Check it out, its pretty cool.
The family dog is more family than you think.
When Angel, a golden retriever, attacked a wild cougar who'd been stalking her young master in British Columbia, she wasn't just acting on primal animal instinct – in her mind, she likely thought she was protecting a sibling, experts say.
"The reason dogs are willing to put themselves in jeopardy is because it's a family affair,'' said Stanley Coren, a University of British Columbia psychology professor and author of Why Does My Dog Act That Way?
"What you have to recognize is the number of times dogs tend to rescue people or help them to safety every year is very, very large and the vast majority are not reported."
One that was reported around the world was Angel's courage.
When Angel, a golden retriever, attacked a wild cougar who'd been stalking her young master in British Columbia, she wasn't just acting on primal animal instinct – in her mind, she likely thought she was protecting a sibling, experts say.
"The reason dogs are willing to put themselves in jeopardy is because it's a family affair,'' said Stanley Coren, a University of British Columbia psychology professor and author of Why Does My Dog Act That Way?
"What you have to recognize is the number of times dogs tend to rescue people or help them to safety every year is very, very large and the vast majority are not reported."
One that was reported around the world was Angel's courage.
Last weekend, 11-year-old Austin Forman was collecting firewood about 5:30 p.m. outside his family's Boston Bar, B.C., home in the Fraser Valley. His 18-month-old dog began barking as Austin pushed the log-filled wheelbarrow back to the house. He said he was almost at the door when, horrified, he saw Angel intercept a charging cougar.As the animals fought, rolling under the porch, and with Austin safely inside, his mother called 911. RCMP Const. Chad Gravelle – who was less than a kilometre away – raced over in his cruiser then ran to the back of the house. Flashlight in one hand, gun in the other, Gravelle looked under the porch at the entwined combatants, the cougar gnawing at Angel's bleeding neck.
The officer shot the cougar in the rear end, then fired the fatal shot at its head. Angel was badly injured, requiring surgery and stitches to repair puncture wounds but is expected to fully recover.Coren said dogs have been bred by humans through domestication to have dual bondings to their own pack and to human families. He's studied more than 1,000 reported cases of canine rescue and grouped them into four categories:
Alerting the family. It's the most common act in which the dog barks as an alarm, like when the home filling with smoke. This accounted for about 35 per cent of cases.
Finding help. The dog recognizes a problem, seeks another human, then barks and runs in the direction they want the person to follow.
Physical cues. This is when a dog will grab, push or pull a person to safety or out of harm's way.
Physical intervention. This is Angel's category, in which a dog risks its life to protect a human. Coren said this is the least frequent (18 per cent of the examples he studied) but the most dramatic in illustrating how strongly dogs are bound to people.
"A sensible dog is not going to take on a cougar . . . but dogs aren't going to do a risk assessment'' when sensing peril, Coren said.
"The cougar weighs almost as much as a dog (like a golden retriever) but in addition to jaws, it has claws. It's a better killing machine than a dog, which is essentially a running machine. But when a dog goes into that (intervention mode), it doesn't seem to make any difference."
Vancouver veterinarian Michael Goldberg said properly trained dogs are taught "bite inhibition" skills that prevent it from piercing human skin with their teeth. But when a hazard approaches, which they sniff out with remarkable acuity through noses hundreds of times more sensitive than a human's, they bolt like lightning to fight with their jaws.
"If a dog wanted to bite, the speed and ferocity with which they will attack in certain situations is extremely quick," Goldberg said. "(Angel was) a gutsy, gutsy dog."
Certified dog trainer Caroline Applebee said not only do dogs feel part of a human family, they recognize the different relationships in it.
"The dog will know who knows how to work the can opener, who opens the back door; they figure out who's important for what," said the McGill grad, who operates her Toronto-based Raising Rover business.
"But with kids, very often, they're almost like siblings or littermates. I'm not sure it's a question of loyalty, it's more like a bond."
picture (of cougar boy and dog) and story courtesy of the Toronto Star, picture (bloody dog) courtesy of the National Post
1 comment:
This is one of the most interesting articles I have read in a long time. I always suspected different types of relations dogs have with humans but never imagined it was that complex.
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