Today's Great Accomplishment

Today, my neighbor's dog Callie wandered up the hill from her home in the valley below.  I generally like all dogs, and usually know all the neighbors' dogs (even if I don't know the neighbors, in which case I assign the dog a name.  I do know this neighbor, though, a fine older gentleman and the owner-operator of a log-hauling semi).

Now, Callie loves to play fetch.  So, I got a stick and threw it for her several times.  My own dog, Buck, was there also, but Buck never learned to play fetch.  I tried to teach him more than once over the years, but he would just watch the stick fly through the air and then look at me.  "Oh, well," I thought, "I guess he's just not interested."

Callie sure was interested, though.  She was running after the stick, biting the stick, and growling fiercely when I'd try to take the stick back from her.

Then one time I threw the stick through the air and Buck went chasing after it!  I'd never been able to convey to him what I wanted him to do, but watching Callie he had suddenly worked out the rules of the game.  Once he understood, he played with the same enthusiasm she has always shown.

There's the Order of Reason at work for you.
I never know that anyone is "thinking," except insofar as they can communicate something to me that reminds me of the internal process I identify by the work "thinking."
The lower animals are limited by the lack of language, and so they have a lesser access to the order than we have.  Yet to see one observe a game and learn its rules, across species?

10 comments:

E Hines said...

I wonder if Buck will like to play fetch tomorrow.

And whether Callie's presence or absence will influence that.

It may be that Buck has understood the game all along, but merely disdained it until he saw Callie's enjoyment.

Eric Hines

E Hines said...

Or saw your enjoyment of Callie's enjoyment.

Eric Hines

Grim said...

If he merely disdained the game, it is enough that he understood the rules. I'll let you know, though, if he still wants to play tomorrow.

Grim said...

Turns out he does still want to play. I had my wife test it, so as to remove both myself and Callie from the equation.

E Hines said...

Cool. Now to sort out when Buck learned the rules.

That would be for curiosity's sake, though; as a practical matter, the outcome only matters when he's ready to chase sticks at all.

One set of rules he clearly learned yesterday, though: either he learned the rules of the stick game, or he learned the effect the game has on the pleasure of his human pets.

Eric Hines

E Hines said...

Or Callie taught him the rule of not being unnecessarily stand-offish.

Eric Hines

MikeD said...

Heck, both my cats play fetch. I think as soon as they work out that the fun is extended if they bring the toy back to get thrown again, they'll continue to do so.

E Hines said...

My cats tell time. They get a treat precisely at 9pm (sometimes as late as 9:05). They start gathering for their treat at around 8:30, and they start actively pestering us in the range 10 min 'til to those 5 mins past, and never sooner than that.

The pets that own us aren't all that dumb, or ignorant.

Eric Hines

Texan99 said...

So much fun to watch the lightbulb come on -- especially when it's something benign, and not "dog scientists pondering the mystery of the doorknob."

E Hines said...

Speaking of near-sighted scientists, I ran an experiment in college that required my rats to learn a fairly complex behavior and to stabilize in their performance of that behavior before I could start collecting data. My prof assured me that the behavior was entirely too complex, and I'd never be able to get my rats to do that.

I achieved the required stability in about two weeks by breaking down the behavior into its discrete steps and teaching the rats first the last step, then the next to last step, and so on. The first step in the required sequence was the last one taught. With each lesson, then, the rats graduated to a familiar sequence that they knew ended in a treat.

The prof had never thought of teaching behavior backwards.

In truth, neither had I. The light had gone on for me from an obscure book I'd read in high school.

Eric Hines