Even people should not be named Ralph. Ralph is an verb as in “Phil just ate some bad sushi. I think he’s going to Ralph.” Why not name him Digger since he likes to Dig? My neighbour had a Lab named Cheddar. Always liked that for a dog name. Why not look up some Eskimo words. What’s DOG in Eskimo speak?

10 years ago I adopted a year old sammy from a family
with little kid and a stay at home mom. he was chained
to a post and was digging to china.
he’s has been my best friend
cindy

Fair enough on the South. I guess what reminded me of cats was “don’t see any particular reason to listen to most humans and they aren’t interested in attacking humans.” ;->

Dogs scare me. Especially big dogs. My girlfiend keeps insisting she wants a dog. She also tends to like big dogs. I have to say though that Alex is an amazing pup, and if the GF ever does get a big dog, I will insist that its a Samoyed.

Philip, I concur with Johnny. I think you should keep your newest Samoyed. Having read almost every word on your site, and therefore knowing as well as I can what kind of pet owner/ownee you are, I am certain that Sammy (and by the way, the name sounds OK to me) could not find a better owner. No way after a month you will want to give him up.

We’ve had our Alaskan Malamute mix (Humo – Spanish for smoke) that we rescued from a local shelter, for about six years here in Austin. He actually tolerates the heat better than our Beagle and the neighbor’s Lab, but his hair is shorter than a Samoyed. When it’s hot, I have to trim him myself. I can never find anyone who’ll just shorten his hair. They want to shave him completely, and his skin would be too sensitive to the sun.

Philip – Good luck with the new dog. I have a feeling that this dogs new home will be yours. Just a matter of time. I have two whippets.

It does amaze me how a lot of people buy dogs based on machismo. Unfortunately, I think a pet salesman could sell a lot of dogs like rottweilers, pit bulls, etc by saying something like “Yes, the Rottweiler is the .357 magnum of dogs…”. People almost want a vicious dog for some reason. I think a lot of insurance companies will increase your premium if you own a Pit bull, etc.

Dammit would be a good name!

Alex: I have no control over the software that Harvard runs. I am grateful that I don’t have to deal with programming or hosting, both of which have become ghetto jobs.

As to the IQ of solitary hunter animals, consider that sharks are much older evolutionarily than dolphins. Yet high intelligence was never apparently advantageous for the sharks so they did not evolve it. Whereas the dolphins need their big brains to communicate with each other while hunting. I’m not sure if foxes have ever been studied. They are not used for research, work, or performance, which is where most data on animal intelligence comes from. Cats, for example, though they have limited intelligence, have highly developed visual systems and are good for trying to figure out how human vision works. Dogs, by contrast, can be used for a lot of experiments related to human cognition and often do as well as 3-5-year-old human children at things like counting or figuring out whether an item should or should not be behind a screen. Quite a few parrot species are as smart or smarter than dogs but harder for humans to communicate with.

Philip, a “preview” function would be very useful in the comments section.  The system somehow removed all my paragraph breaks.