{"id":53467,"date":"2016-10-31T03:53:41","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T03:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/a-dogs-secret-life\/"},"modified":"2016-10-31T03:53:41","modified_gmt":"2016-10-31T03:53:41","slug":"a-dogs-secret-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/a-dogs-secret-life\/","title":{"rendered":"A Dog\u2019s Secret Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s day-to-day life like for a dog? What\u2019s going on INSIDE? Our Cover Story comes from our resident dog-lover Martha Teichner:<\/em><\/p>\n

At BarkBox, a New York City company that sends out treats and toys to dogs every month by subscription, people can bring their dogs to work. The office is literally crawling with them.. <\/p>\n

And for employees whose dogs are maybe too big or aren\u2019t the office type, \u201cdoggie cams\u201d are available as baby monitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s great is it has sound, so that I can hear him when he shifts, or he can hear me,\u201d said video producer Zoe Costello, who watches her dog live. \u201cI can, like, holler at him, squeak at him. It feels like a way to sort of have a phone conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a comfort, she said: \u201cIt makes me feel good to see him, to see that he\u2019s okay alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"doggie-cam-view-620.jpg\"<\/span>
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There\u2019s a good boy! A view via \u201cdoggie cam.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Company controller Matt Hagel is another shameless voyeur, keeping tabs on his dog Monty. \u201cSometimes, I\u2019ll communicate through it to yell at him if he\u2019s doing something bad,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd does he respond?\u201d Teichner asked. <\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, he can hear me.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if you say \u2018no,\u2019 he\u2019ll get it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll get it,\u201d Hagel said, adding, \u201cHe may not listen. Normally right when we leave, I think he gets upset, but then after that, he\u2019ll just sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hagel leaves music on for Monty when he leaves the house. \u201cHe likes reggae.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the sleep part \u2014 that\u2019s what most dogs do when they\u2019re home alone. The average dog sleeps 12-14 hours a day.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s nothing like the movie \u201cThe Secret Life of Pets\u201d (sorry to disappoint). It managed to gross nearly a billion dollars and was one of the summer\u2019s biggest blockbusters.<\/p>\n

The point of the movie is that our pets\u2019 lives start the minute we leave. Is that or is that not true?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"being-a-dog-cover-scribner-244.jpg\"<\/span>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI feel like it\u2019s the reverse,\u201d said research scientist Alexandra Horowitz, who studies dog cognition. Her new book is \u201cBeing a Dog: Following the Dog Into a World of Smell\u201d (published by Scribner, a subsidiary of CBS).<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are our social companions. We\u2019ve bred them to be so, and their existence really revolves around our presence and interaction with us, and that\u2019s exactly what they don\u2019t have when we leave them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Pets do<\/em> have a secret life, though. For dogs, it\u2019s mostly about how they experience the world: mainly through their noses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dog\u2019s nose is masterful, it\u2019s such an impressive organ,\u201d said Horowitz.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Humans have about six million olfactory receptors. Dogs? 300 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey sniff more, and they sniff more rapidly than we do,\u201d Horowitz told Teichner. \u201cAnd that\u2019s because they need to get the odors from the outside world all the way up to the epithelial tissues, the cells that do the smelling, and that\u2019s really at the back of the nose.\u201d<\/p>\n

They exhale through those little curled slits on the sides of their noses. <\/p>\n

And listen to this: \u201cThere is some research which shows that dogs use their right and left nostrils differently,\u201d Horowitz said, \u201cso they start out sniffing with the right and then move to the left, and so there\u2019s a kind of stereo olfaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSunday Morning\u201d gathered a few dogs \u2014 Horowitz\u2019s dog, Finnegan; Ricky and June; and Teichner\u2019s dog, Minnie \u2014 to see some noses in action, as when they engaged in a classic greeting ritual.<\/p>\n

\"dogs-alexandra-horowitz-martha-teichner-620.jpg\"<\/span>
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Alexandra Horowitz and correspondent Martha Teichner, with Minnie and Finnegan.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Teichner asked, \u201cHow does a dog know from smelling whether the dog they\u2019re meeting is a friend or an enemy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything inherently friend or foe about a smell,\u201d Horowitz said. \u201cMaybe younger or older, healthy or less healthy, sick or recently eaten something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can they smell fear? Can they smell love? \u201cYeah, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s too fantastic to say that in some way they can smell fear,\u201d Horowitz said. \u201cIn some way they smell love, and that\u2019s because we\u2019re giving off odors that correspond to a state of fear, or a feeling of affection.\u201d<\/p>\n

We know about tracking dogs, bomb-sniffing dogs, even bed bug-finding dogs. And now this: \u201cThere are now a lot of ex-working dogs who are being trained to detect cancers \u2014 cancers in urine, on breath, in exhaled breath, on the body,\u201d Horowitz said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But she says dogs can also smell time. \u201cIf I leave the house in the morning, my house is full of my smell,\u201d Horowitz said. \u201cAn hour later, a lot of it will have disappeared.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people talk about dogs who seem to know when their owners are coming home, and they think it might be a kind of psychic ability. But I think it\u2019s a smelling ability, essentially \u2014 not smelling their approach, but smelling how long somebody is gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

But one not-so-cute side-effect of smelling time can be separation anxiety, when dogs go crazy and destroy things when their owners leave. <\/p>\n

\"pets-on-the-couch-cover-simon-and-schuster-244.jpg\"<\/span>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very big thing \u2014 it\u2019s like 15-17% of the nation, 73 million dogs, have obvious separation anxiety,\u201d said Dr. Nicholas Dodman, who recently retired as director of the animal behavior program at Tufts University\u2019s Veterinary School. His new book, \u201cPets on the Couch,\u201d is published by CBS\u2019 Simon and Schuster. <\/p>\n

Shadow was returned to a shelter twice before Maya Haraseyko adopted him eight months ago. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe removed wall-to-wall carpeting, just completely demolished the room,\u201d said Haraseyko. \u201cAnd was breaking air conditioners, breaking window screens, was trying to get out, barking.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a house call to Haraseyko\u2019s Cambridge, Mass., apartment in August, Dr. Dodman outlined his treatment strategy: \u201cWe\u2019re gonna kinda get him to expect when the door closes, wonderful things happen,\u201d Dr. Dodman said.<\/p>\n

His advice to Haraseyko: Leave as if it\u2019s no big deal, but provide Shadow entertainment \u2014 treats, toys, puzzles. The point is to keep him busy and not bored while she\u2019s out. <\/p>\n

And when she comes back, the greeting should be low-key: \u201cYou could say, \u2018Hey, Shadow, how\u2019s it going? Slap me four!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

And in Shadow\u2019s case, Dr. Dodman said, \u201cI think also we probably need some kind of medicine, something like, for example, Zoloft.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Dodman has spent decades advocating using human mood-stabilizing drugs, like Zoloft, Prozac and others, on pets, because people and animals share the same disorders: \u201cThe list would include aggression, phobias, PTSD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, autism, in one model Tourette syndrome, Alzheimer\u2019s, too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For separation anxiety, he prescribes behavior modification first, drugs as a last resort.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Pet<\/span>
\n

Pet portraits by The Dogist<\/h3>\n

\n Photographer and blogger Elias Weiss Friedman captures the beauty of pooches\n <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes people are emotionally exhausted, they\u2019re financially drained, and they say, \u2018If you can\u2019t fix this problem within two or three months, we\u2019re going to take him to the pound, or we\u2019ll have the vet put him to sleep,\u2019\u201d Dr. Dodman said. \u201cWhen I hear that, I say, \u2018Let\u2019s use the medication.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Good news about Shadow: After three months following Dr. Dodman\u2019s prescription, Shadow can be left alone for at least four hours without destroying anything \u2014 a secret life tamer than it used to be, but a lot happier for all concerned. <\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0
For more info:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • BarkBox<\/li>\n
  • \u201cBeing a Dog: Following the Dog Into a World of Smell\u201d\u00a0by Alexandra Horowitz (Scribner); Also available in\u00a0eBook,\u00a0Unabridged Digital Audio Download, and\u00a0Unabridged Audio CD\u00a0formats<\/li>\n
  • Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard<\/li>\n
  • \u201cPets on the Couch: Neurotic Dogs, Compulsive Cats, Anxious Birds, and the New Science of Animal Psychiatry\u201d\u00a0by Nicholas Dodman DVM (Simon Schuster); Also available in\u00a0eBook\u00a0format<\/li>\n
  • \u201cThe Secret Life of Pets\u201d\u00a0(Official site)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    What\u2019s day-to-day life like for a dog? What\u2019s going on INSIDE? Our Cover Story comes from our resident dog-lover Martha Teichner: At BarkBox, a New York City company that sends out treats and toys to dogs every month by subscription, people can bring their dogs to work. The office is literally crawling with them.. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}