Survey Shows Dogs Think Their Humans Are 'Rock Stars'

So, on Tuesday I posted a (5-question) survey to determine whether personality traits (such as introversion and extroversion) reveal anything about a person to his or her dog.

I am pleased to say that 47 readers completed the survey, results have been tallied and I have a few findings to share with you today!

Let's start with question #1 (click image to enlarge):

Well, duh! You all ♥ your dog(s). Apparently, however, five of the respondents are too nice to admit that this was a dumb question. ;) Next!


Question #2:

People. Are you telling me there are dogs out there reading my blog who know the meaning of those big psychology words? Really? (You really must stop teaching your dogs those kinds of words. It's not right.)

Well anyway, although 100% of our dogs understand SOME words, though many are simple and typically involve food, one could infer that most dogs don't speak language and therefore, wouldn't have a clue how to classify, much less define, a human personality trait.

Now, if you look closely at the results, you'll see that 16 respondents wrote in "other," additional words that their dogs understand. Thankfully, none of them were beyond the repertoire of a 3-year-old. And because I know you're curious, I went ahead and put them all into a word cloud (via wordle.net) for you to see.

The larger the word in the cloud, the more occurrences. Not really any surprises here.
Note, however, that the "sh" (above the "d" in "outside") should actually be "sh*t." Yes, that's right. One respondent's dog knows the following phrase: "lose my sh*t," as in "[insert dog's name], if you don't stop, I'm gonna lose my sh*t!"

Frankly, I think cable TV words were highly under-reported on this survey. ;)


Question #3:

You might be wondering what the heck the relevance of this question is. So I'll tell you: Sometimes when one is eating assorted dark-colored jelly beans, one (who doesn't like black licorice) might mistake a black jelly bean for a brown, chocolate fudge one, and if so, this happens:

Image Source

And if that happens, your dog will pick up on your sadness and become anxious. Therefore, if you don't like black jelly beans, please try not to accidentally eat one in front of your dog.

This has been a public service announcement.


Question #4:

Of course you like weekends! (Unless you're that one person who replied "no," who, I'm hoping, was just being a smarty pants.)

By the way (smarty pants), this question was a test to see whether anyone might try to skew the results. Congratulations, you passed! ;)


Question #5:

Look, y'all, two real live rock stars did my survey!! Woot!

[with composure] Notice that answering "no" was not an option? That's because if you heart your dog (and you do), and you're reading this dog blog (vs. watching TV or shopping at Target, for example), YOUR DOG THINKS YOU'RE A ROCK STAR. Whether you can sing or not. Period.

Now, go forth and acknowledge your fan club(s)!

See you later!

Tigger Meets the PicMonkey (and I go bananas)

I just love PicMonkey (both the name and the place). I might have mentioned some of this before...

Anyway, I got some cool photos of Tigger the other day; I was outside looking at birds' nests and she was inside wondering what the heck I was doing outside. :) She even tried to touch me through the glass with her paw.

See?

I used the Urbane effect (at PicMonkey.com) on this one.
(Notice Eva's feet dangling over the edge of the bench in the background.) 

For this one, I used the Tranquil effect.

And for this last one, the Intrepid effect (the pollen on the window is not part of the effect).
(I think Tigger's actually trying to touch my face here. So sweet! Unfortunately, though, five seconds later, the dogs realized where I was and proceeded to shove her out of the way with their noses.)

Okay, that's all for today. 

Be sure to check back tomorrow evening for the survey results (speaking of which, you can still take the survey, if you haven't already)!

What Your Dog Thinks about Your Personality Traits - A Survey

So (as I was saying on the blog yesterday) according to a recent study of 1,000 people in the UK, a person's choice of dog breed might reveal something about that person's personality (for example, owners of Toy dog breeds tend to be open and agreeable).

Yeah, about that whole extrovert magnet thing we said before, we were wrong.
We're magnets for both extroverts AND introverts.

And although I can't refute the study's findings (well, at least the ones that don't apply directly to me), I certainly wouldn't bet the farm on them.

Nevertheless, I've been thinking today (thanks, in part, to the insightful comments left on yesterday's post) about this study's implications and why it's even relevant, and you know what?

I decided to ask Jon Farleigh and Dewi what they think.

(Okay, not really, but you can probably see where I'm going with this.)

So, I thought it would be fun to create a short (5-question) survey of my own to see whether our personality traits reveal anything (about us) to our dogs.

Have you got two minutes to lend your responses?

Click here if you can't see the survey.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

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Thanks! I'll post the results on Thursday! :)