Friday Chat w/ Vlad

Hey it’s Vlad. Ok so I’m not dead, I’m just totally exhausted. We had a group of researchers from the Canine Science Collaboratory at ASU out doing behavioral testing on us. Me, being the leader, had to make sure everyone played their part. Us Russian foxes had to be super friendly and yet sly and cunning. The American girls had to just try to hold it together. And then there’s Lucan our resident #dorkwolf. He just needed to be regal and aloof. Did he succeed? Have you seen the video of him? He wasn’t aloof, he was a great big doof. It wasn’t enough that he ran right up to this stranger and started licking him, he had to climb on him and get right in his grill. It looked like he was giving this poor guy a lap dance. Luckily the tester was a professional and took everything in stride. I, however, was mortified.

This test is designed to quantify how much canids like people, both familiar and unfamiliar. It consists of having a person sit in the middle of a 1 meter circle. The amount of time we spend in the circle with the human is recorded and used to determine how social we are. Dogs, for instance spend nearly all their time with the person. Foxes spend somewhat less….and #dorkwolves? Once again you’ve seen that Greek tragedy. This group has been collecting data for several years and should have a paper coming out soon. While we were not able to see the data, from what I heard and saw us Russian Foxes are going to be deemed as pretty special. And what about #dorkwolves? Don’t even get me started. I think we may have to send him away to join the circus, he would fit right in with the clowns.

Vlad out

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