Baloo

Nohweh,

Thanks for the bump - I had given up on the thread as one that had digressed beyond reasonable discussion... what a relief to see the tides turned.

RW,
First, my gratitude for a level-headed response to my post in what appears to be an exceedingly "angry" thread.

Your rebuttal to my analysis of the event is little reason for pause, as it simply demonstrates a very common behavior in animals (and people): sensory focus. Essentially, when a certain type of sensory input is cause for alarm, an animal becomes extremely focused on it, disregarding all other existing, extraneous noise. No need to even talk about pets here; I'll wager even you do this ALL the time. For instance, if you are listening to the t.v., even very LOUD (maybe at about the same noise intensity as a yelling child ten feet away), and you think you hear somebody knock at a door, you may notice that you become entirely focused for a soft rapping sound, tuning out the blaring t.v. right in front of you (in fact, trying as hard as you can to block out the sound of the t.v. entirely).

Back to the dog. If the child had been running behind the dog for ten seconds or more, the dog would have already heard and catalogued the yelling voice/stomping feet as "non-threatening noise", loosely associated with the location/direction of a non-threatening child somewhere behind it. Lacking a sudden change in volume, pitch or tone, it would remain exactly that to the dog's ears.

As soon as it discerned the definitive threatening sound of the hornets, and as part of it's built-in defensive behavior, it would have done the same thing any of us would do - focussed all attention on the new, threatening sound.

Again, RW, I'm surprised that a pet owner would so easily miss such common animal behavior. When a stranger knocks on the door, how many times (or with how loud and strict a tone) do you have to repeat the dog's name before it "hears" you, and looks away from the new, strange, and maybe threatening noise. Does he "hear" you as easily as he would have 5 seconds before somebody knocked on the door? Hell, as I sit back and think of it, I can easily recall instances where any of the 7 dogs I've owned throughout my life has become so focused on an outdoor noise that I have literally walked right up behind them, repeatedly speaking their names, only to have them ignore my voice, and finally respond to my touch by wheeling around defensively before realizing it was me. This behavior is funny, it's cute, and it is common as hell.

If you feel that I am grasping at straws here, please let me know exactly what your dog did that anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of animal behavior would not have expected it to do. Or, please tell me why you would expect that a dog, reacting to a new and potentially malicious threat from somewhere in front of it, would continue to dedicate it's sensory input resources to monitor the location/direction of a non-threatening child running behind it.

{editted for grammar}

[ January 14, 2002: Message edited by: Baloo ]</p>

rainbow walking

Hi Baloo,
Sorry for the mix up in attributing your reply to the wrong person.

If I'm reading your latest correctly it sounds like you are saying that my dog, intent on the percieved threat of the hornets, lost momentary track of my whereabouts and was surprised by my approach, being under the influence of a heightened awareness made so by his probably hearing and sensing from this sound the nearness of the bees.

In every case that I have ever witnessed of a dog being surprised like this, (and I've seen this myself on a number of occasions, in fact, I use to play that game with my dogs trying to sneak up on them, especially when they're sleeping), in every case I've seen of this the dog would display two distinct behavior patterns that were absent from my dog that day.

1. They would always tuck their tails into a flight position between their legs.

2. They would always confront the source of their startlement in a flight position with their back to the danger looking over their shoulder and beat a hasty retreat for at least a dozen feet or more before turning full forward to face the challenge.

The only time I've ever seen a dog startled into a challenging position full face forward, attack ready, is when they were hemmed in with no room to manuever. Of course, I've never owned a dog that would be considered an attack dog like a rockweiler or doberman or german shepherd. I imagine some breeds would display different behavior under similar circumstances like these due to their breeding.

Baloo

Rainbow Walker,

You have, unintentionally I think, supplied the missing piece to your own puzzle.

First let me state that I still firmly stand by the fact that most dogs, when startled out of the right circumstances, will react in an aggressively defensive manner. 5 of the 7 dogs that I have raised or lived with have been labrador retrievers (a very docile breed), and two were docile to the fault of being lazy and boring. Yet, as I said earlier, and even in these two boring-but-loving labs, I have witnessed a momentary confusion in the placement of aggression, whereby they have felt threatened by one source but reacted defensive/aggressive when startled by an owner.

BUT..... You seem utterly unwilling to accept that your dog would exhibitted this common behavior; in fact, we're left with the impression that you had an reincarnated version of Lassie as a pet. And yet, as I said, you even supplied the answer to the puzzle as to why "Lassie" himself might have turned momentarily aggressive.

So, if the dog had no immediate options for maneuver, you would expect it to react aggressively, based on your own experience with dogs. So your dog was stopped and trying to place a threatening sound from the front. And suddenly it was rushed by an unidentified threat from behind. Since running directly away from the threat from behind was not an option, what maneuvers were left? Keep in mind, we're not talking about a dog who has time to look around and weigh out all of it's options. This dog is in a tense, blood-pumping, nerve-racked "Fight-or-Flight" mode, and the humming sound has eliminated the "Flight" option for any sudden "attack" from behind.

I'm starting to feel like the positions are reversing here. Usually, people who describe religious experiences are the ones who get to sit back and enjoy as the skeptics struggle to find a theory that fits all of the details of the stories. In this case, it's the opposite. You're describing your dog doing nothing more than behaving in a very dog-like fashion, from start to end, and trying to convince us (and yourself) that it was a religious experience - your only recourse seems to be clinging to the notion that you owned "wonder dog", a dog with so few innate, instinctual, aggressive reflexes, that it was impossible for him to have reacted with one, even if he felt "trapped" or "cornered".

Or am I missing something?

rainbow walking

Hello Again Baloo,
There are still quite a number of holes in your hypothesis.

1. You say that my dog was in a heightened state of alertness due to the buzzing of the bees being associated with danger and that this somehow acted as a wall preventing him from being able to flee from my approach which in turn caused him to spin and take a fighting position.

To begin with he could have easily darted in any direction. He wasn't limited to a forward motion of flight. The physical location of the hive was above his head so he was not obstructed by the hive physically.

In the second place, as I've said several times, he gave no indication of being aware of a hive or a single bee. Surely had his state of being been elevated to a flight or fight level by this alleged sound, even after he turned on me in surprised fear, we would expect his attention to return to the source of the percieved danger...yes? I would have expected him to at least growl or bark in the general direction of the hive. This just didn't happen which casts doubt on your hypothesis being true.

2. Your entire hypothesis rests on the assumption that my dog heard the buzzing of bees and asociated it with danger.

The problem with this assumption is twofold.

First, as I said earlier, I had watched my dog chase bees and even June bugs whose buzzing is much louder, so there's no precedent here for assuming that a buzzing sound would automatically trigger such behavior.

Second, bees only buzz when in flight. While it is likely there were many many hornets in the hive, we certainly wouldn't say they were flying around inside the hive. As I said in my testimony, after I stood there for about, (roughly guessing)30 seconds I came to the realization that I was just inches from the hive. I came to this realization based on the buzzing of a dozen or so hornets that had gathered around and behind me because my head was in direct proximity to the entrance of the hive such that I was blocking their path to the entrance.

This wasn't one of those instances where the hive was being swarmed by thousands of bees flying around it. It was relatively quiet.

So I have my reservations that your assumption of the "flight or fight" behavior having been activated by the sound of bees is viable. I can recall no behavior to evidence that my dog was even in such a mode other than the brief instant when he turned and stopped me in my tracks with his threatening behavior.

Your claim that he was startled by my approach because he momentarily lost focus of my sound effects, which were quite a few decibals above the natural sounds of the forest, is equally spurious as it tends to minimize the very narrow time frame within which this all unfolded and the fact that he was never more than ten or fifteen feet out front of me.

[ January 16, 2002: Message edited by: rainbow walking ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

BalooI think your speculation is VERY plausible. Even if it wasnt, there is still no reason to believe that God commanded the Dog to turn around and snarl at RW.

[ January 16, 2002: Message edited by: jaliet ]</p>

HelenM

I was going to respond to something you said jaliet but I think you must have deleted it

Anyway I think you said "our purpose is to be here as much as possible"

And I was going to say that there's a tension between living the longest possible life and living the best possible life - imo. 'Best' meaning most fulfilled/most enjoyable/most worthwhile - something like that which involves the best for you as well as the rest of the world

love
Helen

Ted Hoffman

Helen SorryI had posted on the wrong topic, but if youre interested, what I posted is here:
<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=56&t=000025" target="_blank">http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=56&t=000025</a>

I also mentioned that we should try to be as comfortable as we can and also enable everyone to achieve their full potential.
First, we must be alive, then the rest should follow.
This is what I had posted
"here as much as possible" simply means, we should strive to stay alive as much as possible, that means we shouldnt harm or kill each other etc.
What is good for mankind is what keeps mankind alive and comfortable.
I hope that clarifies your query?

[ January 16, 2002: Message edited by: jaliet ]

[ January 16, 2002: Message edited by: jaliet ]</p>

Amen-Moses

Wrong, a portion of the Hornets (or Bees or Wasps) are always on permanent air conditioning duty within the hive, they buzz, another portion will be either approaching the hive, leaving the hive, getting ready to leave the hive or communicating food source information to those waiting to leave.

All of these will also be buzzing, in fact I have never encountered a hive outside of winter months that is silent and my hearing is several thousands of times less sensitive than a dogs.

Amen-Moses

HelenM

jaliet, At first I thought you meant we should individually strive to stay alive but did you mean we should communally strive to stay alive?

The latter is probably more how I think because there are lots of ways individuals might stay alive that are not good for society in general

love
Helen

Baloo

And onward we go.

A valid objection, but one which requires the assumption that the dog had placed the menacing sound. My entire hypothesis is that the dog, unable to identify or locate the exact source of the sound, became still, tense, and very focused on the sound itself. If he didn't know where the danger was, how could he know where it was safe to run, execpt for the obvious, default solution (which is the way he came). Furthermore, you said yourself that he actually ended up stopping almost directly under the nest. This is yet another piece to the puzzle, supplied by you, as it would have sounded to the dog as though the hum could be coming from any lateral direction.

Except for slowing down as he got closer to it, stopping entirely as the sound reached its loudest levels, becoming focussed enough on it to forget your presense, and finally spinning and growling visciously at you due to an increased state of defensiveness. Pardon the incredulity, but honestly, what more could you ask for as far as indications go?

Interesting assertion. But, unfortunately, you've made it quite clear that you are not in a position to make authoritative statements on what people familiar with dog behavior would expect. Yes, I *would* expect the dog to continue to be nervous about the unidentified, potentially threatening sound... right up to the point that it felt the sound posed no threat. And there are few better ways to convince a dog that there is no danger than by having the dog's master, standing at ease, pet the dog, and do whatever else a young child might have done to comfort a dog that was cowering and nuzzling for forgiveness. You again supplied this piece yourself: "Only, the moment I stopped he started wagging his tail, dropped his head and approached me submisively so I tentavely began to pet him and he just sat down beside me wagging his tail as if nothing had happened. For another moment or two I just stood there petting him and looking around to see if there was a reason for his strange behavior."


Not to kick a dead horse here, but my entire point is that your interpretation of a simple sequence of events demonstrates an ignorance of animal behavior; thus, your expectations of what a dog would do are, to this discussion, moot. The dog perceived your ease with the new sound, and decided it was not dangerous; or at least that it was not dangerous enough to take precedence over asserting its submissiveness to the master it had almost attacked.

And the objections get feebler . A humming wasp nest is not the same sound of single buzzing insect (would you say that the sound of a crowded room of murmuring people is the same as the sound of talking to somebody on a phone, as long as that person talks loud enough?) Of course the dog was comfortable with individual insects! You have revealed that the dog had prior experience with individual buzzing insects. They are almost always harmless; thus, we would EXPECT your dog to have a level of comfort with that sound.

Let me put this into concrete terms for you. Unless your dog was familiar with the sound of a wasp nest, and had reason to feel that it was not threatening, it would react to it as it would react to any potential menacing hum or buzz in nature. So, three possiibilities: 1) Your dog was not familiar with wasp nests. 2) Your dog was familiar with wasp nests, and had been stung one or more times in their proximity. 3) Your dog was familiar with wasp nests, but had never been stung in their proximity. Only number 3, the least likely IMO, would exclude my hypothesis. Not only that, but his entire behavior lends a good deal of evidence towards number 2.


And, at this point, Rainbow Walking, your obections sink below "feebleness".

RW: Second, bees only buzz when in flight.
Wrong. Bees and wasps "buzz" when in the nest by beating their wings to circulate air through the nest, keeping it at a mild temperature. Haven't you ever watched the Discovery Channel?

RW: While it is likely there were many many hornets in the hive, we certainly wouldn't say they were flying around inside the hive.
In fact, based on the size of the nest, you estimated there were thousands of hornets in it. Many of which would be buzzing their wings to circulate air through the nest.


Rainbow Walker, I am rarely priveledged to have the chance to so irrefutably demonstrate the tactics of desparation in debate. Yours is amusingly obvious exaggerations of the story:

Originally posted by RW: I didn't even notice the nest just a few feet in front of me...Three more steps would have been disastrous if not fatal
Posted yesterday by RW: As I said in my testimony, after I stood there for about, (roughly guessing)30 seconds I came to the realization that I was just inches from the hive.
Hmmm...a few feet/three steps away conveniently becomes "just inches".

Originally posted by RW: the buzzing I was hearing was the sound of a half dozen hornets hovering menacingly around my head
Posted yesterday by RW: I came to this realization based on the buzzing of a dozen or so hornets...
6 hornets turns into 12 or so...

Not trying to be nitpicky here, but rather to point out to you that these "mistakes" really beg the question: if your story can become this exaggerated in just a few days, how much was your original story exaggerated over the past 40 years or so?

RW: This wasn't one of those instances where the hive was being swarmed by thousands of bees flying around it. It was relatively quiet.
Relatively quiet to human perceptions. So what?


RW: So I have my reservations that your assumption of the "flight or fight" behavior having been activated by the sound of bees is viable. I can recall no behavior to evidence that my dog was even in such a mode other than the brief instant when he turned and stopped me in my tracks with his threatening behavior.

What behavior did you expect as evidence, a signed statement from the dog that his nerves were on edge?

And finally, I don't know whether to laugh, or laugh really hard, as I read:
My amusement, of course, is derived from the fact that my hypothesis IS BASED ON: 1) the yelling/screaming child running ten feet behind the dog and 2) the short time span associated with this. Only when you remove these, is my explanation lacking.

And the little detail "quite a few decibals above the natural sounds of the forest" makes me wonder if you completely ignored, or have completely forgetten the very common examples I supplied which showed that dogs and people alike will ignore loud noises to focus on quiet ones. Should I repeat myself, give even more examples, or will you just admit that if your dog was focussed on the humming of the nest, he was most likely not paying attention to where you were.

Looking forward to your responses.

-Baloo