Sunday November 22, 2009  by Sophia Yin, DVM

I remember in highschool math class thinking, math wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the word problems. Now, as an adult, I think, if you can’t do the word problems, which represent math in real life, you don’t really know math. Similarly, with dog training classes, it’s great when dogs know how to sit, and heel and focus on their owners in the controlled class environment but what they really need is to be able to do those things in real world. That is, it’s not good enough to do them just at their home or in their own neighborhood, the behaviors must be reliable in new locations with high distractions. That is why I frequently have a field trip after the last week of a 6-week dog training session. And that’s what we did today. We took a field trip to downtown Davis. Four dogs-five if you include my dog Jonesy-attended. Four had a history of lunging at, snapping at unfamiliar dogs, one had a history of lunging or snapping at people in his personal space. These were all issues we had addressed in behavior consults for some dogs as well as during this class. And then there’s Jonesy. In unskilled hands he’s more likely to bark fearfully at skateboards, loiters, and random objects and then become overly aroused.  Here are the exercises they worked on today.

Exercise 1: Sit at corners and heel across the street

It’s difficult to look both ways for cars when waiting at the corner if your dog’s dragging you around or getting ready to trip you. In exercise one, all dogs were required to sit at the each corner and heel when going across the street. Remember, if you need to watch your dog when crossing the street, make sure there are no careless drivers or bike riders who could accidentally run you over.

Exercise 2: Walking at attention past people

When out walking, it’s important for dog and handler to share the road with pedestrians. Many people are uncomfortable with unfamiliar dogs regardless of whether the dog is friendly or not. So in these exercises dog owners were required to 1) keep their dog close enough to them so that pedestrians would not feel like they had to move out of the way. 2) Keep their dog looking at them as pedestrians passed if there was any chance their dog might look at or try to sniff the pedestrian. While looking at pedestrians may be ok, it’s nice for people to know for sure that you have control of your dog. Owners could also just move off to the side and have their dogs perform sits facing them and away from those passing by.

Exercise 3: Defensive greetings

Next we set two student volunteers up on the sidewalk to act as dopey dog greeters. As dogs walked down the sidewalk, the volunteer inappropriately approached to pet the dogs and possibly solicit jumping while stating, “Can I pet your dog?”  Dog owners defensively backed up with their dogs so that it was clear that the answer was “not yet.” Once they had their dogs sitting, or lying down, they invited the greeters to greet. For the dog in the class who was fearful of unfamiliar people, the owner worked on keeping the dog focused and out of trouble.

Exercise 4: Walking next to other dogs

Now dogs were required to walk down the sidewalk in tandem. This was probably the most difficult exercise. Dog tended to sneak glances away in between heeling at attention. Jonesy gave several student volunteers a workout. He looks easy because he’s fairly well behaved for me. When other people work with him they he’s probably more difficult than any dog they will handle.  They learn that they will be doing lots of running around, with fast paced changes in order to keep his attention. Look away for instant and he’s getting into trouble.

Exercise 5: Clearing the sidewalk to let others pass by

Here everyone clears the sidewalk to let people pass by. Then owners keep their dogs focused on them even when student volunteer pedestrians try to distract them.

Exercise 6: Chilling out on downtown benches

Sometimes you want to just sit with your dog and enjoy the scenery, your meal, or conversing with friend. In this exercise, dogs were required to lie down while owners sat on downtown benches. Then student volunteers as well as dog owners took turns walking up to the handlers with dogs and offered human food. The dogs were required to remain sitting or lying down and were not allowed to sniff the other dog.

Day 4 of my trip to Indonesia (Sept 2009)

Dolphin Encounter

Today we went dolphin watching at Lovina beach in Bali; I give the trip mixed reviews. First, we had to ride out further than expected to get to deeper waters in hopes of seeing dolphins. This was actually okay because we enjoyed the ride and the scenery. But instead of seeing the horizon or having a postcard view of the coast we saw a brown haze. It was smog! From the cars, maybe from Java, and definitely from the boats, which are traditionally outriggers with ancient motors. Throughout the ride you could smell the fumes and hear the loud engines. Given that sound travels well under water, I can only imagine the effect on the fish. If I were a dolphin, I’d probably elect to avoid areas with boats and their noisy, polluting motors.

We did see a few dolphins, although not like the entire pod Asri’s sister saw on her last visit. Such things are not predictable. What I was really missing was information from the guide about the dolphins and their behavior. After the bird park experience from the day before, I wasn’t surprised that the guides didn’t know anything about the dolphins. They were really just boat drivers, and I guess most people are happy to look at animals without really learning anything about their lifestyle and habits. Seems like a huge missed opportunity to me, though.

On the way back we stop to peer over at the fish. At first I can’t see anything, but then the boat guide tell us they’ll come up if we toss food in. So I toss a bit of bread and sure enough tons of fish come teeming up to the top.

Overall it would have been nicer to make this experience more of an eco-adventure. That way if no dolphins are seen, it’s still a good learning experience. For that to happen, though, the guides need to learn quite a bit about dolphin social behavior, hunting, and communication.

Monkeys Everywhere

Later, on the way across the island, we stopped to observe A troop of crab-eating macaques by the side of the road. This troop is comprised of probably 5-10 families and spans several stops along the road. As I get out to take photos a local woman brings out a plate of bananas and says, “10,000 rupees.” She wants me to purchase bananas to feed the macaques. Now, in general, it’s not a good idea to feed wild animals, because pretty soon they’re taking the food from you and even biting to get it. Or, if they’re bears at Yosemite or another national park, they’re raiding your garbage can or breaking into your car. The driver tells us that these macaques by the side of the road are not yet very aggressive to humans. The ones in the Monkey Forests where many visitors go regularly grab food from people and grab sunglasses and other accessories because they know that people will need to use food to get their stolen items back.

At first I refuse to purchase bananas, but then I realize that no matter what, these monkeys are going to be trained by humans to grab food away eventually. So I get some bananas and take a photo for my Dumbass file. Me feeding a wild animal from a known aggressive species-looks harmless enough, but it’s not. I did make sure I gave the banana to the highest ranking female only when she was sitting rather than accidentally rewarding her for grabbing for it or jumping. Other visitors let the monkeys jump up and grab the food from them, and the local woman let one of the baby macaque jump on her.

What she probably doesn’t know is that a macaque bite can innoculate humans with herpes which leads to fatal brain disease. herpes virus-. And she probably doesn’t know how aggressive the macaque social system is. Macaques live in a female-dominated hierarchy. The females have a rank order and everyone in their family retains that rank relative to other families. So if you’re born into the family of a low ranking female, you’re out of luck. What’s more, they have what’s called a despotic social system in that they routinely maintain their rank by picking on others who are below them. In A research setting, if a high ranking monkey is removed for an extended period of time, serious fighting occurs as the rank order is upset.

Aggression is apparent with these macaques. The dominant female takes all of the food and none of the others around her can get a banana because she attacks them.

Note that like with the Bali dogs, these monkeys provide a glimpse into how domestication occurs. Domestication is a process occurring over many generations in which a population of animals becomes more adapted to living with humans. This process involves genetic changes. In contrast, tameness is a process that occurs within an animal’s lifetime by which animals become less fearful of humans. A tame animal is defined as one that does not flee from humans. As animals become tame, the distance to which a human can approach before the animal moves away (flight distance) decreases.

This troop of monkeys has become less fearful of humans, so they are tamer than monkeys living far away from humans. Because they are less fearful, they can make good use of food sources close to humans-such as trash, human food, and food that humans feed them. Over many generations as the most tame breed and reproduce well, the genetic make-up of the population can change so that the monkeys are easier to tame and more tame early on than populations in the jungle.

Sophia’s Indonesia Trip, Day 3 (Sept 2009)

Impressive Hornbills

On day 3 of my Indonesia vacation and our first day on Bali, we stop and visit Bird Park. The park has the standard variety of parrots, most of which are also present at other zoos.  But they have a large collection of hornbills, which most other zoos do not. These large birds form monogamous pairs and live in tree holes and crevices. When the female is ready to lay eggs she builds a wall of mud and droppings to seal the opening and seals herself in. The opening is only large enough for the male to deliver food to her and the chicks. When the chicks are too large for the crevice, the female breaks out and both the male and female find food for the chicks. The female may stay in the crevice for up to 100 days!

One impressive characteristic of hornbills is the heavy, powerful bill, which they use for capturing prey, breaking open fruit/nuts (hornbills are omnivorous), building the nest, and fighting. All hornbill species have a hollow structure called a casque on the top of their beak. In most species with large casques, the casques have hollow openings and may serve as a resonator or amplifier for their vocalizations. One hornbill species, the rhinocerous hornbill, has a more solid casque, which it uses while fighting during flight.

Rare Cassowaries

Here’s a cassowary, which is a flightless bird related to the ostrich (from Africa) and emu (from Australia). They have feathers but these feathers lack barbules, the part of feathers that act like a zipper to keep the pieces together. As a result, the cassowary feathers are soft and fluffy rather than holding their shape the way a flighted bird’s feathers do.

Cassowarys are solitary whereas ostriches and emus live in flocks. As breeding season nears, the female becomes more tolerant to males. Males court females by strutting in a circle around the female and calling to her in a series of loud booms. If the female likes the male she’ll form a pair bond and mate. The two stay together until the female lays eggs, which she places in a pile on the ground in a shallow nest made of leaves. Once the female has laid her green eggs, she moves on, leaving the male to incubate the eggs and look after the hatchlings. Like the female emu or ostrich, she may then find and breed with another male and lay another clutch of eggs. So the cassowary mating system is serial polyandry, meaning the female bonds and mates with multiple males in series.

The male cassowary sits on his nest for up to 2 months. Once the chicks hatch, he leads them to his regular feeding grounds and protects them. They may stay with him for up to 16 months before they disperse, which the male encourages them to do by chasing them off.

As an aside, this mating system is a little different from ostriches. Ostriches live in mixed age and sex groups. Males mate with numerous females who lay their eggs in a group nest, but they only pair with one of these females-who is called the major female for that nest. The major female’s eggs sit near the center of the nest, and she may roll the eggs of other females out of the nest. In the wild, females seasonally lay eggs every two days for about 4 weeks. The breeding seasons varies depending on geographic location. Clutches in the wild may contain 12-23 eggs from 3-5 different hens with up to 11 eggs from the “major hen.” Since birds lay eggs in additional nests, though, this count may be higher than noted. In captivity, domestic birds can average 70 or more eggs per season.

Humans Leaving Their Mark

As usual, humans have difficulty leaving things they way they found them. Here, humans have graffitied the fruit.

Overall Impression of the Park

While the birds and the actual park are beautiful here, the signs and educational shows are more about providing photo opportunities than providing information. If you really want to know about the different types of birds, look up birds of Indonesia before you come. Most of the information I’ve presented here is information I already knew or looked up.

While many parrot owners let these beautiful birds ride on their shoulders, most owners

specializing in bird or animal behavior as well as skilled bird trainers avoid letting them ride like this.

Even friendly birds can become aggressive and easily poke the closest thing to their beak. For instance, if the bird becomes angry or scared at another object it may redirect it’s aggression to your face (note the proximity of your eyes to the parrots beak). Or when a bird is trying to keep its mate from interacting with another individual, it frequently directs aggression towards its mate. Birds raised by humans may view their human as their mate and try to keep the human mate from interating with others.

Note: Stay tuned for more blogs by Sophia Yin on her Bali trip at www.AskDrYin.com/blog.