Kelly
My Blog
Twitter is such a fun place to communicate with each other. I watched so many interesting articles and learned many useful things by watching classmates' tweets. For example one of my classmates retweeted Save the Elephants, and I learned that elephants need to survive with tusks and people need to do something to save them. I also follow some animal researchers like Marc Bekoff and Alan McElligott and some animal research organizations like WildlifeSOS and ProjectCoyote. My first tweet with a picture of my hamster, his name is Milkshake. Then, I retweet a lot from different animal organizations, one of them is about 11 standout animal photos from this year's Urban Wildlife Photo Awards from ProjectCoyote and I think those photos are spectacuars. I will keep on reading tweets from all of you, looking forward to communicate with you all in Twitter.
pic - This is Kelly and this is my dog Jinbao. He is an emotional support animal.
I am currently in Shenzhen, China. The Covid situation is not bad in my place, however, the law for Covid is extremely strict. English is my second language, so I really need to work hard on it. Speaking is easy for me, but I need to improve my grammar and reading. The first topic I want to talk about in this week's readings is animal friendships. I love animals and my favorite animal is the dog. I always meet different dogs when I walk Jinbao. I find it so interesting how he communicates with different dogs. For example, when he meets his best friend which is a young healthy male labrador, Jimbao always runs straight to him crazily, and they roll on the grass together. One of his other friends is a pregnant golden retriever, Jinbao treats her completely differently, he always carefully follows her and inspects people who walk by. According to scientists, the border collie is the smartest dog species in the world. Therefore, I still think that Jinbao has a sense of how to keep friendships. According to animal psychologists, animals' communication, and the way they respond to their environments, many animals certainly have minds. I believe that people who have pets are more agree with this idea.
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I have two pets, one is a border collie - JinBao and the other one is a hamster - Milkshake. I especially like animals because they are cute and funny. Whenever I am tense or I am tired, it's so relaxing to pet my dog. I also especially like to sit in front of Milkshake's cage and observe his every movement. The way he clumsily climbs up the ladder to the food bowl often makes me laugh. Sometimes I sit on the ground and observe him for an hour. For me, I can easily detect Jinbao's emotions, because he will retract his tongue if he is nervous or uncomfortable. As for Milkshake, it's even simpler, he does not like others to grab him or hold him, because he is very timid. Hamsters have poor eyesight, so they generally rely on smell to survive. When Milkshake smells an unfamiliar smell approaching, he will move his nose and leak his teeth to threaten you. I am very self centered, and I really want to be able to convince others to make them agree with me. Then for my pets, they give me dominance, and I am even more presumptuous. For example, when Jinbao wants to sleep in the corner, I will call him over and make him have to sleep beside my bed, or if milkshake does not like being touched, I will take it out of the cage and touch it regardless of its fear. When I read some TIME articles in 39C, I realized that the thoughts of animals deserves respect. I agree the idea from “Animals have brains, but do they have minds”, no matter what anyone think of animal cognition, “nearly all agree that the way we treat domesticate animals is often indefensible.” (Jeffery Kluger 19) I should really respect JinBao and Milkshake, I should not force them to do whatever I want. I think I also make another mistake which I always prevent the communication between Jinbao and Milkshake. According to, Carl Zimmer, “animals are happy to tolerate a temporary imbalance” during friendships. (Carl Zimmer 47) Whenever Jinbao is close to Milkshake's cage and wants to smell it, maybe sometimes Jinbao just wants to make friends with him, but I think he is going to eat Milkshake, so I often reprimand jinbao and even sometimes hit him lightly.
I cannot agree more with what Safina writes in her prologue.Like the life of the domestic pigeon she describes, the life of every animal should be fun and respectful. People should not want to control the lives of animals. so that humans and animals can coexist.
I love all animals, especially cute animals. Christopher Tran posts many tweets about sea otters, and I learn a lot from those articles. For example, I learned that sea otter mothers use kelp as a tool to make sure their kids will not float away and they actually hold hands while they're sleeping so they don't drift apart, and when a baby sea otter is too small to hold hands, he rides on his mom. I also followed a lot of good accounts, such as, “WildEarth Guardians” which is an organization protecting and restoring the wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and health of the American West, and “Defenders of Wildlife” which leads the pack when it comes to protecting wild animals and plants in their natural communities. I tweeted some articles from NY TIMES, one of them is about Panda, the title is “Who’s Got Two Pseudothumbs and Loves to Eat Bamboo? This Bear.” I also retweet the propaganda of adopt pets instead of buying pets. I reply to Alyssa, Lu, and Susan’s blog. I and Alyssa are both dog lovers, she also has a dog. I cannot wait to meet her dog if I have a chance. I and Lu are both from China and she went to the San Diego Zoo which I would also want to visit after I go back to the US. I love Susan’s photo, the background view looks fantastic!
For the reading assignment this week, I learned a lot from the Safina chapter. The passage I chose is the Wines and Pet Peeves. It is basically about the theory of Mind which happened among animals, people need to spend more time observing animals in free-living situations. I love one of the quotes which are “One is evaluating what the other is thinking, each showing a clear understanding that the other might be faked into a false belief about which direction they'll be charging from.” (Pg 248) In the other words, as each evaluates what the other is thinking, it is clear that they understand one may have been conned into believing that the other was faking the other into a false belief. This quote reveals the human and non-human world. There are so many research topics I want to choose because I love animals so much and I want to discover more. For now, I do not really have a specific topic. However, I would love to do some research on the behaviors of dogs. The reason I chose these kinds of topics is that my favorite animal is dogs and I have a dog so I want to know more about them. I will first confirm my research topic this week and then I will start gathering information. I probably will use google scholar because it is a good website for credible resources. I might use “dogs”, “pets”, “domesticated”, and so on as my keywords when I am searching articles. After I have all the information I need, I will make an outline, then start writing.
My research topic is going to be about the behaviors of dogs, I followed Dogs Trust and Do You Believe In Dog? | Mia Cobb that I think they will be helpful for my research paper. Most of things that I retweeted is about animal protection and dogs. For example, I retweeted a video from the World Animal Protection US which is about wildlife entertainment is wildlife cruelty. The most interesting things I found this week is from Ji Wang's tweet about elephants will cooperate to get food and even share with each other. But my favorite tweet is from Alyssa which her posted an experiment done on dogs testing how dogs listen when they are ordered by different people. There is also one mistakes I always make which I always forget to put #39canimals. I should really remember to put it on my tweets next week.
Prato-Previde, E., et al. "Do dogs exhibit jealous behaviors when their owner attends to their companion dog?." Animal cognition 21.5 (2018): 703-713.
This passage mainly talks about the jealousy behaviors around dogs. As an adaptive function, jealousy appears to allow species to maintain relationships with valued social partners when these relationships are threatened by third parties perceived as rivals. However, the current results do not support our predictions that ignored dogs are more likely to engage in behavior designed to attract the owner's attention than control dogs. A clear jealous reaction may have been prevented by the great behavioral variation between and within dyads and the choice to test cohabiting dogs.
Howell, Tiffani J., Tammie King, and Pauleen C. Bennett. "Puppy parties and beyond: the role of early age socialization practices on adult dog behavior." Veterinary Medicine: Research and Reports 6 (2015): 143.
In this passage, the authors mention that domestic dogs serve primarily as companions in the developed world currently. In order to develop a well-adjusted adult dog, puppy socialization practices are essential for establishing a positive, lifelong relationship between their owner and the dog. Other studies indicate that puppy classes do not clearly benefit adult behavior, but some studies show that they do have a positive effect. Breeders and owners are responsible for socializing puppies early in their lives.
I learned a lot from finding resources. First of all, before starting searching resources for my essays, I should clarify my search subject and find good keywords. For example, if the topic of my article is about dog behavior, then my keywords can be used as "dog behavior", "dog society", "dog training", etc. I will first list my keywords on paper and ensure the number of keywords, and then I will choose some scholar search software, such as Google Scholar or Academic Search Complete. Google Scholar is often my first choice because I have been using it as a professional search software since high school and I find it very useful. Then I would search Google Scholar for my keywords. When the page is loaded, I will try to select the articles I am interested in or the articles with a relatively recent publication time. The reason is because when I choose the articles I am interested in as materials, I will be more inspired when writing the thesis and choose articles with a relatively recent publication time because the data in it will be slightly more accurate because it keeps pace with the times. At the same time, I can also get some useful information from the list of searched materials, although I did not choose this article. Therefore, I think it is necessary to search for credible information in professional search engines when writing papers. It's also a fun part of writing research paper because I can learn a lot of unexpected things. For example, the first article I chose, the content was related to the jealousy of dogs.
Blog Responses & Twitter Updates
This time I've narrowed down my Twitter focus, and I've opted to focus on accounts with the same theme, which is about canine research. Such as Dog Aging Project, UNL Canine Cognition and Human Interaction Lab, ManyDogs, Dog Cognition Lab, and Dr. Sarah-Elizabeth Byosiere who researched cognition, behavior, and more in dogs. This allowed me to have more information to understand canine behavior, which also made my dissertation easier. I also posted a few tweets this week, one of which was about extreme temperatures posing particular dangers to dogs and urging pet owners to pay more attention to their pets in the summer to prevent heat stroke. At the same time, I also shared my life, Jinbao was injured last month and is still recovering. I also learned a lot from the tweets of my classmates, for example, Christopher posted an article about penguins explaining that African penguins are monogamous and will stay with their mate for the rest of their lives. This made me realize that penguins are sentient and affectionate animals.
I think my favorite tweet from this week is this one about pet stocks. First of all, the title of the article attracted me deeply because it was very interesting. There are many stocks, such as new energy, gasoline, mining, etc., which are often bought and sold by people, but this is the first time I have heard of pet stocks. Many people use stocks to make money, but what are pet stocks used for? Through this article, I learned that pets are now like close relatives to people, and they accompany people by their side like family members. So experts say that if people are worried about their stocks being erratic and having huge risks, then they should consider buying pet stocks because there is huge variability in everything, and pet lovers love their pets forever. will not decrease. This week I also followed a lot of interesting tweeters, such as International Animal Rescue, PAWS, Dr. Dani Rabaiotti, FluentPet, Dog Science Says, and so on. The tweeters I followed this week were mainly about pets, with a little more detail That is, dogs.
There are three assignments that I find most helpful to my essay writing, Read & Annotate: Choose a Safina Chapter (Thursday), Watch & Discuss a TEDtalk (Thursday), and Writing Strong Paragraphs (25 minutes). Safina's articles are diverse, and we can choose the corresponding chapter for intensive reading according to our own interests. This assignment can motivate me to read more carefully and make better use of the reading techniques I have learned in this class. The second one that I think is most helpful to me is watching TEDtalk, because this assignment is different from others, we usually read articles and this assignment is watching videos, so I think this assignment motivates me more about this interest in class. The third one is a recent homework. This homework carefully introduces what is needed for a body paragraph, which is very helpful for me who is writing a body paragraph. I am quite confident about my essay. Because my subject was dogs’ jealousy behavior, and my favorite animal is dogs. I am very interested in all information about dogs. Whether on the Internet or in daily life, whenever I see pictures or text about a dog, I will stop and take a look. In the process of raising a dog, as long as some of its behaviors attract my attention, I will go to the Internet to check relevant information. In the smc project, I will be doing some research on dog behavior. I don't have a specific topic yet, but it will probably be around how to make dog behavior better.
I chose Lords of Nature which is a captivating documentary narrated by Peter Coyote and broadcast on PBS, explores how top predators restore and maintain ecosystems and biodiversity. It's an increasingly common phenomenon to see wolves and cougars returning to their native ranges, from Yellowstone to Zion Canyon, from northern Minnesota to rugged open ranges in the west. This video explores how scientists are now discovering that ferocious predators are rejuvenating forces of nature, and how society is now learning to tolerate them. Wolves, cougars, and other predators have been exploited in our prairies and wildlands for centuries out of fear. The importance of preserving biodiversity has become increasingly evident as scientists realize top predators play an essential role in maintaining healthy ecosystems. This documentary explores the role of great predators in the web of life by following biologists Bill Ripple and Bob Beschta. The study by Ripple and Beschta shows how ecosystems can be severely degraded without these predators, and how their return to Yellowstone restores this balance. People and predators can indeed coexist with the right technique and a dose of tolerance, based on these stories.
The SMC project I did this time was about dogs. My two organizations are the Dogster and the Whole Dog Journal, both of them are concerned with dog health and safety and dog breed knowledge. And the two problems I choose, one is aggressive behaviors in dogs, and the other is the problem of stray dogs. First of all, aggressive behaviors in dogs are very common. For example, many dogs will have the behavior of protecting their food and their owners, which are all bad behaviors caused by dogs' possessiveness and disobedience. The problem of stray dogs is more of a social problem. Many stray dogs are not sterilized and are not fully vaccinated as well, which leads to the rapid spread of diseases and the continuous increase in the reproduction rate of stray dogs. This is cruel to both the environment and the dogs. My two solutions: puppy training can improve the dog's obedience and sensitivity to the owner, so that when the dog becomes an adult dog, they will maintain a good life behavior and not attack strangers and unfamiliar dogs. The solution for stray dogs is to adopt instead of buying. There are too many people who want to buy new pets. You might as well go to pets shelter first. There are many healthy stray dogs that have been fully vaccinated and adopted by the shelterer and are all pending adoption. This is what I did most of the SMC project this week
The three articles analyzed this week first made me think that logo, patho, and etho are suitable for important writing styles. I must use it in my AP. At the same time, the content of these three articles made me more sure of the importance of animals. They have feelings just like people, and they have experienced no less suffering than us, so we should really take more measures to protect animals.
I've always found social media to be a very useful learning tool. Because the information updated by social media is the most rapid, however, the authority and authenticity of the information need to be identified by people. Another advantage of social media is that it is interactive. When you agree with an idea, you can like it and give the author credit. When you disagree with an idea, you can comment and say what you think. I think interactive learning can promote learning efficiency. But if I'm going to use Twitter after 39C, for me, I probably won't. Because I spend most of my time in China, I need a VPN to use Twitter in China. VPN will make all the pages load very slowly, which is very inconvenient for me.
PART ONE: TWO Examples of Transformative Learning
In this learning experience, I think there are two areas where I have changed the most. The first is that the previous learning method was basically learning the knowledge in the textbook, but this time we jumped out of the textbook and learned knowledge from different people and from different perspectives in social media. It was a very good experience for me, the professor took us out of the inherent textbook style of learning, which made the course easy and fun. The second place that I think has changed the most is the way the portfolio is made. In the past, the production of portfolios was basically carried out in canvas, which made the portfolios old-fashioned and boried. And this time 39c gave us the opportunity to use the WIX website to make our own portfolio, we can choose the color we like, the template we like, the picture we like, and even the animation we like, we can add a lot of creative things into our own portfolio. These changes in teaching method make this class interesting and colorful. But at the same time, these changes have also brought some difficulties. For example, we need to spend more time to learn how to operate the WIX website. At the same time, there will be many difficulties when creating the website, which is also time-consuming and labor-intensive.
PART TWO: Taking Stock-- TWO Problems & A Plan for the Future
I learned a lot from this class, but I also encountered some problems. First of all, the first problem is the time issue. I was in China throughout the summer vacation, so there was jet lag with the United States. I have to check the time of each assignment carefully to avoid missing it. At the same time, using the websites like twitter, wix, canvas, and so on in China, they all require VPN. By turning on the VPN will make every webpage load very slowly, sometimes it even takes half an hour to open my twitter homepage, and sometimes I can not submit my homework. The time problem is the biggest issue for me in this class, but the only solution is to stay in the United States for online classes. Because I have a job in China, this solution is still not suitable for me. The second problem is my grammar problem. I came to the United States to as a freshmen in high school, and English is my second language. It is normal to have grammar problems. But I still hope that I can improve my grammar as much as possible so that I can have the upper hand in writing. In the future, I should read English books in order to improve my English.
