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An Ode to a lop-eared
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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 RE: An Ode to a lop-eared (in reply to Ruphus)
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Which is usually the uninvolved expression right before he jumps straight into my face to place a fat, wet kiss right on my mouth. ( Yikes, how I hate that, and though me being provenly fast in reaction, the SOB will still succeed every other time again!)
I can´t put my finger on it ... It´s not just his smirk, not just his well-tempered and self-willed being ...
But it is as if there was a human spirit behind these eyes. Sometimes I am close to swearing there actually was.
Like when he absolutely responds to things just uttered for bull, things that a dog just isn´t supposed to grasp.
Or when he minds you talking to him like to a dumb animal, ignoring your calls and orders as if he wouldn´t understand, precisely until your return to talking normal and calmly.
Can´t exactly tell why, but this living being has hooked me on so bad, you would hardly believe how.
I only need to think of him, or watch his face while he stands in the yard looking up, or to postwork the photos above, for an irresistable smile to conquer my state.
Just can´t think of this creature without grinning throughout my scabbed ol´soul.
I am certain to even be screaming out loud in my dreams whenever the laughing stock is showing up there.
Can´t really put into words what I just posted about, but it remotely feels like Häagen Dazs´ swedish almond vanilla crunch, if any of you guys knows what that means. :O)
Thank you for your time!
Ruphus
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Date Oct. 22 2012 15:19:02
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: An Ode to a lop-eared (in reply to Ruphus)
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Your friend Charlie definitely has a range of facial expressions, Ruphus. I think many animals--dogs, orangutans, chimpanzees, and others--are capable of expressing their feelings and emotions through facial expression, as well as other means. I owned a female pet rabbit for eight years. Got her as a baby in Santiago, Chile, shipped her to Washington, DC for an assignment, and finally shipped her to Indonesia where she eventually died of old age. (Eight years is a very long life for a rabbit.) Her name was Chiquita, and she expressed joy when I would return home from work each day.
She loved classical music. When a violin concerto by Mozart, for example, would be playing, Chiquita would sit quietly near the stereo and have her eyes half closed, as if she found the music soothing. I know she did not understand and appreciate it the way we humans would, but it was pleasing to her in a way only a rabbit could experience. She would occasionally jump up on her hind legs and turn her head coquettishly, as if she knew she was "being cute." Chiquita was a joy to have around, and she brought much happiness to our lives. May you continue to be blessed with such fine companions.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Oct. 22 2012 20:24:34
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: An Ode to a lop-eared (in reply to Ruphus)
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Great photos, Ruphus! Thanks.
People tell us that the human capacity for empathy is so great that we project our own feelings onto our pets.
But our little Boston Terrier behaved in such human-like ways that we said, "He thinks he's a person." And I felt a communion with him like the one you describe with Charlie.
I thought my black tomcat had his shots before I got him. Apparently not. He came down with feline distemper when he was about 2 1/2 years old. The disease is often, perhaps usually fatal. My wife tended him like a baby and nursed him back to health. Ever afterwards he was intensely loyal to her. He seemed to recognize that our children, who came later, were hers, and was protective of them.
We moved to the country, on a place that was infested with rattleshakes. I killed one over five feet long, and skinned him on the carport just outside the breakfast room windows.
When Black Bart--named for the gentleman bandit--returned from his daily patrol of his twenty-acre domain, he smelled the scent of the snake in the house. He insisted that the children be corralled in plain view, then investigated the entire house. He required that every closet and cabinet be opened for his inspection. He thrust his head up into the chimneys of the two fireplaces.
Only after he had insured that the house was safe for himself, us and the children did he go to each of us and rub his face against our legs. Then he ate his dinner, which had been available the whole time.
Bart was not as expressive as the Boston Terrier, but he clearly experienced some of the same emotions we did. It seemed clear he was concerned for our safety as well as his own. Projection? Maybe. But I thought about it a lot at the time, and didn't believe it was.
You're lucky to have the dogs, Ruphus. Your care for them is being rewarded.
Scratch their ears once for me.
RNJ
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Date Oct. 23 2012 2:17:43
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: An Ode to a lop-eared (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: edguerin
Actually, dogs have many more (albeit subtle) facial expressions than we do ...:)
Is that your personal impression, or confirmed in latest of research?
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
That is a great dog Ruphus. And nice pictures of all of them. I would not be surprised if you sneak up on him in the yard if he were reading Dogstoyevsky.
Dogstoyevsky, hehehe! :OD
- A more slim read like say "50 ways to steal Hermanns chewing bone" wouldn´t surprise that much. :O)
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
You old softie. 
Probably.
All those decades with quite of manly harriers ( and the occasionally silly who despite hefty resistance would insist on me being a macho ), only to notwithstandingly remain an oversensitive buttercup inside.
- Not even my old lady would had thought.
She used to eye me as sorts of grunting, club swinging vandal.
quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
She loved classical music. When a violin concerto by Mozart, for example, would be playing, Chiquita would sit quietly near the stereo and have her eyes half closed, as if she found the music soothing. I know she did not understand and appreciate it the way we humans would, but it was pleasing to her in a way only a rabbit could experience.
Which advocats music as the universal conveyer. Potentially not only reaching aliens, but obviously cows ( higher milk production when exposed to waltz music ) and even better growing plants.
... Who knows: Maybe music benefits a vital aura of the way Reich described the orgon.
For intellectually it just can´t be that rabbits and even plants would appreciate systematics of music; can it.
Then again ... Who really knows.
quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
She would occasionally jump up on her hind legs and turn her head coquettishly, as if she knew she was "being cute." Chiquita was a joy to have around, and she brought much happiness to our lives. May you continue to be blessed with such fine companions.
Cheers,
Bill
Thank you, Bill!
I have observed that reflection of cognitive demand many times. And every time you got to wonder where from the animals appear to sense one´s grading of cleverness.
Actually science would already start with the wondering about unexpected, sensed instances of "me" and "they", let alone about adaption of cognitive rank.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
People tell us that the human capacity for empathy is so great that we project our own feelings onto our pets.
But our little Boston Terrier behaved in such human-like ways that we said, "He thinks he's a person." And I felt a communion with him like the one you describe with Charlie.
I know what you mean, beyond the common self-conception with separated puppies within imprinting period of first 12 weeks. ( Who will then involuntarily be deeming themselves human beings.)
Sometimes their observation and associative skills superceed our sober estimation of theirs by far.
Unlike the opposite way around when in place of empathical capacity human´s limited associative skills will result in into misinterpretation and -treatment of animals. ( Among other with penalizing / beatings under assumed precondition of intentional disobeyance, and more stupidly even moralistical preconditions of deceive and stealing, etc.)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
I thought my black tomcat had his shots before I got him. Apparently not. He came down with feline distemper when he was about 2 1/2 years old. The disease is often, perhaps usually fatal. My wife tended him like a baby and nursed him back to health. Ever afterwards he was intensely loyal to her. He seemed to recognize that our children, who came later, were hers, and was protective of them.
It reminds me of a wildcat that had been run over by a car and then picked up and cared for by a friend of my mother. The greatfulness of that animal was sheer unbelievable and again contradicting the species abilities assigned by science.
- Years later, I got one of her kids ( a black tomcat too). He became the far superiour king of the quarter, used to pick me up from school, and was one of a kind anyway.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
Bart was not as expressive as the Boston Terrier, but he clearly experienced some of the same emotions we did. It seemed clear he was concerned for our safety as well as his own.
I think to have mentioned that one cat of my cousin. He used to furiously protect one cat and three dogs ( two of them German shepherds ) against any invader including big dogs.
How on earth do they forget to have evolutionary emerged for simply catching small rodents, birds and for roaming the woods and deserts solitary?
Not enough; my tomcat understands it when I once in a while just can´t withstand and kiss him on his forehead ( with him voicing an incredibly sweet tone exclusively then ). And about a year ago, it was scientifically confirmed that cats will indeed comprehend this human exclusive gesture.
How do thelike special skills occure with a species meant to live trivially spare of such?
quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
Projection? Maybe. But I thought about it a lot at the time, and didn't believe it was.
Exactly the same here!
quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
You're lucky to have the dogs, Ruphus. Your care for them is being rewarded.
Scratch their ears once for me.
RNJ
Definitly will! :O)
Ruphus
PS:
One more visual example of same session.
Looking at the consequentially captured pictures below: Could this ever be Descartes´automat looking at you ( hence the kind of creatures billions of people still think to be dealing with);
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
 Attachment (1)
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Date Oct. 23 2012 10:37:29
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