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Goats display audience-dependent human-directed gazing behaviour in a problem-solving task
Goats might not seem like the most cuddly animals, but researchers have found evidence that goats are as clever as dogs, and just as capable of building emotional relationships with humans as all the other domesticated animals we've let into our hearts and homes. The 2016 study showed that goats stare intensely at their owner when they're struggling to complete a task - a trait that's also observed in domesticated dogs, but not wolves.
[...] "From our earlier research, we already know that goats are smarter than their reputation suggests," said one of the researchers Alan McElligott. "But these results show how they can communicate and interact with their human handlers even though they were not domesticated as pets or working animals."
Not only does that suggest goats have the potential to be awesome and loving sidekicks, just like dogs, it also indicates that living alongside humans for tens of thousands of years - regardless of whether they're companion animals or not - might have a bigger impact on species than we expected.
Goats display audience-dependent human-directed gazing behaviour in a problem-solving task (open, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0283) (DX)
(Score: 3, Informative) by richtopia on Monday July 02 2018, @08:55PM (6 children)
If you are interested in a goat as a pet, Nigerian Dwarf goats are becoming more popular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Dwarf_goat. [wikipedia.org] They reach roughly half a meter in height so they are much easier to handle than typical goats.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @11:19PM (1 child)
Will it still be a virgin when it is delivered? Or is that extra?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @11:24PM
You could always bottle raise it yourself.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:45AM (2 children)
Anyway, even without getting into miniature breeds most goats are pretty small anyway. Full grown adults are usually ~150lbs or less, so comparable to a large dog or even a medium sized dog. The trouble with 'handling them' tends to be more mental than physical, but I wouldn't recommend them to most people as a pet, regardless of the size. They're extremely smart, clever, active. People buy dogs they can't keep up with every day and those dogs get lonely and eat until they die of heart disease because of it. If you can't keep up with a Dalmatian then you have no chance at all with a goat, trust me.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 03 2018, @08:46AM (1 child)
The url abutted a trailing period which isn't part of it, and "Plain Old Text" mode doesn't do the right thing :(
The real link's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Dwarf_goat [wikipedia.org] .
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 03 2018, @11:22AM
If you end a sentence with a URL and a full stop in "Plain Old Text" mode, then it gets automatically linkified in a way that is unexpected and undesired.
E.g. when I type:
http://foo.bar/baz.
SN turns it into the non-useful unintended:
http://foo.bar/baz. [foo.bar]
rather than the useful and intended:
http://foo.bar/baz [foo.bar].
Patch sent to #dev fixes this to do what was most likely intended.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @09:39AM
> Nigerian Dwarf goats
Geeze, that combination of words raises so many red flags...