While on his way home from work, Rico Soegiarto witnessed a heartbreaking scene on the streets of Denpasar, Bali – a dog that was partially buried in the road. This poor creature was in dire straits, suffering from severe malnourishment, covered in wounds and completely hairless.
Despite being a Siberian Husky, the dog was in such a sad state that it was difficult to recognize her breed. However, Rico’s compassion knew no bounds, and he was determined to rescue her. Although Rico already had four rescue dogs waiting for him at home, he felt an instant connection when he looked into the suffering pup’s eyes. He named her Hope, inspired by the glimmer of optimism in her bright blue eyes, even in the midst of her deplorable condition.
Without hesitation, Rico swiftly took in Hope and welcomed her into his home, initiating the beginning of her miraculous recovery journey. He aided her in regrowing her fur by giving her soothing medicated baths and providing her with plenty of nutritious food. Nursing Hope back to health was a labor of love, a task that Rico approached with unwavering dedication.
As time went by, Hope’s remarkable transformation became increasingly evident. Her newfound confidence shone through as her once-bare skin was now covered in a lush coat of fur. She was unrecognizable once again, but this time, it was a testament to her incredible revival.
A year later, Hope’s metamorphosis was nothing short of extraordinary. She had transformed into a stunning, disease-free Husky, radiating with life and vitality. Rico not only rescued her from the brink but also decided to make her a cherished member of his family.
Currently, Hope is residing in Bali with Rico and his loved ones, relishing her “second chance” at life which is now filled with happiness and affection. Rico’s act of kindness and commitment has not only granted Hope a new lease on life but also showcased the deep bond that can exist between humans and their four-legged companions.
Dogs actually do respond better when their owners use cute ‘baby talk’, study finds
Dogs’ brains are sensitive to the familiar high-pitched “cute” voice tone that adult humans, especially women, use to talk to babies, according to a new study.
The research, published recently in the journal Communications Biology, found “exciting similarities” between infant and dog brains during the processing of speech with such a high-pitched tone feature.
Humans tend to speak with a specific speech style characterised by exaggerated prosody, or patterns of stress and intonation in a language, when communicating with individuals having limited language competence.
Such speech has previously been found to be very important for the healthy cognitive, social and language development of children, who are also tuned to such a high-pitched voice.
But researchers, including those from the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, hoped to assess whether dog brains are also sensitive to this way of communication.
In the study, conscious family dogs were made to listen to dog, infant and adult-directed speech recorded from 12 women and men in real-life interactions.
As the dogs listened, their brain activities were measured using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan.
The study found the sound-processing regions of the dogs’ brains responded more to dog- and infant-directed than adult-directed speech.
This marked the first neurological evidence that dog brains are tuned to speech directed specifically at them.
“Studying how dog brains process dog-directed speech is exciting, because it can help us understand how exaggerated prosody contributes to efficient speech processing in a nonhuman species skilled at relying on different speech cues,” explained Anna Gergely, co-first author of the study.
Scientists also found dog- and infant-directed speech sensitivity of dog brains was more pronounced when the speakers were women, and was affected by voice pitch and its variation.
These findings suggest the way we speak to dogs matters, and that their brain is specifically sensitive to the higher-pitched voice tone typical to the female voice.
“Remarkably, the voice tone patterns characterizing women’s dog-directed speech are not typically used in dog-dog communication – our results may thus serve evidence for a neural preference that dogs developed during their domestication,” said Anna Gábor, co-first author of the study.
“Dog brains’ increased sensitivity to dog-directed speech spoken by women specifically may be due to the fact that women more often speak to dogs with exaggerated prosody than men,” Dr Gabor said.
Leave a Reply