Silent Spring?
I walked the dogs at Vancouver Lake today. It's a beautiful park, especially in the off-season with few other people there. It's also a pretty noisy park. It looks like it's off by itself, but it's close to the river and gets airplane noises from PDX. It's fairly close to the Port of Vancouver, so there are a lot of train noises. Car noises seem to carry over the lake, and the main road in front of the park is frequently used as a drag strip. Add in water noises if the lake is riled, bird song, and bullfrog and peeper noises.
As y'all know, Kyah is 14 now. As is typical, her hearing is going. She still hears a loud, high-pitched "Ky!!!" and a few other things, but she misses a lot. (sometimes this is a good thing -- Rory doesn't know much about barking hysterically at the doorbell because she didn't have an example that couldn't hear the "be quiet, you idiots!" cue after beginning to bark) I imagine she no longer hears some of the transportation noises I find annoying at VL, but if she misses the peepers and the birds, how sad that seems to me.
I know I'm anthropomorphising -- maybe she found the peepers maddening since she worships cars. I just wonder though. Does she ever stop and wonder, "Hey, the world is a lot quieter now than I remember it. Did something happen? Why don't I hear the peepers? Why doesn't Judi talk to me as much? Why does she move her lips without sound? And why can I still hear that puppy yap at me?" Does she miss sound?
I also would like to know how floppy ears affect what dogs hear. I watch my guys' ears flop when they run and wonder how the differing airflow affects the soundwaves. Do they learn to compensate for the sound variations or is that built into their brains in utero? As far as I know, elephants are the only wild animal that have floppy ears as adults, so I've got to suspect that floppy ears are not a survival improvement. If I were still in school, I think it would be a cool project to develop a very small sensor/microphone that could be placed in dogs' ears to see how floppy ears affect what they hear. What do they hear when we're calling them back? Do they have a legitimate case to say "I really couldn't understand a word you were saying. Heck, I couldn't even really tell if it was you calling."
Thanks, Kyah and spring weather, for provoking some thoughts.
As y'all know, Kyah is 14 now. As is typical, her hearing is going. She still hears a loud, high-pitched "Ky!!!" and a few other things, but she misses a lot. (sometimes this is a good thing -- Rory doesn't know much about barking hysterically at the doorbell because she didn't have an example that couldn't hear the "be quiet, you idiots!" cue after beginning to bark) I imagine she no longer hears some of the transportation noises I find annoying at VL, but if she misses the peepers and the birds, how sad that seems to me.
I know I'm anthropomorphising -- maybe she found the peepers maddening since she worships cars. I just wonder though. Does she ever stop and wonder, "Hey, the world is a lot quieter now than I remember it. Did something happen? Why don't I hear the peepers? Why doesn't Judi talk to me as much? Why does she move her lips without sound? And why can I still hear that puppy yap at me?" Does she miss sound?
I also would like to know how floppy ears affect what dogs hear. I watch my guys' ears flop when they run and wonder how the differing airflow affects the soundwaves. Do they learn to compensate for the sound variations or is that built into their brains in utero? As far as I know, elephants are the only wild animal that have floppy ears as adults, so I've got to suspect that floppy ears are not a survival improvement. If I were still in school, I think it would be a cool project to develop a very small sensor/microphone that could be placed in dogs' ears to see how floppy ears affect what they hear. What do they hear when we're calling them back? Do they have a legitimate case to say "I really couldn't understand a word you were saying. Heck, I couldn't even really tell if it was you calling."
Thanks, Kyah and spring weather, for provoking some thoughts.