Jan30PhoebeChickens I went through the picture in my head. Chicken number one climbs up the ladder onto a one-foot-wide platform, makes a 180-degree turn and tightropes across a narrow bridge to a second platform, where it pecks a tethered ping-pong ball, sending the ball in an arc around its post. The chicken then turns 180 degrees and negotiates a second ladder back down to ground level, where it encounters a yellow bowling pin and a blue bowling pin in random arrangement. It knocks the yellow one down first and then the blue one. Chicken number two grasps a loop tied

Question: Dr. Yin, I was wondering if you could offer some advice about dogs mounting other dogs. I have a 10 yr. old fixed Standard Poodle who gets very excited when he greets another dog and he ends up mounting the other dog. Male, female, big dog, small dog – it doesn’t matter. I would just like to know why he does this, and how can I stop it. Thanks for your time. Pennie Answer: Pennie, you’re not alone. Many neutered dogs perform this embarrassing social faux-“paw”, not because they’re being amorous or trying to dominate, but because they are

Question: The neighborhood feline has made our yard his personal litter box. We have to remove kitty poop almost every day and have unsuccessfully tried spraying the affected areas with a mixture of water and bleach to deter the fellow. Do you have any suggestions ? H. Wong of Contra Costa Answer: Whether it’s neighborhood dogs leaving landmines for your walking pleasure or cats graffittiing your house with their pungent yellow perfume, other people’s pets-and their owners who fail to manage them responsibly-can be annoying. Often it starts as a minor irritation—an occasional cleanup in your rose garden or a

“The client, an elderly couple, had a 6-year-old male, neutered Rhodesian Ridgeback that was aggressive to dogs” describes Dr. Jennie Jamtgaard, an applied animal behavior consultant and behavior instructor at Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine. “They had watched Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan and seen Millan place aggressive dogs in with his group of dogs and then hold them down on their sides or back if they were aggressive. So they brought their dog to the dog park and basically flooded him [immersed him in the aggression-inducing situation].” Not surprisingly, they didn’t get far. “The female owner was trying

On an episode of “It’s Me or the Dog,” a show on Animal Planet, British dog trainer Victoria Stilwell tackled the problem of a bull terrier that exhibited mounting behavior. The first solution was to send the dog for a time-out when he mounted. However, the mounting was so severe that the trainer finally recommended neutering, which solved the problem. This case raises two questions: What other behavioral issues can neutering help address, and what is the rate of success? In general, it would be expected that spaying or neutering most likely affects sexually dimorphic behaviors — those that are

Haicheng, China, 1975. A massive earthquake hits. Buildings are demolished, roads destroyed, but thanks to an evacuation several hours earlier, thousands, possibly tens of thousands of human lives are saved. The Chinese claimed they’d predicted an earthquake within hours of its occurrence. Their forecasting system: animals. This success sparked the interest of the U.S. Geological Survey. What were animals cuing in on? How did their detection systems work? Could answers to these questions lead to the development of a high-tech earthquake forecasting system? Dr. Benjamin Hart, a veterinary behaviorist at the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, was