Robot Funerals Are Going to the Dogs

Aibo, the robotic dog, is terminated.

"Aibo" is a homonym of a Japanese word for "pal."

He was launched with great fanfare in 1999, selling for about $1000. He could see, hear, respond to commands in Japanese, English, and Spanish. He was able to learn, able to express his "emotions" and even to lift his leg while making what one owner described as "an indescribably beautiful tinkling sound," something which, as far as I know, has never been said about the sound of a flesh-and-blood dog's peeing.

Aibos competing in the 2005 Robocup held in Osaka

About 150,000 Aibos have been sold. But in 2006, Sony stopped making them  In 2014 the company stopped repairing them, and now, as spare parts become unavailable, many of them are "dying."

This Aibo is still alive & feeling playful

In Japan, many Aibos who can no longer be repaired are being given funerals, with a priest presiding over the same ceremony that would be held for a dead pet, a prayer being said for the release of its spirit.

A Buddhist priest conducts a funeral for 19 robotic dogs in January

After the funeral, the robotic dog may become an "organ donor" for other Aibos in need of repair.

A "dead" Aibo is placed on the altar prior to its funeral

My husband thinks this is something that would only happen in Japan.

Not so.

Americans (and maybe others) serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, mourned and often held funerals for their robots who were "killed" in action. In 2013, a MARCbot named Boomer was given a send-off with full military honors, including a 21-gun-salute. He was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his "heroism."

This pak-bot was named Scooby Doo

Human beings are not the only animals that can grieve. Koko, the gorilla who became famous for learning to express herself with sign language, grieved over her first loss, a kitten that she had selected and named. More recently, she grieved over the death of Robin Williams, one of the many humans for whom she felt friendship.

Koko and her kitten, All Ball (She named him herself)

As dog owners, we know that dogs can feel grief, both for the loss of their owners and for the loss of dog companions. Sometimes, they grieve for years.

Bailey refused to leave his owner's grave for 10 years.

Personally, I think that any animal capable of feeling love can also feel grief.

But we may be the only animal that could mourn for a robot. I agree with Andrew Brown, who wrote in The Guardian a few days ago that "to mourn a robotic dog is to be truly human."

We are probably the only animals who can identify ourselves with almost anything: It doesn't matter whether it's a person, an animal, a robot, a fictional character, or even a concept. We can make it a part of ourselves; we can feel its pain; and we can grieve for its loss.

We can cry for our own lost pets and for pets we never knew (My husband and I both cried when reading One Dog At A Time about dogs in Afghanistan) We can cry for fictional pets like Old Yeller. And we can cry for any one or any thing that matters to us.

We grieve because we love. What we love--what we identify as part of ourselves--we will care for and protect to the best of our ability. That's a good and hopeful sign for the future.

funeral for 19 Aibos on January 28
Do Aibos have souls?
press release for launch of Aibo in 1999
history of Aibo
history of Koko
Elephants grieve like us
Elephant Tarra & dog friend Bella
helping a dog deal with grief
Bailey stayed by owner's grave
robot hall of fame

Smiley, The Blind Therapy Dog

Smiley is in the news a lot right now. I've found dozens of articles about him without even looking.

The beginning of his story is a sad one. As the product of a puppy mill, he was practically guaranteed to have health problems, And he did. Not only was he born without eyes, but his physical proportions were wrong. His chances of survival were pretty slim.

Smiley

He, along with 10 other puppies, was rescued in 2004 by Joanne George, who was a veterinary technician at the time, and is now a professional dog trainer near Toronto.

Joanne George and Friends

This is what she has to say about him on her website:

 "Smiley came to me in 2004 - he was about  1 or 2 years of age and had been born without eyes.   He had lived his life in the puppy mill where he had been born.   He was extremely destructive and had zero housetraining.  He was nervous and had many anxieties about coming into a home.  He cowered at the sound of another dog eating - the scars on his face and ears told me the stories of what it was like living with so many dogs in such deplorable conditions.  

Smiley was the one who changed my way of training.  He did not know one verbal command - I communicated only through my energy to him.  He did not see my body language - he used his nose and his keen sense of hearing to get around.  His best teacher was Tyler - a young, boisterous partially deaf Great Dane.  Life was grand to Tyler - and soon enough that rubbed onto Smiley.  Whatever energy you give off ... your dog picks up on it.  

Smiley now accompanies me to clients homes to assist in certain cases.   He is certainly inspirational to everyone he meets including Cesar Millan - Smiley joined Cesar onstage at 3 of his live performances.  He continues to tell Smiley's story at all of his shows across the world - and the message is "it doesn't matter where,  or how a dog starts off his life - he is able to overcome and become a stable, happy dog" ... for dogs do not dwell on the past - they only live in this moment.  

Smiley is now a certified therapy dog. He works mainly with children, especially those who have disabilities of their own

Helping a child to read

I feel inspired just by reading about her, Smiley, and the many children she has helped with her volunteer work. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/12/smiley-blind-therapy-dog_n_6848866.html

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2015/03/13/blind-therapy-dog-winning-hearts-millions/

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/blind-golden-retriever-smiley-warms-hearts-therapy-dog/story?id=29533746

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/13/a-dog-born-without-eyes-sees-something-in-children-with-special-needs/

Are dogs capable of revenge? Yes! according to this story from China. Is there any other evidence?

It's a feel-good story that seems to be capturing the world's imagination.

It happened in Chonqquing,China a couple of days ago.
The car's owner found a dog sleeping in his favorite parking spot, so he kicked it.
The dog ran away.
A short time later it returned with several friends and together they proceeded to trash the car.

They dismantled the windshield wipers

One stayed on lookout, while the others bit the fenders and the hood.

A neighbor took photographs.

It was all caught on camera.

This actually surprised me. I've always felt that dogs shared many human traits. But it had never occurred to me they could and would plot revenge on someone who wronged one of their number.

So I did a Google search for instances of either revenge or vandalism by dogs, wolves, or coyotes.
This same story about the dog kicked in China turned up dozens of times. I also found a Subaru ad, a fiction story about a wolf abandoned by her pack, a Cherokee legend, and The Grey, a movie about relentless wolves,

I didn't find a single instance of real dogs seeking to right a wrong done to them.

I then did a search for instances of dogs damaging cars. I found instances of people damaging their cars by running into a dog. I found an instance of a dog pulling up the stake to which it was tied and denting the neighbor's car door with it. I found several more mentions of the dog kicked in China. I found lots of ads for comprehensive & liabilty car insurance.

But no deliberate dog vandalism of cars.

Aston damaged by border collie

Next I tried Google Images, where my luck was a bit better. A border collie mix who chewed the wheel arch of her now ex-owner's Aston Martin was pictured, as was a car damaged by pit bulls trying to get at a kitten hiding in the engine compartment

The offending border collie

So dogs have definitely been known to damage cars.

Then I did another search: this time for dog vandalism. I found a story from April of 2014 about a mystery vandal who had been puncturing dozens of car tires over a period of six months. When one of the victims set up a camera, the criminal turned out to be a border collie (again!). This dog might actually have had a reason to dislike cars, as it had previously been hit by one. The video suggested that the dog might have been acting to protect its flock (other dogs?) as border collies are trained to do.

Jess looks exactly like my border collie, Caitlin!

I own a border collie myself. They are smart, focused, relentless, and intolerant of boredom. I wonder whether boredom might be a motive, at least for that particular breed.

I'm still not totally convinced about the revenge motive. Maybe it's true. Certainly if the man really did kick one of the dogs who trashed his car, he deserved what he got.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/dogs-take-revenge-on-man-who-kicked-canine-by-attacking-his-car-10102227.html
http://metro.co.uk/2015/03/09/angry-dog-gets-revenge-on-driver-who-kicked-it-by-biting-car-5095012/
http://www.dogster.com/the-scoop/man-kicks-dog-pack-attacks-car-china
http://elitedaily.com/news/world/dog-revenge-kicked-pack-bites-car-photos/963813/

Coyotes Among Us: Are We Paranoid Enough?

There are more of them.
They're getting bigger.
And they're getting more aggressive.

That, at least, is the general tenor of much recent news about them.

In January of this year, a San Diego woman was chased and bitten by a coyote while out on her morning run.  A few weeks later in the same neighborhood, a dog was attacked in front of his house by a coyote which the owner said was "the size of a German Shepherd."

A Fletcher Hills man saw a coyote staring hungrily at his Chihuahua through the window of his house. Numerous other people have reported their small dogs being snatched as they walked with their owners, and in one case, inside the owner's house.

Much more frightening was an attack on January 14 in Ladera Ranch, Ca.,  by a coyote who targeted a mother and her 14-month-old daughter. As they were playing on the grass near their home, the coyote began circling them and then lunged at the child. The terrified mother was able to fight the coyote off and back away into her house. Fifteen minutes later her husband heard screaming outside and tried unsuccessfully to intervene as the same coyote killed the first of two dogs who were apparently next on his menu if he couldn't have the baby.

Although Ladera residents were apparently familiar with that particular coyote, efforts to trap it have so-far proved unsuccessful, as have efforts to locate the coyote responsible for the San Diego attacks.

Coyotes in San Diego have been a threat to cats and small dogs for as long as I've lived here, but with rare exceptions, they were timid and furtive around humans, and would run from any dog bigger than themselves.

Now, however I'm seeing news reports of single coyotes attacking big dogs like golden retrievers and pointers. On March 6, CBS news in Stamford, Ct. reported that 4 large dogs had been attacked within a single week.

A Shepherd mix named Kylie being chased by a coyote

Kylie, the dog in the photo above, got away with only minor injuries, as did the other dogs who were attacked. Police surmised that this year's especially hard winter may be forcing the coyotes to prey on animals that they wouldn't normally dare to attack. Or maybe they see them as threats to their territory.

Last November 18, a New Hampshire coyote attacked a woman and her Chesapeake Bay Retriever in their back yard. The dog fought the coyote off until her husband came to their rescue. He said the coyote stood its ground even when he fired shots at it, running away only when the man went after it in his pickup.

Mack, the New Hampshire dog who fought a coyote in his own yard

California, and Southern California in particular, reports more Coyote attacks on humans than any other state or Canadian province. The graph covers the years 1986 - 2006.

In fact, looking at this graph, it would appear that we have as many or more than all the rest put together.

What to do about it?

Killing them doesn't work, They just breed faster and get sneakier.
Relocating them doesn't work. New coyotes just move right in..
Trapping them, besides being difficult, costly, and inhumane, often kills pets instead of coyotes.

Some ideas that might work can be found on the Humane Society website (See links below)

Or for about $30 you can buy wolf urine from the Predator Pee Store, whose motto is "bringing pee to the people since 1986" Wolf pee, apparently is very, very scary if you're a coyote.
   

Amazon carries it, too. I haven't checked out other sources.

On an almost completely unrelated note, I have discovered that maned-wolf urine smells exactly like marijuana. Apparently the pee contains an organic compound called a pyrazine that protects the wolf from developing stones in its urinary tract, as well as enhancing the aromatic potency of the pee. (Unrelated because I don't think maned-wolf pee is what you get if you buy wolf pee as a coyote repellent.)

In spite of all the bad news (and also personally losing 2 cats to coyotes), I can't help liking and admiring them. They are clever and adaptable, wild and beautiful. We humans are taking away their territories and their means of livelihood, and yet they persist and even thrive,  I think we'll have to learn to live with them.

Check out the YouTube video (link just below) of a coyote biting a man's boot. The coyote is gorgeous, and the man he was harassing obviously thought so, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqVE9qfg7yI


http://www.10news.com/news/woman-bitten-by-coyote-while-jogging-in-kensington-01212015
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/feb/01/san-diego-urban-coyote-bite/
http://www.inquisitr.com/1756135/coyote-goes-after-mother-and-baby-before-killing-two-dogs-in-suburban-rampage/
http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/coyotes/tips/against_killing_coyotes.html
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/03/06/coyotes-seen-going-after-large-dogs-in-stamford-connecticut/
http://stamford.dailyvoice.com/police-fire/wild-coyote-attacks-three-large-dogs-north-stamford-police-warn
http://www.indystar.com/story/life/2015/03/09/protect-pets-coyotes/24665085/
http://www.10news.com/news/coyote-attacks-on-pets-on-rise-due-to-pupping-season-01272015
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_attacks_on_humans

http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/coyotes/tips/coyotes_people.html

   coyote hazing: http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/wild_neighbors/coyote_hazing.pdf

http://www.desertusa.com/animals/coyotes-and-people.html

http://www.necn.com/news/new-england/New-Hampshire-Dog-Fights-off-Coyote-Attacking-His-Owner-283117241.html

http://www.mymuskegonow.com/news/coyote-attacks-on-larger-dogs-becoming-unusually-frequent-b99287445z1-262428791.html
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74135.html (lists plants coyotes like)

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/feb/06/environment-coyote-nuisance-wildlife-trapping/
http://sduptownnews.com/coyote-presence-puts-south-park-on-alert/
http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/wildlife/template-coyote-management-plan.pdf

http://predatorpee.com/?gclid=CNqTs86io8QCFY-HaQodSBMASA

http://www.actionbioscience.org/biodiversity/shivik.html
http://www.thesmokersclub.com/blog/maned-wolf-urine-smells-exactly-like-pot-prompts-police-visit-zoo/
http://www.wired.com/2011/03/maned-wolf-pee-demystified/