Is That "Love" In Your Dog's Eyes?

Well, the answer to that question just may be a resounding "Yes"...or not. Could it be the treat in your hand, Parental Unit, that makes me love you like I do?


You know that we just love to read about animal cognition and at least occasionally, share that information with you—it's an endlessly fascinating topic to both Parental Unit and me. Nearly a year ago, Anderson Cooper did a segment for 60 Minutes about what scientists and other smart folks have learned from studying dogs. And since Cooper is a major dog lover, he was interested, too.

Check out this 60 Minutes Overtime segment with five minute video and see what you think. Could it be that canines are just "scamming us", as Cooper wonders? Let us know!

P.S. Our opinion? We think there's a real bond between dogs and humans...treats or no treats!

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Could These Dogs Have Prevented The Boston Bombing?

Their trainers at Auburn University say, probably "yes". Check out this segment that just aired tonight on Anderson Cooper's CNN show to see why. It's interesting that this particular bomb sniffing training program passes on the traditional police and military use of German shepherds and Malinois, in favor of Labs and spaniels, mainly because they don't stand out as what most people think of as bomb-sniffing dogs and wouldn't attract attention in a crowd. The footage of the dogs in training is pretty cool, too.

And what Anderson Cooper says at the end of the segment is, well, why we love Anderson Cooper!

We're wondering if these highly trained canines, who can track a bomb's vapor trail over several hundred yards, will start making more appearances at large, public events...one would think so. 

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CNN's Piece on Animal Cognition & Interview With Cesar Millan

Since Parental Unit is really "into" embedding videos these days, we thought we'd share with you the piece that aired a few nights ago on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360. First this segment showed Randi Kaye's interview and demonstration with an animal cognition researcher at Duke University.
See that here.



Then John Roberts, who was substituting for Anderson Cooper (Parental Unit insists on adding here that there is NO SUBSTITUTE for Anderson Cooper) interviews our friend The Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan. It's a really interesting to hear Millan answer Roberts' line of questions, that unfortunately, were really not directed to the work that Millan does. But Millan graciously reframed each of the questions so that he could answer them in the context of his work.

The other thing that's unfortunate about this clip is that it cut off the last, offbase comment that Robert's made as they were cutting away from the interview: that he really should have "Millan train his dog." Parental Unit cannot resist intruding with her two cents: she thinks Roberts needed to do his homework before he interviewed The Dog Whisperer...:-)

See that interview here too-and tell us what you think!

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