Dogs are awesome

I recently watched a PBS/NOVA DVD on the fascinating connection between dogs and humans. The DVD is called (in full) Dogs Decoded: Understanding the Human-Dog Relationship. I picked up a lot of cool facts on dogs that I will share with you here.

• Dog owners can actually discriminate between six types of dog barks. Scientists found this out by recording dogs in naturally settings (like approaching a guard dog and recording its bark or chaining up a dog and having the owner walk away, leaving the dog whimpering and moaning).


• The gray wolf is the very ancient ancestor of all domestic dogs. How a Great Dane or a Yorkie evolved from a wolf is a mystery unto itself.


• Wolves only bark as a warning.


• Oxytocin - it is released when a mom breast feeds her baby. It is a feel good hormone that can make you bond with a complete stranger (because a baby is that, especially when they are only a few weeks old... if you think about it like that). Oxytocin is also released when dog owners pet their dogs. Petting your dog actually makes you feel better! And dogs get a peak of oxytocin too. Who doesn't love getting affection? It lowers stress and heart rate in both the owner and the dog.


• Owning a dog (and assuming you treat it well) can extend your life


• You are less likely to have a heart attack if you own a dog.


• If you do have a heart attack, you are three to four times more likely to actually survive it!


• Dogs (or wolves, really) may have been domesticated as much as 10,000 years ago.


• Humans can point, which is unique to other animals. Dogs can understand that pointing and follow where you point them to. Chimps, our closest ancestor (and with whom we share a lot of our genetic material), either cannot understand pointing or choose not too.


• Puppies can pick up on pointing as young as six weeks old.


• Dogs can even pick up on the direction of our eyes!

So yeah. There were loads more facts from the dvd, but these are interesting enough. Woof-woof!