Hot August Knights: This month's special - Fantasy/SciFi 1.29/lb.
Power of the Dog: Things Your Dog Can Do That You Can't
by Les Krantz
First of all, you should know that my dog can write this column better than I can, so if there is an abrupt improvement in substance and stylistic quality, you’ll know he’ll have broken his restraints, tied me down, and taken over. Now that’s your Power of the Dog: Things Your Dog Can Do That You Can't personified… er, perdogifed perhaps. With that disclaimer of sorts out of the way, I’ve always been personally fascinated over the years by my various pet dogs’ visible prescience before earthquakes and tremors strike, and marveled over the abilities and discipline of my sister’s seeing-eye dogs. Intrigued by television shows I’ve seen devoted to canine intelligence, I’ve also been impressed as border collies demonstrate their razor-sharp herding abilities, or a mutt that unexpectedly revealed self-expression through abstract, logic-based backyard “art” projects with toys, or various breeds varying levels of rational thought in controlled experiments and games. And that Mr. Peabody – such a smarty-pants compared to his boy Sherman!
Of course, the dog’s advanced sense of smell and ability to hear is well known, explaining many of Fido's powers, but the canine’s mysterious “sixth sense” also comes into play, directing everything from its reading of human emotions to sensing lingering threats to their masters to finding their way home from afar. In Power of the Dog author Les Krantz catches up with scientific findings and explores the amazing sensory and intelligence-centered capabilities of dogs, many of which are just being discovered, including detecting cancer and low blood sugar in humans, sensing imminent death, and even quickly picking up foreign languages. The latest research indicates dogs being able to do all these things naturally, and with training carry out other achievements at a level exceeding humans or high-tech equipment. Krantz’s accounts are accompanied by well-researched elucidations by some of the world’s leading canine behaviorists, zoologists, veterinarians, and scientists in many disciplines who have devoted their careers to learning “Things Your Dog Can Do That You Can't.”
Article comments