HOW MANY WORDS UNDERSTAND DOGS?

The owners of dogs often and with pleasure spread on the subject, how clever their pets are. Everyone who has a four-legged friend is sure that he understands the speech addressed to him. How many words can a dog recognize? Of course, most dogs understand the commands to “sit”, “stand” or “come to me”, but if you wish, the animal can be taught to distinguish about 100 words. Neuropsychologist Stanley Korin, known for research in the field of mental activity of dogs, argues that a specially trained animal can memorize 160 words, and especially capable specimens even have no less lexical reserve than a 3-year-old child. Since the 70s of the last century, when scientists successfully began to teach sign language to chimpanzees, it became known that the language as a means of communication is not only accessible to people. Animals can, within certain limits, understand the speech addressed to them and communicate using their own means. A striking example is considered a border collie named Rico. The dog learned more than 200 words, which was confirmed by the staff of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, located in Leipzig. They became interested in the dog after the owners reported such outstanding abilities.
During the first series of tests, the researchers wanted to find out if Rico really had such an extensive vocabulary. They selected 10 items whose names were known to Rico and placed them in the same room. At the command of the host, Rico entered the room and brought the named object, and so rarely was mistaken that the researchers decided to complicate the task. At the second stage, a new subject was placed among familiar things. When the owner said the name of an unfamiliar thing, Rico realized that it was necessary to bring it. The test was repeated several times, and Rico coped with the task in 70% of cases. Consequently, the dog not only remembered 200 words, but also used the principle of exclusion. At the final stage, the scientists set themselves the task of determining how long the dog remembered the new words. They took a break, after which they placed in one room the object whose name Rico had learned a month ago, as well as 4 acquaintances to him and 4 completely unfamiliar things. By order of the owner, the dog brought the thing, the name of which he learned 30 days ago, and coped with the task in 50% of cases. Of course, it cannot be argued that dogs are able to fully understand human speech. In view of the peculiarities of thinking, they clearly cannot understand words denoting abstract concepts, because only concrete things are available to them. In addition, when interacting with a man, dogs largely derive information from his intonations, gestures and poses, but nevertheless it cannot be denied that four-legged friends have an amazing ability to understand their owners.

How to help your dog in the heat?

Summer heat is a dangerous time for our four-legged pets. Dogs tolerate heat badly enough, so a good owner should take care of his pet.
Dogs do not sweat, so when overheated, it is quite difficult for them to reduce body temperature. Their thermoregulation is carried out exclusively due to rapid breathing, therefore in extreme heat the dog is exposed to a serious risk of heat stroke.

It should be remembered, it is most difficult to have dogs with flattened faces (pugs, bulldogs), who have a modified nasal passage. And of course, the way the dog tolerates heat depends on the age, type of coat and the state of health of the dog.
Key rules

Food: do not overfeed the dog in the heat. Reduce the amount of feed. Replace high-calorie and heavy food with a lighter one. Transfer dinner to late evening. For an adult animal, feedings can be reduced to 1 time per day (in the evening)

Water: Provide your dog with constant access to water. Place another bowl next to the met where the dog spends the most time. Check that the bowl is empty during the day. Change the water more often, as it quickly heats up even in the shade and bacteria spread rapidly in it.

Walking: Avoid direct sunlight. Try to walk in the shadows. Transfer your walks with your pet to a very early or very late time - the earlier (later), the better.

If you still need a day walk, walk your pet in the shade and no more than 15 minutes. If you still have to leave the house for a long time with your dog, be sure to take a bottle of water for a walk to periodically wet the belly and hips of your pet, as well as give a drink.

At home: do not lock the dog in an unventilated or stuffy, hot room. Keep your bathroom doors open - often there, on the tiled floor, dogs find salvation. If there is a fan at home or an air conditioner - leave it turned on at low power if you leave the dog at home, leaving for work.

Care: It is not recommended to cut long-haired dogs. Their wool, on the contrary, serves as their protection from the sun's rays. But combing the undercoat would be very appropriate.

Trips: try to move the time of the trip with the dog at the coolest time. For the long road, make stops so that the dog can drink and walk a little.

Why do we need a pedigree !?

Often there are people who, wanting to have a dog, convince themselves and others that they need a dog not for exhibitions, but simply for the soul (or for protection, or for a child, etc.). A puppy is purchased, and no attention is paid to the presence of pedigree or other nuances.

Suppose they take a puppy without documents, or they are promised that they have documents “somewhere there”, “they didn’t register with my mother” or they are too lazy to do it, etc. But after half a year, newly minted dog breeders begin to wonder how you can show your dog at the exhibition, tie it up, in a word, the owner begins to torment the question - how to “make” the pedigree. Pedigree - a document confirming the origin of the dog. This is essentially a table in which not only the data about the dog itself, but also its parents, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, great-great-grandfathers are indicated. Moreover, knowing the nickname, number of ancestor's pedigree, one can learn through clubs and other databases and its origin, and so on, before the origin of the breed.

Virtually any dog ​​found in the pedigree, you can learn many details: color, evaluation at shows, the presence of training, etc. With purebred breeding, it is necessary not only to correctly select the pair, in accordance with their individual qualities. Heredity is a great thing. It is important to know what the ancestors of the future parents were, what qualities and under what combinations they passed to the offspring.

Owning such information, a breeding dog handler can more likely predict the result of his breeding. The breed will progress to the desired direction. Why do purebred dogs sometimes happen "without pedigree"? The simplest is unscheduled mating. In order for puppies in the club to receive pedigrees, the necessary documents must be submitted to their parents for their parents. For each breed there are certain rules and regulations.

When a dog does not have for any reason an assessment at exhibitions or diplomas on tests, it should not receive permission for planned breeding. If the owner still knits such a dog, puppies are left without documents. How are these puppies worse than planned? Why didn't the dog have a show mark?

Maybe because of the owner's laziness, and maybe the dog has a disqualifying defect that puts it out of breeding. No evaluation - no description. So, when processing documents for puppies from such parents, no one will ever know what their mother or father really was. If a dog has some kind of genetic defect, then this defect may appear later, after several generations. Works to improve the breed go down the drain. Moreover, this is also significant material damage to the breeder, if “defective puppies” are born from normal-looking parents.

If the dog did not have a diploma in training, this can also be due to the owner’s laziness. Or maybe this dog is incapable of the work for which it was bred, and therefore it did not pass the test. For example, a cowardly German shepherd is knitted and puppies will be born from it, and when the children or children of their children are cowardly, this is unlikely to please their owners. There is a possibility that one or both parents of an unplanned puppy were not purebred, but outwardly very similar to some breed. But only externally, and what will come of them, it is impossible to predict. Thus, acquiring a dog without a pedigree, a person definitely buys a "cat in a bag."

But owners of dogs "without pedigree" are difficult to convince that pedigree cannot be "restored." No matter how good the parents and their puppies were, for some reason, they were left without pedigree. And you do not need to indulge yourself with the illusions that “my dog ​​is the most wonderful and will give only the good to the children”. What kind of harm it can bring in the future, in my opinion, is clear from the above explanation.

Of course, there are a great many facts of substituting one origin for another. Even, it would seem, in a prosperous Germany a major scandal flared up quite recently. According to genetic analysis, some producers of the German Shepherd breed were not of the origin that was written in the documents. What to say about Russia and the former republics. Be vigilant and do not make not thoughtful mistakes.