Having a ball on Caturday

Today is Caturday, expanded in these parts to include all animals, things animal-like, and pretty much whatever I want it to mean.

Including dogs. My brother-in-law Chris is a photographer, and snapped this funny picture of my pseudonymous dog Canis Minor just as she was about to do one of her favorite things in the whole world: catch a ball.

I love my dogs. They’re friendly, smart, quirky, and loving themselves. But it’s pictures like this that remind me that while we may have domesticated them (really, domesticated each other), there remains some of that fierceness of their pack hunting past in them.

I was in a conversation recently about how smart dogs are, and whether they are self-aware. It was an interesting topic, and it centered on humor; it seems logical that to have humor you must be self-aware. Do other animals besides us have senses of humor? Dolphins?

Maybe dogs don’t (they can’t pass the mirror test, apparently*), but they sure know how to have fun. Check out the next picture Chris took of Canis Minor if you’re not sure.

I’ll note ...

Full story at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/05/21/having-a-ball-on-caturday/