[TOY]

Originally Posted by vlccairo

This has been a very interesting thread. Of course, Toy, your posts are always interesting, but I've enjoyed reading everyone else's too. My Samantha is six now. We live in Egypt and until she was 3 there was no training for pets here - only for police dogs and she needed no encouragement to think she's bigger than she is! I read a lot and tried different things, but the thing that worked best with her was to work WITH her.

She didn't like her food bowl, but liked to eat out of the dust pan, so she got her own dust pan which was treated like a bowl and there was no more kibble all over the floor. She has glass and china bowls now, which she likes. She also taught me her routine for my leaving the house. One day she went and got on the couch and waited for her treat. The next time I said "Samantha get on your couch" and off she went. My housekeeper was stunned! That was four years ago and now she will go to the couch when I start putting on my jewelry or my shoes. She will do this no matter what lovely distractions there may be. However, if I leave out any of our parting conversation, particularly saying goodbye as I close the door, I hear her complaining as I go down in the elevator!

There's some very interesting work going on at Duke about canine cognition. This link also links to the story in Time Magazine about this project. Brian Hare Explores Canine Cognition | Duke Institute for Brain Sciences | Brain Research

Thank you so much for the link to the article. I really enjoyed reading it and find it quite plausible. I'm going to be quite interested in what this research uncovers. Thanks again for sharing.