with dogs……https://lobotero.com/2019/06/23/those-puppy-eyes/

Plus I wrote about the way dogs can read human emotions……https://lobotero.com/2016/01/16/why-are-dogs-mans-best-friend/

(Sadly both of those ‘friends’ have passed on)

But to the point….does your canine friend ‘get you’?

Dogs really are “man’s best friend” and “get” humans in a way other animals simply can’t relate to. Sorry “Game of Thrones” fans, a new study finds even the dog’s closest relatives — wolf pups — don’t gel with people the same way.

Researchers from Duke University say 14,000 years of domestication plays a big part in this. In fact, man’s best friend has actually evolved to understand human gestures and look to humans for help in a way that no other animals do.

Study authors, who compared wolf pups raised by humans to dogs who had barely any contact with people, discovered that dogs still outperform their wolf counterparts in tests of their understanding and co-operation with humans. The team behind the research adds their results show dogs instinctively understand people.

“This study really solidifies the evidence that the social genius of dogs is a product of domestication,” says Dr. Brian Hare, a professor of evolutionary anthropology, in a university release.

Dogs ‘just get’ humans in ways other animals can’t, evolutionary scientists conclude

If you would like to have more information…..then these are interesting articles….

https://www.dw.com/en/puppy-dog-eyes-developed-to-manipulate-humans/a-49241736

Can Your Dog Manipulate You? Research Says Yes.

There is a reason that dogs are man’s best friend and science has proved it.

As a bonus….does “Fido’ know when you are lying to them?

Answer:  you bet your butt they do!

What the researchers discovered is that unlike in previous similar experiments with children under age 5, Japanese macaques or chimpanzees, dogs weren’t so quick to believe our lies.

The scientists believe that young children and non-human primates were more likely to believe the lie because of the person telling it, but the dogs more often than not just went with what their eyes were telling them – the person was lying.

https://brobible.com/culture/article/science-dogs-ignore-if-you-lying/

Have a wonderful Sunday…..Be well and be safe……

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Why Not Diplomacy?

Yes more history!

Live and learn

This is for all those readers that are interested in the American Civil War.

Most people know the major players and the major engagements…..but what about before the first shots were fired in South Carolina?

Since I am a student of conflict and ways to try and avoid a disastrous war…..people have asked me why there was no diplomacy to try and avoid the deadly conflict…

Well there was diplomacy but it is just not interesting enough for the history books….plus it is not as romantic as the idea of a ‘noble cause’…..

Here is the look at diplomatic attempts during the war…..

February 2, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln and his Irish valet sneaked out of Washington City and took a steamboat down to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The next day he met with three representatives of the Confederacy to discuss ending the Civil War. The Hampton Roads Peace Conference, as it’s known, is notable not for what was accomplished – nothing was – but for how, when, and why it took place at all.

In February, 1865, the Confederacy was clearly on the brink of collapse. The rebel armies were dogged but much diminished. General William Tecumseh Sherman had sacked Atlanta and was leaving a trail of devastation through Georgia. Ulysses S. Grant had Robert E. Lee pinned down at Petersburg, a rail center that was Richmond’s last defense. A Union naval blockade had cut off all supplies. Everyone knew the end was a few months away at best.

With the war all but won, why would Lincoln go out of his way, literally, to parley with the enemy? The simplest answer is that he was looking already to the postwar future, and how best to deal with the insurgents. Many hardliners in his Republican Party and his Cabinet thought they knew the answer: utterly crush the rebels militarily, hang their leaders, free all their slaves, confiscate their other property, and subjugate the South as a conquered, occupied enemy.

Lincoln believed that was no way to heal the nation. With the weight of more than half a million war dead on his soul, he “wanted to end the war quickly, peacefully if possible, not only to save lives, money, and property but also to build a stronger foundation for reconstruction,” writes James B. Conroy, author of a detailed book about the conference, Our One Common Country. “If the Confederacy could be persuaded to return to the Union voluntarily, enticed by reasonable concessions, the stage would be set for a more amicable, productive future than a military conquest could produce.”

https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/conflict-resolution/the-road-not-taken/

Diplomacy is never a wasted energy….but did little during the American Civil War….

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”