For many dog owners, watching their pet age is a frustrating and worrisome time. But there are treatment options that can make life easier for pets and their owners.
Vets are now offering alternative treatments such a laser therapy, acupuncture and even teaching pet owners pet massage to make their senior years easier.
I wish we all had vets like this one around!
I think most people who share their homes and lives with dogs tend to think their dogs are pretty smart. We know dogs sometimes do amazing things, rescuing people, working as companion and service dogs but how smart are they really?
Now we know that some breeds tend to be categorized as smarter than others and some fall further to the bottom of the ‘smart list.’ Dogs such as German Shepherds, poodles and border collies tend to be ranked pretty high while beagles tend to rank relatively low, no offense beagles. 🙂
People can have their intelligence tests with standard IQ tests and now so can your favorite canine companion with a doggie IQ test!
“I think dogs are orders of magnitudes smarter than we give them credit for,” says animal behaviorist Dr. Karen Overall.
“Everybody wants to believe that some breeds are smarter than others,” Dr. Overall says. “And I would be in the camp that says breeds differ in how they show their intelligence.”
Stacy Stubblefield wanted to find a way to prove her dog’s mental mastery. So developed the pooch i.q. kit.
“We came up with different exercises that would test for the different things that are included in intelligence like problem solving and what not,” says pooch i.q. inventor Stacy Stubblefield.
We put her test to the test. We recruited three owners and their dogs to take the pooch i.q. first Enzo, a german shepherd, widely considered a highly intelligent breed.
“I think he’s very smart,” Enzo’s owner said.
Olive also took the test. She’s a beagle, a breed that falls to the back of the brainiac pack.
“I hope to show that they are very smart,” says Daisy Okas, Olive’s owner.
Finally, Stewie, a terrier mix, to represent the mutts of the world.
“Oh, Stewie’s going to beat him hands down. Much smarter,” says Stewie’s owner Harris Bloom.
We feel tremendous love for our dogs, and our dogs sure seem to love us. But is a dog really capable of emotions? Or are we just projecting our feelings onto our dogs?
Scientists avoid the subject because part of what sets humans apart from the animals is our ability to experience feelings. To say that animals actually have feelings, in the same way we do, would change everything, perhaps disrupt our entire position and standing in the animal kingdom.
However, any dog owner knows that dogs love completely and have a greater capacity for love than most people. If one were to describe the main characteristics of a dog, they would have to be:
Mary and her husband Jim had a dog named ‘Lucky.’ Lucky was a real character. Whenever Mary and Jim had company come for a weekend visit they would warn their friends to not leave their luggage open because Lucky would help himself to whatever struck his fancy. Inevitably, someone would forget and something would come up missing.Mary or Jim would go to Lucky’s toy box in the basement and there the treasure would be, amid all of Lucky’s other favorite toys.
Lucky always stashed his finds in his toy box and he was very particular that his toys stay in the box.
It happened that Mary found out she had breast cancer. Something told her she was going to die of this disease….in fact, she was just sure it was fatal.
What a fantastic idea! All you have to do is place a cyber-ribbon and and a donation is made to Paws to Save Pets. How much easier can it get?
So take a minute and make your contribution just by placing a ribbon… won’t cost you anything but a minute of your time and you’ve got a minute to spare, right? So, don’t waste it, make it count!
Just click below and place your ribbon!!
Thanks for sharing this Ringo!