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Animal Behaviorist Shares Three Decades of Knowledge at January Science on Tap Minocqua

Anyone with a dog for a pet can probably knows the special connection between dogs and humans, even if they can’t put it words.

Patricia McConnell has spent her career studying and trying to understand that connection.

“The bond between us is just sort of a biological miracle,” said McConnell.

McConnell has studied the relationship between dogs and humans for more than 25 years.  She has a PhD on the subject and is a certified applied animal behaviorist.

“We’re both mammals, but we’re not as closely related to dogs as we are to a lot of other animals. And yet, we’ve brought them into our families, and they’ve brought us into our families,” said McConnell.

McConnell says there’s three things that create that unique connection: how socials both humans and dogs are, how playful we are, and how expressive our faces can be.

“If you learn to read their emotional expressions, you can understand so much about what’s going on in the mind of a dog, you might not always be right, but their faces are so expressive. I think they read our faces, we read their faces and so it’s really a miraculous relationship,” said McConnell.

McConnell says studying that bond helps with learning dog behavior. It also plays a large role in training dogs.

“What I found in the classes was that even though dogs can learn lots of words, we now know hundreds and hundreds of words, some of them, the gifted ones anyway. They are primarily focused on our visual signals,” said McConnell.

McConnell will be sharing some of her knowledge and answering your questions about dog behavior during next week’s Science on Tap Minocqua.

McConnell was a speaker for Science on Tap a couple years ago. She said she had so much fun, she’s happy to be doing it again.

McConnell hopes people walk away with a simple message.

“Science is about curiosity and understanding the world. It’s not, it’s so often portrayed as this rigid, boring, tedious, dorky. It’s not. It’s crazy, adventurous and fun and exciting,” said McConnell.

It’s Wednesday, January 6 via zoom. You can watch it on the Science on Tap Minocqua Website.

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