Pointing Game
Materials - two cups and a tasty dog treat that the dog would enjoy
Procedure: Sit on a smooth floor surface with the cups and treat. Have the dog sit or someone hold the dog about 6 feet away from you. Put the two cups on a smooth floor surface. Put one of the treats under one of the cups. Mix the cups up very quickly in front of the dog. Keep the cups about three feet from each other. Point to the cup with the treat in it. See if the dog follows your cue and gets the treat under the correct cup with the treat in it. Repeat a number of times. Make up your own experiments with the same idea of the cup and treat. Perhaps play hide and seek and point to where you've hidden the cup as a variation.
Human Eyes and Dog Game
Note: This experiment shows how dogs are responsive to human eyes which reveals their great intelligence.
What you need: at least 2-3 willing people. Blind folds accept for one person. A dog. A place for people to sit in a row next to each other. Treats readily available.
Procedure
All the people sit down in a row on a sofa or chairs. Have one person sitting there without any blindfold on while the rest of the people sit there with blindfolds on. Observe what the dog does. Try variations with hiding treat among yourselves.
Dog Thief or Not
Materials
Dog treats. A dog. At least one person to do the experiment with the dog.
Procedure
Place a treat on the floor in front of you. Call your dog over and ask it to sit. Leave your eyes open and see if it's obedient. Assuming the dog is obedient, ask the dog to sit and stay then close your eyes. Repeat sit and stay with your eyes closed a few times. Give the dog a few minutes with your eyes closed. You can make up your own variations with this experiment.
As with all experiments, record the experiment procedures and the results you get in your journals. Share your journal work, photographs and or videos with the class.
Smell Game - You can how I tried this very simple experiment with my dog here.
Materials
Apple, bird feather, cup or mug, book, stop watch
Procedure
One at a time in any order, lay each of the objects down in front of your dog to allow them time to smell each of them. Use a stop watch to record the length of time your dog smell each of the objects. Time each one separately. Make observations and record what you observe and what the results are per object.
Here are some question helpers.
1). which object did your dog smell the longest? The least?
2). Why do you think your dog smelled one particular object the longest? The least?
The Placental Mammals or Eutherians
Photo Left: Eomaia ("dawn mother") is an extinct fossil mammal, discovered in rocks that were found in the Yixian Formation, Liaoning Province, China. The fossil is 10 centimetres (3.9 in) in length and virtually complete. An estimate of the body weight is between 20–25 grams (0.71–0.88 oz). Although the fossil's skull is squashed flat, its teeth, tiny foot bones, cartilages and even its fur are visible.
The features of Eutheria that distinguish them from metatherians, a group that includes modern marsupials, are:
Reproductive features are also of no use in identifying fossil placental mammals, which are distinguished from other eutherians by:
The features of Eutheria that distinguish them from metatherians, a group that includes modern marsupials, are:
- an enlarged malleolus ("little hammer") at the bottom of the tibia, the larger of the two shin bones.
- the joint between the first metatarsal bone and the entocuneiform bone in the foot is offset further back than the joint between the second metatarsal and mesocuneiform bones – in metatherians these joints are level with each other.
- various features of jaws and teeth.
Reproductive features are also of no use in identifying fossil placental mammals, which are distinguished from other eutherians by:
- the presence of a malleolus at the bottom of the fibula, the smaller of the two shin bones.
- a complete mortise and tenon upper ankle joint, where the rearmost bones of the foot fit into a socket formed by the ends of the tibia and fibula.
- a wide opening at the bottom of the pelvis, which allows the birth of large, well-developed offspring. Marsupials have and nonplacental eutherians had a narrower opening that allows only small, immature offspring to pass through.
- the absence of epipubic bones extending forward from the pelvis, which are not found in any placental, but are found in all other mammals – nonplacental eutherians, marsupials, monotremes and mammaliformes – and even in the cynodont therapsids that are closest to mammals. Their function is to stiffen the body during locomotion. This stiffening would be harmful in pregnant placentals, whose abdomens need to expand." Wikipedia article