David Ian Howe
speaker
136 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard Jan 2025
David Ian Howe’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And a common theme I've noticed is that While a human is hunting, you and I could see a deer if it's against the wind. And we'll see it before your dog sees it. But if we don't see the deer and it's on the wind, a dog will either hear it or smell it first. So you can notice your dog perk up before you see something. And it's... We both complement each other's senses.
Like our sight is obviously much better as primates, but their scent and hearing is just exponentially better than ours. So with that in mind and just how social we are, I would imagine if they don't already understand pointing now, it's something that, you know, it's on the way there.
In the chemical sense, dogs can share. They release oxytocin, and we do as well when we pet them or when we interact. I can look at my dog right now and make that stupid sound. That's just your brain doing that because you... look at it like a baby or an infant. And that's that, you know, primate desire to care for that thing.
But in terms of like in history, the first dog burial that is like known is one in Germany at a place called bone over castle. And it's two humans and a dog buried together. And that would be not to say that's the first one, which is the first one we know of. But to me, it's like humans for a long time, aren't burying each other. until like roughly tens of thousands years ago, 100,000 years ago.
So when you start burying people, it's that idea of like, we're human, there's probably something after or whatever. And like, let's bury this person with culture and reverence. And like, that's a huge milestone in human history. When you're taking that idea and then passing it on to a non-human animal, that's like another step in human history. And the dog is the first one we do that with.
From a trailer park. Really? Yeah, I wanted a German Shepherd. I've always wanted a German Shepherd like that. I'd rather give it a good life, and I can, so I did. He is definitely... I've had a beagle and I've had a lab. He is like a domestic wolf more so than my other animals were. I used to think it was elitist when German shepherd people were like, you just don't understand the shepherd bond.
And now I fully get it. It's a different creature. Yeah.
He's so intelligent and smart and I can see him thinking and he'll like trick me sometimes until like I don't want him to get his bone or bring it outside because he'll, you know, bury it and come back in full of dirt. But like he'll hide it in his mouth a specific way or run back in the door to get it before I can let him out. But mainly my other animals or dogs always wanted to be pet.
They like loved it and like constantly on you. He's very autonomous and he only wants to be pet when he wants to be pet. But another thing too is that when I'm hiking or skiing, he like will run to the front of the group and then run to the back of the group and just patrol and kind of search. And at night, I really want to map this out and do some data on it because it's so fascinating.
But he'll find different spots in the house to sleep at night to get different views of each exit, but also I'm still in view. And my beagle didn't do that. She just slept in bed and snored. But he's just working. It's just so different.
No one's ever asked me that. It's a good question. So dogs are like a remnant artifact of the Ice Age to me. We still have from that time. We don't use stone tools so much anymore. We don't have to sell our hides and live in caves. But whether you grew up in Hong Kong in a high rise and have never gone to the forest, New York City... Central Park's all you got, things like that.
Or if you're like me here in Wyoming and I'm out in the woods with my dog and I can see if he hears something or he alerts me, we all share that piece of nature and dogs are just an artifact of our past that we still keep with us every day that hasn't changed.
Well, I mean, it's changed very much in terms of chihuahuas and wolves, but there's still a living, breathing predator that hangs out in our house with us and One other caveat with that, too, is if an alien came to the planet and just saw Coco the gorilla speak to a fox, and then the fox took out Osama bin Laden, it's such an absurd thing to think about. That sucks.
But yeah, it's fascinating. And I know my dog thinks and I know he like they can understand syntax in a sense. And like, want to go pee pee is like, it's like, yeah, he gets that. It's like several words, but he probably just hears pee pee.
Yeah.
Yeah. Higher latitudes. Obviously, there's a lot more dog and human interaction because of wolves being there, especially like in northern Asia, East Asia, Europe, and then the Basenji in Africa and all that.
But one thing I did learn that kind of interested me was dogs don't do well in the tropics, at least back in the day. So when the Americas were being peopled by the earliest Americans going down through the tropics of Mexico and Nicaragua and all that, the dog population kind of just stops for a while. And the Inca at some point eventually have dogs.
In Southeast Asia and in Central America, there's a bottleneck of less dogs because they just don't do well in the tropics back then.
Too hot. And I think diseases like drinking out of ponds and stuff might have too many bacteria or parasites and things. Because humans can boil the water, but dogs can sneak off and still drink it. And that might be the case.
Whether there is science to support the idea of co-evolution between humans and dogs. Thanks so much. Bye.
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