My birthday started out like any other day. Dad left me explore outside after lunch and I was making a big circle around the house when I picked up a new strange scent. I know the scents of many animals and this was different and new to me. It sort of smelled raw to me. I followed it out in the woods and soon came up to this grey animal with long poky hair that was chewing the bark on a tree. I sounded my alarm bark and my Dad called me back to the house. He made me wait in the house while he removed the animal. Then we investigated where the animal was eating the bark. Dad praised me for calling the alarm and told me to “leave-it”. He told me it was a porcupine and that I would have been hurt bad trying to catch it or play with it because the long hairs would stick in my mouth and paws and I would need to go to the vet. He said I was a very smart dog to know not to try and catch it and that I had very good breeding! Thank you Alta-Tollhaus.
You are a very smart girl—that and excellent training from your Dad helped keep you out of serious trouble.
Hi, Keith! Happy birthday, wise Ilea! Isa says, “Great job on the alarm barking–and not biting that animal first and asking questions later!” 🙂
Happy Birthday Ilea…you and I still look a lot alike!
Love,
Ivan
Must be part of the training–she found the tracking article and indicated it. Good job, Keith!
I can recall a study done 50+ years ago where earthworms were “trained” to go through a maze to get food. After they became proficient at going through the maze, they were ground up, mixed with soil and used as food to 1/2 of a new group of earthworms. The new group was tested on the same maze and it was observed that the half that ate the trained earthworms made it quickly through the maze while the other half did poorly as expected. The conclusion is that at some basic level learned information is encoded in the genetic material of the source animal (including humans?). Therefore I suggest that Ilea was born with the knowledge to avoid porcupines because one or more of her ancestors had a bad experience with a porcupine. Her siblings Ivan and Isa should also carry that same knowledge but may or may not pay attention to it in the decision process when facing a porcupine in the same way that Ilea may not respect that information the next time she approaches a porcupine. In any event Julie gets the credit for doing such a fine job breeding wonderfu, smart dogs.
I remember that same study. It is very interesting, how many memories are species born with or as you put it encoded into the DNA. S
Keith, thank you very much for the compliments. You are very kind.