Thursday, August 21, 2008

Why my dog is like a search engine without a taxonomy

5 comments :
This morning i asked my Townes if he wanted a biscuit- i forgot that he isn't the smartest dog in the world and that he can not make the automatic association that a biscuit is a cookie. (read: it really isn't that he is dumb just that he wasn't trained).

So i told him he was like a search engine without a taxonomy and then he looked even more confused. Then we made this video. he is a bit bored because it is the second take so the intial reaction is not 100% but hopefully you get the idea!

As humans we easily make associations between words- machine and dogs can't unless they are "trained".




He is a 4 year old Great Dane in case you are wondering

5 comments :

mcgee said...

Hi Daniela,

I know this is random, but I found your blog because I googled "when is pacifica the foggiest" and came across your flickr page, which then led me to your blog. I figured I would just say hello.

My boyfriend and I live and work in San Francisco with our three dogs, but are planning on moving to Pacifica. How is life down there with a dog?

Townes by the way is absolutely beautiful. I adore Great Danes.

- McGee

daniela barbosa said...

Pacifica is very dog friendly- or at least i have found that to be the case in the last three years since i moved here. (lived in NJ before and lived on a 12acre farm with three dogs- so it was quite a change but we adopted!)There are a lot of places to walk the dogs including the various Ridges and of course the beach.

and to answer your question, Pacifica is the foggiest in the summer (july/august)- so forget about having a traditional sunny every day summer if you live there.

thanks for the comment- Townes is my little darling ;-)

Anonymous said...

So did you give him the biscuit/cookie or not?

Anonymous said...

Funny...he knew what it meant when I asked him. He also knows "want to jump up on the bed", I discovered.

Anonymous said...

This is an interesting counterpoint to my thoughts about my cat - who I think is a natural taxonomist.

Basically in her world everything falls into one of four categories which determines her response.

Things can be

a) Edible, in which case she eats it
b) Chasable, in the manner of leaf or ball, in which case she will leap around like made thing and bat at it
c) Scary, leading to much running away
or
d) Other, which involves more sniffing and possibly perplexed looks

Okay it's not a nice polyhierarchical facted taxonomy, but give her a break - she's only a cat...