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.
As the Director of Research, I may have one of the best jobs at Dognition. Every day, I work with the leading scientists in the field Continue reading
In the personality questionnaire at the beginning of the Dognition Experience, we ask you how many words your dog knows. Human words, that is.
It might take you a moment to count them on your fingers (and toes, if your dog knows a lot of words), but you could probably come up with an answer. Your dog might run to the door when you mention a “car ride”, or maybe your dog knows the differences among the sodas in your fridge, like this Labrador Retriever does! Continue reading
I brag about my dog Ernie to anyone who will listen – the vet, folks at the dog park, or my friends and family (as any proud mama would). I think he is incredibly smart and the sweetest dog on earth — all 9.8 lbs of him.
In September, I started working with Dognition, and Ernie and I got to play an early version of the games that make up the Dognition Assessment Toolkit. We found out that he is a Charmer, which I think makes perfect sense! Being a Charmer means that Ernie relies on my fiancé and me to help him navigate the world – we call him a “smooth operator.” We also learned that he’s incredibly empathetic (he gives the sweetest hugs and kisses).
This was very cool to discover, because empathy is a big component of what I try to incorporate into what I do for Dognition – experience design. Continue reading
One of the things that makes Dognition so dynamic and exciting is our use of Citizen Science. What’s Citizen Science? It’s research that can be conducted by anyone who has the time and interest, not just scientists with Ph.Ds and lab coats.
Recently, citizen scientists have discovered new planets and helped researchers understand why babies laugh. There’s even an app for citizen scientists to report discoveries they make in their own backyards. The more help we get from dog-loving people like you, the more we can learn about all dogs, much more quickly and broadly than if we conducted the research ourselves.
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As part of my initiation to the Dognition team, I got to play the Toolkit assessment with Teddy, the mixed-breed dog I’d been sharing my life with for just over a year. Teddy and I had a pretty good relationship already. I knew what kinds of games he liked to play (fetch), what kind of food he liked to eat (wet), and what kind of people he liked to kiss (all of them). But I still had more questions. What motivates him? Why doesn’t he tell me when his water bowl is empty? Does he love me, or the liver snacks I give him?
Assessing Teddy was as fun and fascinating as I hoped. It used some of the very same science-based games I had seen on TV specials. I had tried in the past to emulate videos I’d seen of researchers pointing at cups, but had never been sure of what the “real” method was, or what I was actually discovering.
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