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06-24-2014, 10:20 PM | #1 |
YT Addict Join Date: May 2013 Location: Saint Marys, Ga
Posts: 494
| Paws as hands How many of you have Yorkies that really use their paws as hands while playing, and which paw/hand is dominant? Gina uses her paws as hands all the time, in many different activities, and she is left paw dominant. Watching her play got me thinking about this, and wondering how many others do the same. Megan never really played, her heart condition kept her from doing a lot of things that Gina does, so this is sort of new for me. Cheers Quad & Gina
__________________ Assume Nothing, Question Everything, Start Thinking! RIP Megan 3/1998-5/28/2013 |
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06-25-2014, 02:51 AM | #2 |
Rosehill Yorkies Donating YT Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Houston Texas
Posts: 9,462
| Googled this interesting information related to this topic: Stanley Coren, Ph.D., F.R.S.C., is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. The reason for studying handedness is not simply an interest in motor coordination, but because some neuroscientists believe that handedness tells us something about the way that a person's brain is organized. It is well known that the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice versa, however many researchers also believe that the emotional responses on the two sides of the brain are somewhat different. In humans the data suggest that the left brain is associated with positive feelings, like love, a sense of attachment, a feeling of safety and calm. Contrast this to the right brain where in humans, negative behaviors, like fleeing, and emotions like fear and aggression are more common. It has been argued that for right-handers, since the left hemisphere of their brain controls their dominant hand it may well be the case that that more positively feeling half of the brain also comes to dominate their emotions, while for left-handers it is there more negative feeling right hemisphere of the brain which has the most influence on their emotions. The evidence is mixed, however it is certainly the case that in populations of convicted criminals there are more left-handers than would be otherwise expected, and similarly there are higher rates of left-handers in groups of individuals with various emotional problems, including depressives, people with phobias, and people with antisocial personality disorders.There is some research which suggests that many animals, including birds, frogs, monkeys and dogs have similarly organized brains. An example of this in dogs is the fact that the tail wagging movements of a dog are biased to the right or left depending upon whether they view a situation as being positive or negative. In general positive feelings pull a dog’s tail wags to the right and negative feelings pull the tail wags to the left as might be expected when the emotions associated with the right or left side of the brain are activated. Dogs do have paw preferences which are similar to the hand preferences that we see in human beings. The difference is that while in humans 90% of the population is right-handed and only 10% left-handed, in dogs the preferred side preference is much more evenly distributed. However, given that many dogs do have a preferred paw, a team of researchers at University of Adelaide in Australia, headed by Doctor Luke Schneider decided to see if there were differences in the emotional responses of right and left pawed dogs. They used a collection of 73 pet dogs as their subjects. To measure the emotional patterns of the dogs the researchers used the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ). It is one of the best known, and most carefully validated questionnaires that assess a dog's behavioral characteristics. While the data did not show major differences between left and right pawed dogs across a broad spectrum of emotional behaviors, some interesting results emerged when it comes to aggressive responses that dogs are apt to make toward unfamiliar people. Here it seems that the left pawed dogs were more likely to show such aggression. Dr. Schneider summarizes his results as follows, "I reported a statistically significant relationship between stranger-directed aggression and the presence of a paw preference. Dogs without a paw preference demonstrated lower aggression scores. When I looked more closely at the dogs with a paw preference, it appeared that it was those dogs with a preference for the left paw that were driving this relationship." Such results would be consistent with the kind of findings that researchers find in left-handed humans, with reports that they are more likely to react with negative emotions and even aggression than their right-handed counterparts. Of course in both dogs and humans there are many other factors which determine the likelihood of aggressive responses, including age, sex, personal history, health, and genetic factors. However looking at these results prompted Dr. Schneider to say, "The take-away message for me is that there appears to be more similarities between human and animal brains than we once thought." |
06-25-2014, 03:38 AM | #3 |
Donating YT 500 Club Member Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: With CharlieBrown of course!
Posts: 1,403
| Charlie Brown is right pawed
__________________ Mom to Bug and Charlie-R.I.P my sweet Charlie 2021 |
06-25-2014, 06:28 AM | #4 |
YT 500 Club Member Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: MN, USA
Posts: 780
| Blazer used his paws as hands all the time! He catches his toys, rolls his balls, paws at us to play, paws at us to move so he can lap cuddle, holds his treats, etc. I'd say he's more right pawed. |
06-25-2014, 07:25 AM | #5 |
Furbutts = LOVE Donating Member Moderator | Oh wow, ya know...I've never noticed paw dominance and now I'm going to have to analyze, lol! I wonder if most dogs are right pawed like most humans are right handed...or what. Interesting!
__________________ ~ A friend told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn. ~ °¨¨¨°ºOº°¨¨¨° Ann | Pfeiffer | Marcel Verdel Purcell | Wylie | Artie °¨¨¨°ºOº°¨¨¨° |
06-25-2014, 11:40 AM | #6 |
Yorkie Yakker Join Date: May 2014 Location: NI
Posts: 37
| Bob is Left paw he also uses his paws as hands |
06-25-2014, 11:46 AM | #7 | |
Rosehill Yorkies Donating YT Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Houston Texas
Posts: 9,462
| Quote:
The difference is that while in humans 90% of the population is right-handed and only 10% left-handed, in dogs the preferred side preference is much more evenly distributed. | |
06-25-2014, 02:05 PM | #8 |
Senior Yorkie Talker Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: Richmond VA
Posts: 176
| Thank goodness I am not the only one! I told my daughter this week that Gracie is left-handed like her mommy, and I was scoffed at! Gracie will bat my hand out of the way if she doesn't like what I am doing, but she is WAY better with the left. I thought I was just spending too much time with her and losing my mind! |
06-25-2014, 02:48 PM | #9 |
YT Addict Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: nj
Posts: 497
| I'd say Maggie is right pawed because when I took her to be groomed today she held on for dear life before I handed her over. She really wrapped her little paws around my arm to hold on. It seemed like her right paw was holding me the hardest...I get her cut short, but her legs are too short. She looks funny. Good thing her hair grows fast! She often will lie on her back holding a toy in the air above her face and playing with it. Almost juggling it I'd say because she can't really hold it well. I know she'd love to have fingers! I think when she is trying to grab hubby's hand off the laptop to tell him it's treat time she uses her right "hand." When we ask for "paw" its usually the right as well. |
06-26-2014, 04:54 AM | #10 |
Donating YT 500 Club Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Burbs of DC
Posts: 2,198
| I paid pretty close attention to this when I got home yesterday. I thought it was very interesting. Emma is predominantly left pawed. LOL Yet she is still pretty young. I think just like with children you just don't necessarily know for sure until they are over a 1 year old on which hand they will prefer. So I'm going to keep an eye on this. It'll also be interesting to see how she manages her personality over the coming months as she develops. Right now she loves everything and everybody and only shows true aggression at her reflection in the window.
__________________ Owned by Troy(RIP) & Emma |
06-27-2014, 05:13 AM | #11 |
Furbutts = LOVE Donating Member Moderator | I think Marcel is right pawed!
__________________ ~ A friend told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn. ~ °¨¨¨°ºOº°¨¨¨° Ann | Pfeiffer | Marcel Verdel Purcell | Wylie | Artie °¨¨¨°ºOº°¨¨¨° |
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