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Hi @konacoconutz,
While I respect your opinions, I don’t think the future is predictable. The US electoral system is heavily slanted (possibly by design) against third parties. But it doesn’t mean they can’t succeed. We can’t know what’s going to happen till it happens, and history is full of surprising events. Look back on your own lifetime for examples; you won’t have to look far. 
To change the topic to a more fun one, here’sa fun story:
We have a new to us dog that is still having some accidents in the house and a 3 year old that doesn’t want to potty train, fun combination.
About a week or so ago my 11 year old came to me and told me Murphy (the dog) pooped in Lilli’s (3 years old) room. Upon inspection this trained eye knew that it was the Lilli’s poop. She seriously pulled her pants down and squatted to poop in her room.
Flash forward to this morning to me lying in bed with the dog in my room all night. She comes in to tell my Murphy pooped in her room. She then cuddles up with Murphy and I hear this ‘sweet’ and quiet conversation: “Murphy, did you poop in my room? Say yes. Dogs don’t get spankings.” Oh My!
I guess I should add, we’re in dog school and one of the things we’re learning is how to ask our dogs simple “yes and no” questions and they answer us by putting their noses in the yes hand. It’s really cool, but I think the 3 year old is listening… Haha, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. The devious intelligence of this one. Why can’t she use her skills for good (pooping on the potty) instead of evil (lying!!! too well I might add.)
Amazing. Excuse my ignorance, but can dogs actually be taught to answer questions correctly?
“Politicians and diapers should be changed regularly–and for the same reason.”–Mark Twain
Yes, they’ve been doing cognitive testing on dogs. They can learn the basic colors, and have the cognitive ability of a 2-4 year old human based on the individual dog/breed. We’ve only had our dog for about a month and he can answer the question “would you like this treat/goldfish/cheese, etc” and “do you need to go outside” correctly. If he doesn’t nose the correct hand, we just pet him, etc. We have now learned which foods he prefers. Since starting this he very sweetly woke us up the other morning by nuzzling our hands. We asked him if he needed to go outside and he nuzzled our hand again. Huge accomplishment as just a week or so ago he would just go in our room in the middle of the night.
Dogs cannot be taught to figure out which answer is correct. They can learn to pick up very subtle “tells” from their human, so they know which way to “answer”.
@Sarah_Warren:
Incredible. Did you train him yourself? But in any case, I’m unclear how such training would work. We had a little dog once, but it never occurred to us to try to communicate with her.
@EllenN:
When I wrote
can dogs actually be taught to answer questions correctly?
I should probably have said: can dogs be taught to answer questions with answers reflecting their desires?
And I don’t see why this is impossible. It just seems hard to me. And how can you be sure that their answers are what they intend? I think we can agree that dogs have desires, though.
They can’t understand the human language in sentence form, but they can pick up on intonations. Using Sarah’s example of ‘do you want to go outside?’ They remember the last word ‘outside’ said in that tone means the door gets opened and they get to go out. Once they’ve learned that it’s easy to teach them ‘yes’ and ‘no’, they soon learn which action is correct as when they choose it they get all kinds of praise, positive human reactions ‘woohoo! Good boy! Yeah!’ Instead of the disappointed ‘oh… no…’.
Add in a clicker and treats and they learn faster still!
Why would you want to do that?
You must be in desperate need of money to take one-night stays in your place.
I understand that @KKC does this with here private room.
But renting out a whole place 5 one-nighters in a row is just waiting for a burnout to happen.
It is a waste of time and money.
Usually I only get random 1 night stays, no big deal. It’s above my garage and a small, 1 bedroom apartment. It was a good thing and a bad thing at the same time, money coming in right after by husband’s injury, but having that many in a row.
Dogs can learn hundreds of human words. They don’t understand sentence structure or complex phrases, they actually don’t have a sense of identity. So for my dog Murphy, when he hears his name he knows that Murphy means I want his attention. So I can get out his food and he has to sit nicely until I say “eat”. When I ask the “yes or no” I have one hand I put down as I say “yes” and the other comes out for “no” and he figures out learning with treats when I say “want a treat? yes or no” when he puts his face to the yes hand he gets the treat, the no hand just petting. After mastery with food (like a day) you start adding other things i.e. outside, walk, potty, ride in car, etc.
My old dog had a very high vocabulary without any real intentionality from us other than just solid obedience training. She understood lots of words and would get excited when we talked about fixing dinner or going to the park, etc. I felt like she was eavesdropping on conversation, lol.
But good dog training has moved away from the obedience model into a partnership model with the understanding that consequences can set you up as basically the abuser in a domestic abuse relationship with your dog as they don’t understand consequences. But they can become a member of the household who can have their needs understood. It just takes more effort on the “pet parent” but can be more rewarding.
Hi @Sarah_Warren,
Very interesting. So, you’ve done all this work with your dog, and researched it yourself without outside help?
That’s a bit metaphysical. I’m not even sure what this means. And how can one know this? That’s dogs don’t have a “sense of identity”, I mean.
This is an awesome explanation! I just couldn’t help laughing at the yes/no for a treat part. I’m just imagining my greedy pup saying ‘no thanks, no treat for me. I’ll just take a pat today’ 
She has also previously said she makes more money. So yes, she works harder but especially if one needs the extra money it’s a good opportunity.
Every time I hear about “burnout” I think of how privileged we are. I wonder if medieval serfs ever burned out before they died at the age of 32?
First world problems… that we have to clean out hair from the drains and stripes from the loo to make a buck.
Also I think if Sarah has a fair cleaning fee she can make bank on those one nighters.
Yes, especially if the set up is just right. Sarah is basically onsite so no need to spend time traveling/gas every day just to go clean. When I used to take one nighters, cleaning was a breeze.
I know some people say it takes the same amount of time to clean a space that a family has stayed in for one week, versus a one night stay. Not in my experience…if I washed all the windows yesterday, then they’re all not getting washed today unless there are fingerprints on them. If the blinds were dusted yesterday, then no need to do them today (at least in my location thankfully). But I also don’t wash shower liners and other things that some people do between each and every guest. So for some a one night stay would be a lot of work, for me it is a breeze.
The microwave, fridge, outdoor grill, oven are all easier to wipe than someone using them to cook for a week, etc.
Absolutely! No way will I argue with that. But there is still likely quite a bit less of scrubbing power going on when someone has used an appliance once versus all week long.
Shower liners can be sprayed down with bleach. And rinsed. No need to wash them every time. It’s such a headache to stand there with the shower rings and put them on one by one, lol. But I guess an immaculate squeegee of a glass door would be more work.
I notice the same thing here. One nighters are less likely to put anything in the fridge or use the microwave. Sometimes they don’t even shower or put anything in the trash can!!. We can’t get more than 5 stars for cleanliness. No matter what your standard is you can’t get more than 5 stars.
No shower door or curtain in my bathroom means one less thing to do.
We adopted through a rescue shelter. They provide training classes for free with the adoption.