{"id":6826,"date":"2010-02-15T11:14:11","date_gmt":"2010-02-15T16:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=6826"},"modified":"2010-02-15T11:14:11","modified_gmt":"2010-02-15T16:14:11","slug":"canine-savagery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/canine-savagery\/","title":{"rendered":"Canine Savagery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"They say we shouldn’t anthropomorphize animals. We shouldn’t project onto their behaviors human motivations, so goes the advice; maybe we could develop a Maslow’s pyramid<\/a> for them without stretching too much, but it’d be a mistake to give them them an upper level labeled “self-actualization.”<\/p>\n

Still, you know, it’s hard — almost impossible — not to at least ask questions about mysterious animal behavior. Why are they doing X?<\/em>, What’s the survival or evolutionary value of Y?<\/em>, and so on.<\/p>\n

Given a red-rubber toy like the one shown here, and little crunchy treats wedged into the opening, a dog (they say) will of course attempt to get the treats out<\/em>. The act of figuring it out, and then executing it, can occupy (they say) a dog’s mind for long blocks of time.<\/p>\n

All this theory seems to work just fine with The Pooch in our household. What we can’t figure out is what, exactly, was the… hmm… the decision-making process which led to her particular solution. The solution goes something like this:<\/p>\n