old Scottish proverb says, “give a Dog an illName, and he’ll soon be hanged.”

When Arnaud’s mother saw me looking around the shared house at the holidays with a squinty face, she smiled and said, “Qui a lâché Médor?”

border collies—could recall and retrieve at least 10 toys they had been taught the names of. One overachiever named Whisky correctly retrieved 54 out of 59 toys he had learned to identify.

those capable of quickly memorizing multiple toy names—shows they often tilt their heads before correctly retrieving a specific toy. That suggests the behavior might be a sign of concentration and recall in our canine pals, the team suggests.

"Up there the winters are harder yet than here, and still longer. We have only dogs to draw our sleds, fine strong dogs, but bad-tempered and often half wild, and we feed them but once a day, in the evening, on frozen fish.... Yes, there are settlements, but almost no farming; the men live by trapping and fishing ... No, I never had any difficulty with the Indians; I always got on very well with them. I know nearly all those on the Mistassini and this river, for they used to come to our place before my father died. You see he often went trapping in winter when he was not in the shanties, and one season when he was at the head of the Riviere aux Foins, quite alone, a tree that he was cutting for firewood slipped in falling, and it was the Indians who found him by chance next day, crushed and half-frozen though the weather was mild. He was in their game preserve, and they might very well have pretended not to see him and have left him to die there; but they put him on their toboggan, brought him to their camp, and looked after him. You knew my father: a rough man who often took a glass, but just in his dealings, and with a good name for doing that sort of thing himself. So when he parted with these Indians he told them to stop and see him in the spring when they would be coming down to Pointe Bleue with their furs-François Paradis of Mistassini,' said he to them, will not forget what you have done ... François Paradis.' And when they came in spring while running the river he looked after them well and every one carried away a new ax, a fine woollen blanket and tobacco for six months. Always after that they used to pay us a visit in the spring, and father had the pick of their best skins for less than the companies' buyers had to pay. When he died they treated me in the same way be cause I was his son and bore the same name, François Paradis. With more capital I could have made a good bit of money in this trade-a good bit of money."

Perhaps old dogs don't learn new tricks because they are closer to death, and the period to earn a positive return on that investment is shorter.

One resourceful man in Cyprus used a drone to walk his dog while on lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Boston Dynamics, a company whose main export appears to be unsettling videos of its robotic creations, has offered up one possible answer. Death sounds like 40 robot-dog legs, marching together in unison across a lifeless blacktop parking lot. 

Dogs received the test product as two meals per d, to provide their individual daily energy requirement according to the following equation: 95 kcal/kg body weight0·75 per d (397 kJ/kg body weight0·75 per d). During the adaptation phase (4–6 d), no samples of faeces or diet were collected to allow for complete transition of test product through the digestive tract. During the collection phase (7–11 d), faeces were collected daily, pooled for each dog and stored at −20°C prior to analysis. Food intakes and refusals were recorded daily.

Some describe it as the scent of popcorn, Fritos, or corn chips. In any case, it smells like something crunchy, corn-based, and delicious.