4 ms·
>Dogs recognize people and can learn to interpret human emotional states from facial expression alone. I've always just mimicked my dog's smile by opening my m
by rl3 10y ago
>Dogs recognize people and can learn to interpret human emotional states from facial expression alone.
I've always just mimicked my dog's smile by opening my mouth wide. They seem to recognize and respond to that easier than an actual human smile, at least in absence of any vocal cues to work with.
In fact, the very last interaction I had with my previous dog was doing just that with the smile being instantly reciprocated, despite her severely labored breathing at the time.
>I remember making eye contact with Murphy moments before she took her last breath – she flashed me a look that was an endearing blend of confusion and the reassurance that everyone was ok because we were both by her side.
I had this exact same experience, up until whatever blue-colored fluid the vet injected my dog with seemingly hit the brain/CNS, causing her beautiful puppy dog eyes to suddenly flutter uncontrollably in the moment before death. The effect was rapid, but it had a certain unsettling violence to it that I didn't care for at all. God only knows what that shit felt like before it had fully perfused throughout the brain.
I suggest talking to your vet before any euthanasia and discussing exactly what they're going to use and how it works. If you have the money, opt for sedation that renders your pet gradually unconscious prior.
- beat 10y agoI once trained a totally deaf dog we were fostering. I taught him thumbs-up as "good dog", and everything just rolled from there. Years later, I still do thumbs-up gestures all the time. That dog trained me! (I'm glad we only had him for a week. Another week, and I don't think I would have been able to let him go! But we really couldn't have three full-time dogs then.)
- rl3 10y agoHah. Come to think of it, I usually give a thumbs up in conjunction with the aforementioned "dog smile". Turns out the two gestures go really well together, or at least I think they do. Dogs probably think I'm an idiot. :)
- beat 10y agoWe've always trained our dogs with hand gestures rather than words anyway, so it made sense. I was really glad to help out Dusty! He was about a year old, a kind of misbred Australian shepherd that Aussie folks call a "lethal white". Lethal whites (a product of breeding two merle-colored Aussies together, 1/4 of which are like this) are often blind, deaf, or both. Dusty could see okay, but he was totally deaf. And being a herding dog, he needed a job. He wanted so hard to be a good boy, to contribute some how, but had no idea what to do. (He had been rescued from a dangerous domestic violence situation, where the owner's boyfriend hated that stupid destructive dog of hers.) He was able to move on to his next fostering knowing how to sit, lay down, and stay, and how to be taught more. It was amazing to teach him! It was like Helen Keller come to life in my house.
- beat 10y agoOh, and your dogs probably think you're a genius!
- jotux 10y agoMy wife and I joke that our two dogs taught us to howl when firetrucks go by with their sirens blaring. We catch ourselves howling in the car, by ourselves, when a firetruck passes.