PUPPY!
sa smith | September 3, 2013Poor Arnie.
As much as Ive disliked writing my dissertation, hes disliked it more.
SO BORED.
So as I am trying to write, I either get Cute Bored Arnie:
Or Creepy Bored Arnie:
Ive been sitting at the kitchen table to write. If I look over my right shoulder, those glowing eyes are literally what I see looking back at me. For the past few months. :-/
He has been trying to do the best he can to entertain himself. Ive also been ignoring the laundry, so hes decided to build forts out of my dirty clothes:
But I am FINALLY pretty much done. Just some editing, making sure the page numbers are right…
sa smith | December 13, 2012Record yourself playing with your puppies for 30-60 seconds and upload the vid to the Horowitz Dog Cognition Lab website!
Dog-dog play has been, relatively, well studied. The signs/signals/noises pups play, the repercussions for not playing by the rules, the benefits of play to an adult pup, its a very interesting fusion of evolution and animal behavior (unless you dont believe in using evolution and observation to study animal behavior...).
Some of the dog-dog play stuff I use as a human, I know. For instance, when puppies are playing, and one plays too rough, the 'victim' will make a high…
sa smith | September 9, 2012Summer Arnie:
Winter Arnie:
I have to take video/pics of Arnie every time he sticks his tongue out like that when he sleeps. I dont know whether its a pit thing or a goofy dog thing, but I just think its the CUTEST!
sa smith | September 2, 2012Ive got a fever... puppy fever... and the only cure... is MORE PUPPIES!!!
My Terrible Med Student Neighbor finally moved out, and the new guy who moved in is just wonderful. Really sweet kid, quiet, and he just adopted a homeless puppy! The sound of puppy feet trotting around upstairs... I can barely take it. And she is SO CUTE! I have no clue what breed she is supposed to be-- he said she was a lab/pit mix, but she looks nothing like a lab or a pit to me :-/ White and strawberry blonde, and shes such a dear. Shes super social, and super shy at the same time. ADORABLE!
And then theres…
sa smith | August 19, 2012Ive known for a long time that I have a defective dog.
Any self respecting pup eats Proper Dog Foods like meat and... well... meat. Sometimes grass.
But while Arnieman loves meat... he also loves my vegan chili, roasted vegetables, Pop-Tarts (cherry), banana bread, hell, the boy even begs for fake bacon. And its not that begrudging "*sniff* *sniff* *mouths it for a bit* *spits it out* *sniff*' 'eating'-- he WANTS it. There is nothing he wont eat. What kind of dog begs for roasted vegetables??
*sigh*
Well here is an example of a quality hound-- He refuses to touch low fat jerky:
Right with…
sa smith | July 22, 2012The polite way to describe my opinion of the Humane Society of the United states is 'Im not a fan'.
For those of you who are unaware, HSUS has absolutely nothing to do with 'the Humane Society' that rescues animals in your community. HSUS has nothing to do with rescuing animals at all-- they give less than 1% of their income to shelters. Technically, against rescuing animals-- they wanted Michael Vicks dogs killed (while they became BFFs with Vick), but thankfully, some people know better than to listen to HSUS and the dogs are okay.
HSUS is functionally a political group with a habit of…
sa smith | July 8, 2012Hai guise!
Because of some complaints that NatGeo is getting about the posts/comment threads at ERV, Im taking them down here and putting them up at an alternate location (lots of you have offered, havent decided where yet, will update yall when its worked out).
No big whoop-- This is NatGeos property and I dont want them getting harassed over our free speech rights. And frankly, I like being advertised on NatGeos homepage (this is a science blog, after all) so following their rules is conducive for that.
So, #1, if you all want to comment here, try very hard to follow NatGeos suggested…
sa smith | July 6, 2012I was feeling left out this week-- everybody talking about the Higgs Boson-- I cant contribute anything except links to Ethans fantastic posts (what the hell does 5-some-greek-symbol mean? whats a Higgs? wat?).
But THIS I understand!
The photographer who made that image, Seth Casteel, is AMAZING.
AMAZING.
If you want to make yourself sick to your stomach from laughing really, REALLY hard, check out his gallery of underwater puppahs.
He also takes glamor shots of shelter animals to help get them adopted faster. Fantastic photographer and a fantastic person!
sa smith | May 9, 2012Anti-vaxers are horrible people-- They refuse to receive the recommended/required vaccinations and put everyone else (not just the very young, very old, or otherwise immunocompromised) at risk of contracting preventable diseases.
Anti-vaxers are horrible parents-- They abuse their children with their own personal ignorance and fears, dooming the poor things to preventable diseases and their associated side-effects, and turn their children into little disease spreading monsters (see above, see this years Superbowl, see the day-care fraud story).
Anti-vaxers are also horrible pet owners-- Back…
sa smith | September 5, 2011For the past month, I have been living in the lab trying to cram some of my data + new data for a grant submission. I am alive right now exclusively due to the calories consumed via Mountain Dew (classic, and a wide variety of exciting flavors they have added to the collection), because I otherwise didnt eat (too busy/stressed to eat real food). So Friday night, I came home from work, sat in front of the TV and ate an entire large pepperoni and artichoke pizza and several rootbeer floats. I then slept for like 14 hours.
Yeah, science is *nothing* like meth, children.
The grant was…
sa smith | May 19, 2011SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!
The first sequenced carnivore genome shows complex host-endogenous retrovirus relationships.
ONE note of dismay: They did not include a picture of the boxer they sequenced. WTF???
Substitute picture:
see more dog and puppy pictures
Fun quickies!
Despite Arnies love of getting into the garbage, dogs have much less junk DNA via proviral ERVs than humans (them <0.15%, us 0.8%)
Of the 407 kinda ERVs, most are gammas (313) and betas (28)
Only 44 had potentially fully open gag-pol-env
Only 36 still had their LTRs
Their ERVs are backwards! With DNA, there really is no '…
sa smith | March 19, 2011Im not really a 'charity' kind of person.
I feel I do my part to help society with my time and knowledge, and I quite frankly dont trust most organizations with cash. Even the ones run by us can have problems.
There is a way to 'get me', though. The charity wanting funds must meet two requirements:
1-- Must be local. I can go talk to the people on the receiving end of my $$, and they can tell me what they did with the cash.
2-- That local charity is helping a) kids, b) animals.
Of course I was upset about the recent events in Japan-- like most people my thoughts were with the victims, and…
sa smith | February 9, 2011I get a ton of spam in the comments of ERV.
Happily, we have a really good spam filter (too good sometimes, as most of us, even me, have gotten comments sent straight to spam for no discernible reason), but still, a bit of Turkish spam or STD dating site spam or steroid spam gets through now and then, and I have to manually remove it.
So at first I was a bit annoyed when a comment was let through a couple days ago that appeared to be spam. It had the markers-- late to the party ('older' post, ie 11 days old), simply a link in the comment section, same link as the 'website' of the commentor,…
sa smith | January 24, 2011Friday, I was walking down the hallway when a professor friend waved me down--
PF-- Hey! Are you still involved with that pitbull rescue?
Me-- LOL! That wasnt a 'rescue'... I just sorta find pitbulls and find them homes... LOL!
PF-- I know a family that wants to adopt.
Me-- O.o (I figured she found one that needed a home)
PF-- Well... they found this girl pit on the street... shes a sweetheart... and she had this bulge in her belly, like people get when theyre starved? They thought it was just that she was starved nearly to death. But they kept feeding her and it didnt go away... She…
sa smith | December 3, 2010The Plan for Arnie, since Day 1, was for him to be a therapy dog. I love volunteering for hospitals/hospice/retirement homes, I live right next to a VA/childrens/regular hospitals, and Arnie is an incredibly happy, social dog. Its a natural fit.
But when Arnie was a puppy, it became clear that he wasnt just social. He is SOCIAAAAAAALLLLAAAAAHHHHH!!!
He didnt want to play. He wants to PLAAAAAAAAAAAYAAAAAAYAAAAAAYAAAAAAAYPLAAYPLAYPLAY!!!!
He didnt just like and appreciate some attention from people. He was more like, LUUUUUUUVIES!!! PEEEEEOPLE!!!! I LOVE YOU PEOPLE!!!! I LOVE YOU PEOPLE…
sa smith | September 11, 2010PARADE magazine has published a series of articles on pit bulls recently:
Michael Vick's Pit Bulls: Where Are They Now?
Can You Teach a Bad Dog New Tricks?
Top 5 Myths about Pit Bulls
Hehehehe. Amazing how many pit owners have the same "HE/SHE DESTROYED AN ENTIRE SOFA!!!" story. PRO-TIP-- Pits that get walkies every morning and every evening dont eat sofas. Thats why rain makes me nervous... Arnie + Cabin Fever = Something getting destroyed, LOL!!
Remember, folks-- The Humane Society of the United States wanted each and every one of those dogs killed. They want all pits killed. Just like…
sa smith | August 10, 2010The worst part of visiting my parents is driving home.
Yes, I will miss Moms cooking/baking. Yes, I will miss having real food (weird how the totally not organic food we get from local farmers is still good). Yes, Focus on the Family and AFA make a long drive longer (today they passive-aggressively ignored the Prop8 ruling, and instead focused on only talking about traditional marriage and gender roles. did you know that treating men and women as equals is why we have the homo gay in the first place? also, Obama is a secret Muslim, pronounced moo-slim.)
The worst part is breaking up Arnie…
sa smith | August 2, 2010Yes, we are very socially aware at ScienceBlogs.
But I just did something very, very stupid, and I feel terrible about it, so Im going to confess on the internet so hopefully other people dont make this same mistake.
Remember Giant Schnauzer?
About a week ago, Giant Schnauzer and his owner moved into my apartment building! YAAAAAY!!! Built in play buddy! Everyone has been having a marvelous time (I already have so many stories, involving two humongous grown-up dogs having dueling temper tantrums).
Anyway, as I was taking Arnie out to pee this evening, Giant Schnauzers owner came home. We…
sa smith | June 16, 2010Our partners at NatGeo currently have a special episode of 'The Dog Whisperer' up on Hulu*-- The Most Aggressive Breeds.
45 minutes and 59 seconds of me bawwwing.
There are no bad dogs. Just bad owners. Reminded me of the UFC pitbull vs rottie/germie fight I had in my apartment this time last year (weenie dog ring girl):
* Episodes rotate, so this link will only be good for a week, I think.
sa smith | April 8, 2010Since Arnie was a street dog when I found him, his parentage has always been in question. It doesnt help that he is a 'pit bull', which could mean any number of things-- line up 50 'pit bulls' and you will get short-and-stout to long-and-lean and everything in between. Black, white, red, big spots, small spots, brown with black stripes, black with brown stripes, everything. 'Pit bulls' are like a Dr. Seuss book.
Arnies round, doe-eyes and alligator smile definitely put him in the 'pit' camp, but his ears/profile are rather labrador-ish, and I think from watching this obedience training…