University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez Campus English Department
Hector Martell Professor Ellen Pratt English 3231 Section 086
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Prologue I still remember being totally desperate to find the right topic to write about. I was arriving from the University and while I was walking to close the gate from my house, I noticed an extremely odd behavior from “Crema” and “Dalmata”. Maybe I should explain first who they are. A couple years ago I moved into a new house, a very nice place, far away from the rowdiness of the city. A perfect place to live and to abandon animals too, specially dogs. Getting back to Crema and Dalmata, they are two dogs that someone abandoned a couple of years ago near home. They made our street their territory and since then they have been protecting it from everything they find odd. Unfortunately, they are old now and they are not as strong as before, they can’t fight like before. But they still maintain the control of their territory; they fight together like beast, as if they planned every single step. With the same intensity that they defend their territory they also show affection to us. They even recognize every car that enters to my house. That complicated and intriguing behavior has caught my attention since I moved to the new place. How can these animals be so intelligent? How can they recognize voices? How can they recognize the car of each member of my family? This is one of the major reasons that led me to write about this topic. Dogs have been a very important factor in our development as human beings. Being together for so many years have promoted domestication, that in many times they can understand us better than we can understand each other. Through the pages of this multi-genre research project you will find, how this relationship began, their domestication, development, studies of their behavior, and many facts that will help you to find the answer of the question that guide me to write the project. Is the relationship between digs and humans merely based upon survival or is it a genuine friendship?
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Research Paper Introduction As human beings we are very social species. We are constantly surrounded by others like us. It wasn’t always like that; at the beginning of our existent the relations with other forms a life that surround us were inexistent. Through years human beings were separate from other species, the only relation that unite us with the others animals that surround us were “predator and prey”. After some years we noticed that the environments that we already conquered were very hostile, making us vulnerable and unable to succeed. As human beings found out other species like the wolf, we noticed that being around other different animals had their benefits. Together they could share their abilities to survive; they can interchange protection, food, shelter making their life easier to each other.
That is how the relationship between the first
domesticated animal, the dog, emerged hundreds years ago. But how from being a tool for surviving the dog became the “man’s best friend”? A relationship that begun like an adaptation to survive, after hundreds of years ended developing feelings that attach both of them, meaning to each other more than tools to make their life easier.
Relationship beginning
How did this odd strong relationship appear? This is a debate of many scientific that have dedicated their life to the study of this unique relationship. But the majority of them agreed that dogs were likely attracted to human campsites because humans like dogs were hunters, and animal remains, such as bones, bits of skin, and other scraps of corpse from the victims of recent hunts, were likely to be scattered around human campsites. The ancestors of today's dogs (being always conscious about food) learned that by hanging around man's habitat, they could grab a
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quick bite to eat now and then, without all the energy expense that involved hunting their own preys. Like Dr. Stanley said in one of his recent articles titled: Dogs and Humans - How the relationship began, although primitive man may not have been very concerned with cleanliness, it is still true that rotting food smells, and attracts insects and other plagues that will make humans daily life uncomfortable. Thus it is likely that dogs were initially tolerated around the perimeter of camps simply because they would dispose of the garbage. This waste disposal function continued for countless centuries and is still being fulfilled by dogs in many less developed regions of the world. Besides solving their waste problem, the time that the first human beings lived were very dangerous, there were many larger animals around them, that saw the human like very good source of food. Having their “friends” near will also bring them protection whenever a strange human or wild beast approached. This benefits that the animal that was approaching man’s territories give to the man, were definitely a reason to steal puppies from the wild dog and bringing them home. This was definitely the first step of their domestication. And the that beginning of this strong relationship. Dog history To have a better understanding of this unique relationship between the human being and his “best friend” we should understand more about their evolution. The dog (Canis lupus familiaris) is a domesticated subspecies of the gray wolf. When did this new species emerge? Scientifics have different theories but the majority agrees that the domestication of the gray wolf took place in a handful of events roughly 15,000 years ago in central Asia. The dog quickly became famous across cultures in all parts of the world, and was extremely valuable to early human settlements. His morphology and behavior have been shaped by environmental factors and functional roles. As the modern understanding of genetics developed, humans began to
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intentionally breed dogs for a wide range of specific traits. Through this process, the dog has developed into hundreds of varied breeds, and shows more behavioral and morphological variation than any other land mammal. (Tyrone C. Spady and Elaine A. Ostrander, 2008) Development The domestic dog has been one of the most widely kept working and companion animals in human history. They have been bred for herding livestock, hunting, rodent control, guarding, helping fishermen with nets, and pulling loads, in addition to their roles as companion. After many years of sharing together so many times, people have noticed that the abilities from these unique animals are not just their physical help. Dogs nowadays served like guide dogs, utility dogs, assistance dogs, hearing dogs, and psychological therapy dogs providing assistance to individuals with physical or mental disabilities. Some dogs owned by epileptics have been shown to alert their handler when the handler shows signs of an impending seizure, sometimes well in advance of onset, allowing the owner to seek safety, medication, or medical care. New studies They are not only our companions, the fact that we have been living with them so many years have made them the perfect model to study human behavior. This discovery was found by the expert in dog behavior Jozsef Topal. He found that although chimpanzees share many of our genes, dogs have lived with us for so long and undergone so much domestication that they are now serving as a model for understanding human social behavior. Cooperation, attachment to people, understanding human verbal and non-verbal communications, and the ability to imitate are some of the traits that they share with humans. Researchers believe adapting to the same living conditions during this period may have resulted in the similarities. Topal assures that they
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might even think like us at times too. The author also supports that dogs exhibit all three primary types of social behavior that humans evolved when they split from chimpanzees 6 million years ago. The first is sociality, or organization into groups. The second is synchronization, where following shared social rules and even taking on each other’s emotions helps to strengthen group unity. And the third is constructive activity, where individuals within a group cooperate and communicate with each other to achieve goals. Another new study that proves that dogs express feelings or emotion toward humans is one led by Dr Kun Guo a professor from University of Lincoln. They appear to read emotion in human faces in just the same way people do. They can even see at a glance if their owners are happy, sad, pleased or angry. When humans look at a new face their eyes tend to wander left, falling on the right hand side of the person's face first. This "left gaze bias" only occurs when we encounter faces and does not apply any other time, such as when inspecting animals or inanimate objects. When Dr Kun Guo and his team showed to 17 dogs images of human, dog and monkey faces and inanimate objects, film of the dogs' eyes and head movements revealed a strong “left gaze bias” when the animals were presented with human faces. But this did not occurred when they were shown other images, including dog’s faces. Dr. Guo suggests that over thousands of generations of association with humans, dogs may have evolved the left gaze bias as a way to gauge our emotions. Other study made by Dr. Kun Guo showed that angry human faces induce a much stronger left gaze bias in dogs than neutral or happy faces.
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Conclusion
Certainly domestic dogs inherited a complex social hierarchy and behaviors from their wolf ancestors. Dogs are pack animals with a complex set of behaviors related to determining each dog's position in the social hierarchy. These sophisticated forms of social interaction or communication may account for their trainability, playfulness, and ability to fit into human houses and social situations. "...We will probably never have conclusive evidence to tell us how dogs and humans first formed their personal and working relationship with each other, but it is most likely the case that man did not initially choose dog; rather dogs chose man” (Dr. Stanley Coren, 2009). Despite that we will never discover how this indescribable relationship began, the evidence that researchers have found until today clearly shows that the unique relationship that this two species formed once began like a respond of adaptation to survive to a hostil difficult environment. Both of them rapidly recognized the extreme benefits of their joining and they took benefit of it. They reached the main benefits “survive” but they also began the strongest join formed in the world, the join between a dog and his owner. "Not only have we lived with dogs for thousands of years, but because of this relationship, we have acted as an agent of selection to modify aspects of their behavior and minds." (Jozsef Topal) What began like form of adaptation end in a join that certainly have feelings involve. Like Paul Tacon said once “Dogs made us human” and I will add “and we human made them dogs.”
Page |8 Annotated Bibliography Tacon, Paul and Collin Pardoe. “Dog Make us Human” Nature Australia Autumn 2002: 52-. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. University of Puerto Rico Lib. 5 April. 2009 < http://web.ebscohost.com>. This study was made by Paul Tacon a principal research scientist and head of the Australian museum’s people and place research center. This article presents a very unique theory “dogs make us human”. Through the pages of this paper you will find information related with the dog-human relationship and how it emerged. It begins giving basic information about the dogs’ evolution from their descendants the gray wolfs and the reasons of why these two species join together. The author assures that that domestication of dogs led to profound changes in the biological and behavioral evolution of both species, and that that unique relationship between these two species was fundamental key in the conquest of Planet Earth.
Whiteley, Hellen. “Avoiding bad-dog syndrome”. The Saturday Evening Post Nov. 1986, late ed.:30. This newspaper article was written by the veterinarian Hellen Whiteley and it was published in Saturday Evening Post. Through this article Hellen Whiteley helps owners to control common misbehavior in dogs. She assures that every single behavior problems from dogs are not severe, and not difficult to diagnose. She also commented that every dog misbehavior are usually originate from instinctual an natural canine behaviors, often sustained by naive owners, and that is easier to eliminate such inappropriate behaviors with proper puppy training. She also offers in her article a list of some common behavioral problems in dogs an how to solve them.
Stanley, Coren. “Dogs and Humans - How the relationship began”. Pets.ca. August 2003. Canada Pet Information Center. 4 April 2009. < http://www.pets.ca/articles/article-dog_human.htm> This article title “Dogs and Humans –How the relationship began-”, was written by Dr. Stanley Coren an excerpt of the intelligence of dogs, professor of psychology, that have written 6 book on dogs and is host of the television show “Good Dog!”. Through this publication Dr. Stanley presents a very unique theory about humans and dogs relationship. He assures that “it is most likely the case that man did not initially choose dog; rather dogs chose man”. Besides his theory he presents several evidence supporting his theory, explaining to us how the relationships begin between the primitive man and the gray wolf. Without a doubt dog domestication was a key to the survival and succeed of the human being.
Maguire, Sharon. “Dogs and Human Emotions”. Dogbreedinfo.com May 2009. Dog Breed Info Center. 10 Apr. 2009 < http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/articles/emotionaldog.htm>.
Page |9 In this article Sharon Maguire assures that dogs do possess emotions, nevertheless they are not as complex as human's. According to her dogs feel the emotions coming from humans. She comment that dog knows if you are sad, nervous, stressed, happy, calm, strong minded, confident, passive, or anxious. They simply read it as a weakness and they react accordingly. She says that these reactions are product of their natural instinct to have an order in their pack. When we live with dogs, we become their pack. The entire pack cooperates under a single leader. Lines should clearly define and rules should be set. She conclude saying that the humans must be the ones making the decisions, not the dogs in order to establish a healthy relationship between the dog and the owner.
Carter, Mia. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Study Says Dogs Read Human Emotions on Faces.â&#x20AC;? Petcare.Suite101.com 30 Oct. 2008. Suite 101 The Genuine Article Literary. 12 Apr. 2009<http://petcare.suite 101.com/ article.cfm /study _says_dogs_detect_emotions_on_human_faces>. In this article Mia Carter describes another article that was published in the October 2008 in an edition of the U.K. scientific journal, New Scientist. The study was made by Dr. Kin Guo, of the University of Lincoln in the U.K. This study searched dog's ability to detect human emotions, the results suggests that dogs look to the face for signs of anger, happiness, or sadness, just like humans do. The study revealed that dogs react uniquely when presented with a human face and their method of processing and understanding the human face is very similar to human method. When presented with non-human faces, there was no remarkable reaction. This study shows another strident evident of how the human dog relationship development as go so far that they can feel and read humans emotions.
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Genres
Magazine report Monologue Collage Recipe Video
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More than Faithful Friends by: Hector Martell
I
t was not enough being our faithful friends for
centuries? A new controversial study shows that person’s mood. This study was led by Dr. Kin Guo, a professor from University of Lincoln in the UK. This study suggests that dogs look to the faces signs of anger, happiness, or sadness, just like humans do. They study the dog’s ability to read human emotions by looking for subtle changes in facial expression. The most amazing finding of this investigation is that the dogs did not show any change when they showed them no human faces. This tendency was never seen in non humans.
Dr Guo also found that dogs shows an tendency call “left gaze bias” ( a tendency that only occur in humans when they encounter other human faces; don’t apply too objects or animals), in this case the dogs also showed this tendency. This very important according to the researchers because the dogs only exhibited this tendency when looking to human faces and only with human faces. This study was performed with 17 dogs, who were presented with images of human, monkeys, dogs faces and photograph of other objects. Dr. Guo suggests that over thousands of generations of association with humans, dogs may have evolved the left gaze bias as a way to gauge our emotions.
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My fire provider (based on To Build a Fire story by Jack London) It was a cold morning, colder than it should be. There were no clouds in the sky, the snow covers the paths, and the sunbeams shine so hard that I can almost see my foots. It was a perfect day to rest at home, in the warm sitting room in front of this awesome lights that produce heat that humans call fire. But here I’m sitting in the coldest place from the world; no even my coat is enough to calm this penetrating cold. I was falling asleep when a heard the most dry voice, my master of course. The man I have always fallow for the last ten years. “Move!” yelled my master. Bad news, everything looks like we are going to begin a new trip. I do not know why, but something clearly tells me that we should not make this trip. But what can I do? I am just his faithful friend, the one who never complain, the one who always obey his orders. So we begin a trip to who knows where, but I feel I have to fallow him that’s why I am here for, to take care of him no matter what happens. The path is full of snow sometimes I cannot even see my master. The big light from the sky begin to disappear and it become to get darker. We have been walking for so long, and I feel my body is colder each time. When are we going to stop? When is he going to make some fire? Finally he decides to stop, I think he is hungry. I really know him! There he is enjoying his smelly food. I have been with him for so long that I know him more than anyone else. We should camp here and bury a hole in the snow so we can protect ourselves something does no smell so good. He already finished his lunch and we begin again our exhausting trip. I will desire to stay here but I have to fallow him he is my master. There he his struggling with the snow and looking for water traps, very dangerous by the way; they can frost you in seconds. Sometimes he made me go before him, he does not care
P a g e | 14 about me, if he only asked me with love I will do it just to protect him, but the only thing he can do is think in his own benefits. No! He felt on a water trap. What happen to him? He looks sick, but at least he his making fire. Something is not right, this smellâ&#x20AC;ŚThis smell is scaring me, and each time the smell is getting stronger. It smells like fear, the only smell I have never notice in my master. My master is calling me in an odd way; I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what is happening to him but something inside me tell me that, for the first time in my life I should not obey him. He stand up again, now he is running, what is happening to him? Where is he? I cannot see him but I can smell his fear. There he is in the floor looking me with his eyes full of anger. What have I done? Another smell is becoming stronger, but I cannot recognize it yet. Death, only the death can smell like that. O dear supplier, he never taught me how to make fire you never showed a signal a love. And now you are now leaving me in the middle of nowhere. I smell something; maybe near I can find another provider.
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Materials: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
A pet name Patience Clear commands Enough dog snacks Time Prevention Reasonable expectations
Method:
Begin by building attention using your pet's name when calling it for food, walks, and play. Do this randomly 10 times a day. And never and under any circumstance punish your pet for coming to you or by calling it. Add enough patience to enforce commands that you give, and don't constantly repeat commands, because you will ruin the mix. If you are not going to enforce a command, don’t add them to the mix. Timing is one of the key elements in this recipe. Use the timing to create a consistent and durable mix. Add dogs snacks every time your pet react positively to a command, don’t add dog snacks to undesirable behavior. Do not punish desirable behavior. Such as having your puppy eliminates outside and then immediately leaving the puppy. If the puppy wants to be with you, you will have just punished the pup for doing the right behavior. If you don’t have dog’s snacks you can add signs of affection or other activities you know your pet is going to enjoy. Pour 2 cups of prevention to the mix that at this point should be taking form soft but firm. The basic goal of prevention is to intervene before a problem is created instead of simply responding to the problem. Pour the mix in and empty mold of optimism and perseverance and bake it with the right expectations.
The result is a stronger relationship between you and your pet. Dogs are social animals and develop a real attachment to their owners. That attachment is at the key for successful dog training. A dog that trusts his owner and who sincerely wants to please his companion is will remain attentive and happy during the training process.
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VIDEO
The video canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be added to this document. Press the link that appears below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxNNNa9wu30
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Epilogue
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Investigation is the better way to learnâ&#x20AC;? someone told me once. And he was totally right. After finishing this multi genre research project about dogs and owner relationship I felt like almost an expert in the topic. There is not a better way to learn something than through investigation. Through the previous pages I shared with the readers a small amount of what I learned. This project allowed me to understand more about dogs behavior, from their origin in the gray wolf about 15,000 years ago to their last studies made in dog behavior. What began once by a relationship to survive to and hostil difficult environment ended in the strongest relationship in the world. I can say now without a doubt , as many scientific assure that dogs have live with us for so many time that they have adopt many of our traits. Certainly dogs have feelings, and they are not only able to feel them they are also able to express, and to identify them in humans. In this project I used five different genres: a collage, monologue, video, magazine report, and a recipe. Each one of them will help the reader to understand more about dogs, their feelings, history and mostly how to strengthen the relationship between the owner and his faithful friend. I hope that this project will help the reader to understand more about dogs and their feelings. To make them realize the potential that every dog has, they are not just alive matter that should be feed every day. They can be helpers, guardians, but over all those things our loyalty friends.
I also hope that this project will help to avoid and minimize dog
abandonment and mistreat. Every single dog has infinite capacity that should be use by the owner, we have only to be patient, consistent, and perseverant and we will see huge positive results. Always remember we humans made them dogs and dogs made us human.
P a g e | 18 Work Cited Page
“Dog training tips! It seems everyone has one.” Dog Training Tips. 9 June 2009. Adaptive Dog Training. 1 May 2009 <http://101-dog-training tips.com/Dog_Obedience_ Training. shtml>. Hickey, Georgina. “Dogs Get the Point”. Nature Australia Oct. 2004: 9-. Academic Research Complete. EBSCO. Mayaguez University of Puerto Rico Lib. 7 Apr. 2009 < http://web.ebsohost.com>. London, Jack. “To Build a Fire.” Page by Page Books. 9 Apr. 2009 < http://www.pagebypageboo ks.com/Jack_London/To_Build_a_Fire/To_Build_a_Fire_p1.html>.
“3 Secrets To Better Dog Training.” I-Love-Dogs. 7April 2005. Dog Training Articles. 1 May 2009<http://www.i-love-dogs.com/dogsarticles/3-Secrets-To-Better-Dog-Training.html>. Thorpe, Roland J. “Dog Ownership, Walking Behavior, and Maintained Mobility in Late Life.” Journal of the American Geriatrics Society Sept. 2006: 1419-. Academic Research Complete. EBSCO. Mayaguez University of Puerto Rico Lib. 7 Apr. 2009<
http://web.ebsohost.com>.
Viegas, Jennifer. “Dogs (not chimps) most like humans.” MSNBC.com. 26 March 2009. MSNBC. 5 May 2009 <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29895614/>. Viegas, Jennifer. “World's first dog lived 31,700 years ago, ate big” MSNBC.com. 17 Oct. 2008. MSNBC. 5 May 2009 < http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27240370/>.