Have you completed Dognition with your dog? How has it benefited your relationship? That’s your Dognition Difference, and we want to hear all about it. Enter the Dognition Difference video contest between now and June 10 for a chance to win some exclusive prizes.
So far thousands of dogs from more than 40 countries have experienced Dognition first hand, giving their people a dog’s-eye view of their world. In addition to learning about their own dogs, each of these owners is also contributing to the world’s understanding of all dogs – from breed differences, to age differences, to gender differences.
From the outside alone, our dogs are such wonderful characters. But as anyone who lives with a dog can tell you, they’re real characters inside, too. We at Dognition are lucky to get to talk with other dog people around the world about what makes their dogs so interesting.
And the more dogs we learn about as individuals, the more we can learn about dogs in general. In fact, we’ve been pleasantly surprised that of the 175 AKC-recognized breeds, 120 have registered with Dognition in just a few months. (Not to mention all the lovable mixed breed dogs, like my Teddy.)
Below are the breeds who have yet to find out about Dognition. Know someone with one of these dogs? Let them know about Dognition. They may learn something incredible about their own dog, and at the same time, they’ll be contributing to the world’s knowledge of dog breeds. What qualities do they share, and what makes them unique?
Pictured: Briard Continue reading
Dr. Juliane Kaminski, one of our Scientific Advisory Board members, has made a cool finding: dogs are more likely to sneak food from people when the lights are out.
When we adopted Teddy, the backstory we got about him was a little sketchy. Teddy had apparently belonged to a woman — one volunteer said she was elderly, one said she was younger — who mostly kept him outside. Or maybe she didn’t let him out enough. And was he brought in because the lady couldn’t care for him anymore, or because she was moving? No one could quite remember. All we knew about him for sure was what we could observe. He was black, fuzzy, and really excited to meet us.
Over the next few months, he began surprising us with little glimpses of his “true self,” things that we would only have otherwise known if we had been able to ask him. Continue reading
As long as there have been dogs, there have been hero dogs. Over the centuries, dogs have been sainted and memorialized in bronze for their heroic deeds. More recently, fictional dogs like Lassie and Rin Tin Tin have represented canine heroism on TV and in the movies. The American Humane Society has even created a Hero Dog Award.
So what is it about dogs that allows them to play the hero to humans in need? Our science team looked at five stories of daring dogs to try to make scientific sense of what makes man’s best friend a hero. Continue reading
It’s funny to think that there was a time that Teddy, the furry love of my life, felt like a stranger to me. But he did for a while.
I recently asked my wife Janie, “When did you know Teddy was, y’know, our dog?”
If your dog is anything like my dog Teddy, outdoor time is part of your daily routine. Few things in this world make Teddy happier than running outside and chasing down his favorite ball. Next to fetch, Teddy’s other love is going for a nice walk. Teddy’s walks aren’t just good for his body; the sights and smells of the neighborhood are also good for mental stimulation.
But what about the times when it’s so rainy that even a walk seems like a perilous undertaking? When Teddy doesn’t get all of the mental and physical activity he requires, we sometimes get some less-than-desirable behavior around the house. Teddy might start throwing his own ball around the living room if he hasn’t had play or walk time. Or, if the ball is out of reach, he’ll play with garbage. Continue reading
We’re kicking off a new series in our blog in which we introduce you to the world-class team of people (and dogs!) behind Dognition. Today, we ask five questions to Locky Stewart, Dognition’s Director of Research. Continue reading
Look at what we just reeled in. Should we consider this a competitor?
We’ve been hearing a lot of people referring to Dognition as an “IQ test for dogs” (here’s looking at you, Conan!). Calling Dognition an IQ test conjures up some pretty funny images. Dogs squinting over Scantrons with No. 2 pencils, solving word problems and math equations. If we were giving dogs a traditional IQ test, the scores probably wouldn’t be very high.
This is because we think about intelligence differently these days. When we look at the intelligence of animals, we start with how well they’ve been able to survive as a species. By that measure, dogs are the second most successful mammal on Earth, right behind humans. They’ve learned how to get another species (us) to take care of their every need, to feed them, play with them, and let them sleep in our beds. At the same time, they’ve become more effective and cheaper than technology in a whole range of jobs, from sniffing out drugs and bombs to helping people cope with debilitating diseases.
Instead of telling you whether or not your dog is “smart,” we want to help you discover how and why your dog is so successful. As a species, dogs are geniuses because of several key abilities mimicking those of human infants. But what’s your dog’s particular genius? Continue reading
