Hear No Evil, Only Higher Frequencies

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See no evil, hear no evil. Our canine friends believe they hear nothing but good things from us mostly due to their unwavering dedication and unconditional love. We are truly fortunate to have such extraordinary carnivores as our closest allies and guardians. As part of their service, their ears perform one of the most important deeds as they hear at higher frequencies than humans. The frequency range of dog hearing is approximately 40 Hz to 60,000 Hz as compared to humans which is 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, with Hz being the symbol for Hertz, a unit of frequency.
Because of this, their alertness has been extremely useful safeguarding us over the millennia.

Save for cropped breeds, most fanciers don’t pay too much attention to their dog’s ears, regarding them as obvious features to have but inessential in the overall genesis of a good dog. Though this may reflect a modicum of reality for a number of breeds, case in point, hunting hounds, where some repeat the phrase parrot-fashion “he does not run on his ears,” indeed there are breeds who contradict this accepted tenet. In reality, often judges overlook a poorly shaped or improperly set ear but this can be unfortunate for some breeds whose shape and ear set is very important to their function.

The placement of the ear lobe or junction to the head is called the set-on or ear set. The shape, leather, carriage and size of ear lobes vary according to breeds, but ears are all the same in composition. The set-on can have an influence on performance, to illustrate, low set ears on a retriever breed may take on water while the dog is swimming to retrieve game. Water logged ears are much more prone to infections and are dysfunctional.

A number of breeds, such as the Bloodhound and Basset...

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...m the animals being seldom much alarmed, seems probable”. A feature not found in any wild animal except the elephant, states scientist and author Lyudmila N. Trut, Early Canid Domestication,The Farm-Fox Experiment. Essentially, foxes ears became floppy when breeding for tamability and in the process the researchers observed striking changes in physiology, morphology and behavior, which mirrors the changes known in other domestic animals. Mankind’s intervention has again proven to be so influential that, “Patterns of changes observed in domesticated animals resulted from genetic changes that occurred in the course of selection.”

One meaning of this article’s proverb, in its entirety, is associated with good mind, speech and action. Others believe the proverb corresponds with ‘turning a blind eye’ — very à propros when discussing purebred dog conformation events.

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