Tails From Rainbow Bridge: Give Us The Treat!

Once again I have been studying the humans who study the dogs. No humans are more interesting than the ones who study us, and, except for weathermen and sports radio hosts, no one is wrong more than scientists who study dogs.

In an Emory University study of 13 dogs, researchers found that, when given a choice of being praised by their owners or receiving food, most of the dogs either preferred the praise or appreciated both equally.

Please, don’t get me wrong, we love the love.  There is nothing we crave more than our parent’s love.  But we want the damn treat.  We can get love anytime.  We can get love on the street if we are desperate.  But treats are rare gifts.  So give us the damn treat.

Think of it like this:  Someday the apocalypse will come.  You people will run out of food and have to hide inside from the crazy freaks ruling the streets.  We dogs will be able to slip in and out.  We will catch a large rabbit and bring it back to our house where you are starving.  We will start to eat the rabbit right in front of you.  You will say “can you please share that rabbit with me,” and we will say, with a full mouth, “no but you may have all my love.”

We don’t want you to substitute treats for love, but we don’t want you substituting loved for treats either.  Everything in balance.

Part of this study had to do with scanning our brains.  Stop scanning our brains.  There is not a hell of a lot going on up there.  There is the love part of our brain, the food part of our brain, the chasing vermin part of our brain, and the sleep part of our brain, and we are still using more of our brains than humans do.

We dogs need to concentrate on improving the part of the human brain that gives out treats and decrease the part of their brains that want to scan our brains.

Now humans, go give your dog a treat.