Puppy Love

So sleepy(/chin rest)!

According to the puppy's owner, "My beautiful puppy thought sleeping on the stairs was a good idea (our bigger dog does it) it proved to be a bit of a challenge though."

Puppy Love

What Pets Can Teach Us About Marriage



Do you greet each other with excitement, overlook each other’s flaws and easily forgive bad behavior? If it’s your pet, the answer is probably yes. But your spouse? Probably not.

In an article on PsychCentral, clinical psychologist Suzanne B. Phillips of Long Island University explores what our relationships with pets can teach us about our relationship with a spouse or romantic partner.

“What is interesting in my work with couples is that although couples may vehemently disagree on most topics, they usually both soften in manner and tone to agree that the dog, cat, bird or horse is great,” Dr. Phillips writes.

She argues that we all have much to learn from the way we love our pets. People often describe pets as undemanding and giving unconditional love, when the reality is that pets require a lot of time and attention, special foods and care. They throw up on rugs, pee in the house and steal food from countertops. Yet we accept their flaws because we love them so much.

Dr. Phillips suggests we can all learn how to improve our human relationships by focusing on how we interact with our pets. Among her suggestions:

Greetings: Even on bad days, we greet our pets with a happy, animated hello, and usually a pat on the head or a hug. Do you greet your spouse that way?

Holding grudges: Even when our pets annoy us by wrecking the furniture or soiling the floor, we don’t stay mad at them.

Assuming the best: When our pets make mistakes, we don’t take it personally and are quick to forgive. We give them the benefit of the doubt. Yet when our spouse does something wrong, we often react with anger and blame.

“The old expression ‘you get what you give’ may apply here,” writes Dr. Phillips. “Maybe you give something very positive to your pet that invites the unconditional love and connection that makes you feel so good. Maybe it has potential to enhance your relationship.”

(Happy 7th Birthday, Charlie!)

Bootylicious

Charlie's Valentine

"It's God backwards!"

(Clones of my mom and Charlie.)

Having Loving

Having Loving

Nicole Richie, Honeychild, and Foxxy Cleopatra



Ashley Tisdale's multipoo:
"Maui's face when I broke the news to her that I would be leaving for a month," the actress wrote when sharing this sweet shot of her pup. "How are u supposed to say goodbye to that??"



Heidi Montag, (top to bottom) Dolly, Ninja, and . . . not sure who that little guy is, but he's the cutest!



Kellie Pickler and Pickles



Lauren Conrad and her Chloe both donning shades



Lindsay Lohan's Chloe wearing Chloe

"Who's My Good Doggie?"

Hungarian researchers reported in a study last year that a guide dog for a blind and epileptic person became anxious before its master suffered a seizure and was taught to bark and lick the owner’s face and upper arm when it detected an onset, three to five minutes before the seizure. It is still somewhat mysterious how exactly dogs detect seizures, whether it’s by picking up on behavioral changes or smelling something awry, but several small studies have shown that a powerful sense of smell can detect lung and other types of cancer, as the dogs sniff out odors emitted by the disease.

Beyond these perceptual abilities, in which trainers can use the dogs’ natural instincts, some research has examined dogs’ actual cognitive ability, and found not just good doggie, but smart doggie.

“I believe that so much research has come out lately suggesting that we may have underestimated certain aspects of the mental ability of dogs that even the most hardened cynic has to think twice before rejecting the possibilities,” said Stanley Coren, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia and an author of several books on dogs.

Dr. Coren’s work on intelligence, along with other research suggesting that the canine brain processes information something like the way people do, has drawn criticism. And there is good reason. For most of the last century the specter of a horse named Clever Hans hung over anyone who tried to prove that dogs were acting in thoughtful ways — not merely mimicking or manipulating people into believing that they in fact grasped human concepts.

Clever Hans was said to be able to count, make change and tell time by tapping his hoof, until investigators in the early 1900s learned that Hans was merely responding to his trainer’s body language, tapping when the trainer nodded his head. This provided an enduring example for those who believed thought was the exclusive domain of humans.

But in 2004, German researchers reported that a border collie named Rico could learn the name of an object in one try, had 200 objects in his repertoire and remembered them all a month later, all very human. Even skeptical animal behavior researchers found the Rico results impressive and sound. Is it possible that Rico turned the tide on the Clever Hans problem, even though there is debate about how we can reliably measure what dogs know?

By giving dogs language learning and other tests devised for infants and toddlers, Dr. Coren has come up with an intelligence ranking of 100 breeds, with border collies at No. 1. He says the most intelligent breeds (poodles, retrievers, Labradors and shepherds) can learn as many as 250 words, signs and signals, while the others can learn 165. The average dog is about as intellectually advanced as a 2- to 2-and-a-half-year-old child, he has concluded, with an ability to understand some abstract concepts. For example, the animal can get “the idea of being a dog” by differentiating photographs with dogs in them from photographs without dogs.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/weekinreview/01kershaw.html?em]

Sushi, Anyone?