I was there for the science...yes, the science

It wasn't all fun and games in Hungary. I was sent there to work. Really what this means is I was sent to sit and listen. The idea behind this conference was to create an interdisciplinary forum regarding dogs. I think they set out to bring in breeders, veterinarians, geneticists, evolutionary biologists, physiologists, trainers, ethologists, psychologists and just about anyone that has ever cared about dogs in any way. I think that in the end what they mostly got were ethologists and psychologists as just about 80% of everything I heard had to do more with these fields than anything else. It was neat to see all the interest in dogs, but most of the presentations were very different than what I am accustomed to. A lot of it was very touchy feely. Still I enjoyed it. I took with me this poster.

I was 1 of about 5 geneticists that was there. As such my poster received very little attention, but now it will make the rounds with me any other conferences I go to (and my department retreat). By the way, the information on it is all ready out of date (or I have more to add to it). Thats how fast and hard I am working.

The conference was nice enough to make some fun presentations during our lunch breaks. During the first day they brought in a dog paragility team. These are dogs that run agility courses, but they have disabled owners that give them the commands (thats where the "para" comes from in the name). I believe that these dogs are also service or companion dogs to the owners and a reason why a lot of these people do this is to form a better connection and bond with their dogs (not to mention to make them even more well trained and into super athletes).

Afterwards they had a "Dog Dancing" performance. This is the sport that is sweeping the international scene. At least I was assured that it is. It began in Canada. This is just what it sounds like...a dog dancing. It is also called "Canine Musical Freestyle". Sometimes it has costumes too. In reality it is a dog responding to cues from its owner to perform choreographed tricks. It was ok. Not really sure who ever thought this up. It was either someone who likes dogs a little too much or someone who doesn't really like them at all. Wikipedia says it was because normal obedience tricks were no longer satisfying the needs of trainers. Dog trainers are an insatiable bunch. It is about as entertaining as those "gymnastics" routines where the "gymnast" is playing with a ribbon or a ball or whatever. Just like all the dance performances I have seen my enjoyment of it probably comes down to the song selected, but in this case I would also give points for breed of dog selected. The one I saw was a border collie that danced to "Goldeneye" the theme song by Tina Turner to the movie "Goldeneye" (I think thats why the performer has a gun with them).

The next day they showed us a police dog demonstration. They showed off the sniffing of these dogs. These dogs were incredibly well trained. I was impressed. I mean you could throw a ball and these dogs wouldn't chase it unless told. Thats something my dog could never do. The cops told funny stories of finding drugs and other things in weird places including on, or perhaps I should say in somebody that was trying to hide it. I'll let you guess which end they hid it in.

That night they took us to what was described as a traditional Hungarian dinner. Considering how much it cost we were all expecting something pretty nice. Also based on the description we were expecting something a little quaint and private. We walked into a large open room with 100's of tables filled with tourists. Oh well. They brought as goulash and some assorted baked meats.

And there was dancing. Traditional Hungarian dancing. At one point all the girls came out dancing and balancing beakers full of wine or something. It was ok. I think they could have taken this to new, exciting levels. Maybe if they had dogs dancing and balancing the beakers with them? I guess that wouldn't have been traditional would it?

The next day they brought over one of the many wolves that they have raised at the university where the conference was held. They have raised several litters of wolf pups to see if these "human friendly" wolves would behave very dog like or not.

They let this wolf out and let people come up and handle it and everything. While it is not afraid of humans or aggressive toward them it is supposedly quite different from dogs. One of the most striking differences is that is shows almost no interest or loyalty towards its handlers. It could care less if you pet it or give it any attention and it certainly doesn't pay attention to its handlers. It just does its own thing. In other words they have successfully found a canine that will behave like a common pet cat.

Before you go thinking that it was all dog tricks, dinners, and wolf wrestling for me I just want to remind you that for the most part this is what I was doing all day.

Sitting and listening. Surprised that I took more pictures of the dogs than the presentations?

On the last day after the conference had ended they took us out to the Hungarian countryside to visit a farm that trains dogs to herd sheep. Here is the Hungarian countryside. It reminds me of Argentina because it is flat.

While there they showed off several Hungarian breeds of dogs including guard dogs like the kuvasz and the komodor. These are pretty big dogs.

And a lot of herding breeds. All the herding breeds have short somewhat similar names. There are the mudis.

The puli. These guys have really cool feeling dreadlocks fur.

And the pumi.

They also showed us one of the hunting breeds, the vizsla. They had one of the more unique wire haired vizslas.

They had other non-Hungarian dogs there like border collies and this really nice Australian shepherd.

They gave us a herding demonstration. I had never really watched this before and it was pretty cool. Did you know that there are 2 herding styles? There is a continental style that is more common throughout most of Europe and then the other style which is more common in the British Isles and Australia. The Hungarian dogs showed off the continental style which appears to keep the sheep really close to the shepherd. The dog will dart out to see what the shepherd wants and then dart back in to make sure the sheep stay in close. The dog stays high off the ground to see the shepherd.

The other style seems more for long distances since the dog will take off and gather in the sheep without the shepherd being right there. This looks more like a pack instinct since the dog stays close to the ground, almost like it is in hiding then it darts out and gathers in the sheep. Here are 3 border collies that are completely attentive to the sheep.

After the demonstrations they fed us a little supper. They made some beef stew. It seems to me that in Hungary a traditional pot is this huge tin that you can make gallons of stew in. Its pretty cool. You put the coals in the bottom (or the propane burner) and just let it stew for hours.

After this the conference was over. It was my first real conference. I really enjoyed it even if there wasn't much genetics. It was neat to see why so many people were interested in dogs and it was great to meet so many people from all over the world. Lots of different accents and they all make girls a little more attractive. There will be another Canine Science Forum in 2010 in Vienna. Maybe I'll go to that too.

I still had some more time in Hungary and I still have more to post, but since we are sort of talking science I'll quickly slip this one in.

This is the front side of the Hungarian National Science Academy. I passed by it on Saturday and like all good institutions of science it was closed on Saturday.

Still more to come.