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I just saw this video on the news of a dog attacking a police car. The report said the officer had been monitoring speeds nearby with his radar. Anybody with dog physiology knowledge know if it's possible that these animals were reacting to the signal of the patroller's radar gun?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O89P4UwDVso
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I saw that on CNN earlier today, but it had a bit more coverage.Originally Posted by Polyrealastic Observer
At one point, it seemed like the dog (actually 2 of them) was satisfied with the bumper for a moment until he noticed the cop leaving.
So; this makes me think that it's more a case of "big chew toy" than attacking the signal. I'm thinking maybe a smell of something on the bumper.
On another note, I know my canines get somewhat sensitive with ice cream.
Established Member
A Google for "dog chases car" gets 3 million hits.
So one chases a police car?
This demands a completely illogical and unlikely cause?
No.
John
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Hence the question mark at the end of the sentance. It wasn't an assertion. I feel belittled for asking the question. A simple "no" would have done nicely. Thanks for the call to the vet to eliminate such a preposterous notion guys, as I don't have one.
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Many dogs are quite fond of donuts.
Last edited by DrRocket; 2010-Apr-02 at 11:16 PM. Reason: correct spelling
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Some electronic gadgets emit a high-pitched sound. Sometimes it's audible to some people and not to others, because its pitch is at that edge where it's too high for some to hear but not for others. Usually, if a particular gadget's electro-squeal is loud enough and irritating enough to enough people (or the right few people), people do something about it such as fixing it, muffling it, or not using it. But if it's really loud only at a pitch that's just a bit too high for anybody to hear, then nobody would ever have done anything about it.
Order of Kilopi
Delvo certainly does have a point. Given the specialization of police, I doubt if a police officer assigned to traffic duty (checking for speeders) would also have a police dog in his car, so a radar gun that annoys a dog but not a person could be an issue. I do apologize for being excessively snarky to the OP, in that he|she may have been referring to the various whines and hums produced by electronics, vs the microwaves.
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Thanks swampyankee. Apology definately accepted. I posted this because of two things. First of all, the dogs really seemed to be fixated on the cruiser which wasn't flashing lights or wailing siren as far as I could tell. And I'm also one of those people that hears a squeel from electronics (granted, not high e.m. frequencies) that I can detect from 25 yards or so outside a house, where I can't possibly hear speaker broadcast. I thought something similar might be in action here. I've heard of future crowd control devices that rely on sub-sonic noises to make unruly crowds uncomfortable and break up. That was where I made the connection. BTW I got a chance to do some research and found out dogs can hear as high as 35 KHz (40 at higher decibel levels) but Ku band radars emit in the giga range, so, it couldn't Possibly be the interrogating signal. But it COULD still be squeel of the equipment.
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Poly,
You ask a question, I reply. Moreover I supply some reasons for my answer.
Which 'No' would not have done.
To further that reply, a further Google search for "Dog chases car" gets nine million hits.
"Stop dog chasing cars" gets 6 hundred thousand hits, as so many people have dogs that chase cars they want a cure.
A common event does not need an extraordinary explanation, just because the pursued vehicle was a police car.
Why are you 'belittled'?
John
Established Member
The tone I felt John (maybe not the one you intended), was that the question was assinine. I had already admitted to being unfamiliar with dog's hearing capabilities, and was asking if it was possible, considering they have abilities we don't. The animal I saw seemed to be highly agitated by the one particular cruiser, and I tried to postulate a source for the agitation. Maybe it was uninformed, but it WAS logical. And there was no demanding assertion, just idle speculation for discussion. I've since learned some things I didn't know. That's how I learn, by asking questions. I thought other people might have the same question and wanted to start the ball rolling on an answer from someone who had the knowledge close at hand while I did my own research. Isn't that what this forum is for?
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Perhaps there was some confusion concerning the question being posed. To me (and I think to JohnD) the OP looks very much as if we were being asked if dogs can detect radar (that is, short-wavelength radio waves). That would indeed be remarkable, and would require dogs to be issued with strange additional sensory apparatus.
But now it seems we're discussing whether dogs might be able to just plain hear high-frequency sounds emitted by electronics. That seems unremarkable.
(Perhaps dogs chase cars because cars emit high frequency sounds?)
Grant Hutchison
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Dogs are just selected wolves.
Wolves chase prey, sometimes a lot bigger than themselves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jXxtQRy47A
Sometimes smaller:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jXxtQRy47A
So should we be surprised if dogs chase cars, bicycles or even small model cars?
It's what dogs do!
John
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Huh? Me? Chase cars?
Banned
I think this was when the quarter-staff aka walking stick became useful as a baseball, or "wolf-heads" bat.
Same video. Scavengers?Sometimes smaller:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jXxtQRy47A
Absolutely!So should we be surprised if dogs chase cars, bicycles or even small model cars?
It's what dogs do!
John
Established Member
Sorry about the duplicated link. Won't bother to correct it.
BUT
[QUOTE=mugaliens;1707974]I think this was when the quarter-staff aka walking stick became useful as a baseball, or "wolf-heads" bat.
QUOTE]
What? Compared to a walking stick, a quarter staff is a WMD.
And what is a "wolf-heads bat", apart from a googlewhack?
John
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But we are talking about a dog that actually attacks the care severe enough to rip an entire bumper cover off.
That's a far cry from just chasing a car.
Ever here the joke: "I don't know why my dog chases cars, After all, what would he do with it if he ever actually caught one?"
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Speculative reconstruction:
The quarter-staff is sometimes said to have been an English outlaw's weapon: relatively easy to make, and less evidently a weapon than a sword or bow.
The English Writ of Outlawry included the phrase caput gerat lupinum: "let his be a wolf's head" (that is, treat him like a dangerous wild animal). So English outlaws were sometimes called "wolf's heads".
Hence, wolf's-head staff. (Nothing to do with hitting wolves.)
Grant Hutchison
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Many years ago, the moment I went through the door into a Radio Shack
store, I heard an annoying electronic sound. I told the manager that some
piece of gear must have a problem. He said it was the motion detector,
turned it off, and the sound stopped. It was the very end of the day,
just minutes before closing, and he said I was the first person to complain
about it that day.
My friend is able to detect police radar in the older, now less-used band.
(I forget which band is which.) It makes a tooth filling buzz. I have seen
him react and announce that a police radar was up ahead more than once.
Maybe that dog has a tooth filling!
-- Jeff, in Minneapolis
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/
"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"
"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves
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I just bothered to watch that video.
A number of comments:
1/ The dogs are NOT chasing the car.
2/ The car is slow moving, to and fro at walking pace.
2/ They (not just one dog) are pulling the plastic front bumper to pieces.
3/ They are enjoying it!
Compare the first two with the hunt. The pack has cut off a prey animal, which is at bay. It moves, back and forth, threatening and fighting off individual dogs, but soon it will be overwhelmed and all the pack close in.
Compare the second two with the final kill. Dogs and wolves don't posses the cutting carnassial teeth of some hunters, like lions, and they must, perforce, pull their prey apart. So grabbing and pulling is how they depatch their prey and then break it up.
I fear that anyone who finds this video extraordinary has never played with a dog. They LOVE that business where you give them one end of a toy and you have a tug of war. This is play, play that is based on ripping the prey to pieces.
Dogs can hear higher pitched sound than we can, and it may be that they can hear sounds from electronic appuratus.
But there is no need to propose anything other than dogness for this behaviour.
John
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Perhaps if the flimsy bumper put up more of a fight, the dogs wouldn't have enjoyed it so much. Kind of like when the little tear in the couch pillow gets started, you can bet that whole thing is going to get shredded.
Nothing strikes me as particularly odd in the video, besides some poorly trained dogs perhaps.
Established Member
Then I guess we have it. This must be the perfectly ordinary, widespread activity we all see dogs engaging in every day. Tearing isolated cars to pieces. Funny I never saw that happen before. Play toys wielded by humans jumps right out at me, had a Saint Bernard with a taste for coal truck tires I couldn't help noticing, but never caught the whole slew of bumperless cars that must be surrounding me. Call it a perceptual blind spot to miss something so mundane. I better go check to see if my car is still in one piece.
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If your car is missing, my dog may have eaten it.
Banned
Particularly in the hands of someone who knows how to use it! Which I think was probably a far greater percentage of the popluation 10,000 years ago than it is today.
A quarter-staff or its equivalent.And what is a "wolf-heads bat", apart from a googlewhack?
John
Here's an interesting quote:
Back to the OP topic of canine sensitivity, I don't know how the foxhounds do it, as foxes STINK! And I'm not talking about leaving "a scent." I'm talking about the fact that so far as our olfactories are concerned, they're more closely related to a ferret than a wolf or dog. Gah!It is a myth that wolves regulated fox numbers and that, with the loss of wolves, fox numbers increased. The best data on the impact of wolves on foxes comes from Isle Royale, a large island in Lake Superior, where wolf and fox numbers have been monitored for fifty years. Wolves do not reduce fox numbers, and in fact foxes benefit from scavenging on wolf kills. Wolves disappeared from England many centuries ago, but fox numbers remained low, so much so that large numbers had to be brought over from Europe in the 1800s to ensure an adequate supply of foxes for hunting. So there is no truth in the story that wolves regulated fox numbers in Britain and that, in the absence of wolves, they need to be killed to reduce numbers. - Source
They must have been bred to develop a built-in gag reflex supressor.
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PO,
I salute your irony!
Mugs,
Careful or we divert into fox hunting! Yes, a fox in the woods is sensed with the nose rather than the eyes.
John
Banned
Or the ears.
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They can be pretty quiet when they want to be.
And they can be pretty noisy when they want to be. Here is a very short little recording (40KB mp3) of a vixen in heat.
Grant Hutchison
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