Are Lobsters Ambidextrous? (7 page)

 

Submitted by Joanne Walker of Ashland, Massachusetts. Thanks also to Dr. Emil S. Dickstein of Youngstown, Ohio
.

 
 

Why
do dogs drool? And why do some dogs drool much more than other dogs?

 

In order to execute a proper drool, a dog must have two weapons at its disposal: a lot of saliva and a lot of lip. Getting a dog to salivate is as easy as exposing it to food—the smell of it, the taste of it, the anticipation of it, the consumption of it—and, as Pavlov proved, to any conditioned reflexes associated with feeding.

Drooling is simply the inability of a dog to dam the flood of saliva it manufactures. Salivation serves a useful function, helping the dog to swallow, and to lubricate the alimentary canal, the passageway from the mouth all the way through the esophagus and stomach that food must travel through before it is excreted. Individual dogs vary in their capacity to manufacture saliva, but some breeds manage to contain all saliva flow under normal conditions.

The dog experts we consulted agreed that some breeds drool more than others. Dogs with loose lips (and we’re not talking about dogs who gossip too much), such as Saint Bernards, mastiffs, bloodhounds, and boxers, are prodigious droolers. The hanging parts of these dogs’ lips, called flews, are usually the tell-tale sign of droolers. Dog breeder Fred Lanting reminded us of the old World War II slogan “Loose flews sink ships.” Lanting says that the pushed-in faces of some breeds, such as bulldogs, create loose flews. He adds:

 

Other breeds may drool because of poor breeding…. The looser and longer the lips, the more the loss of saliva outside rather than inside the throat.

 

Anatomist Robert Habel, of Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, wrote
Imponderables
that medical problems can also cause excess drooling. Many drugs “artificially” stimulate salivation. Rabies can cause nerve damage leading to paralysis of the throat and tongue that prevents dogs from swallowing.

Habel reports that his own coonhound “slobbers foam when he is running a trail with his nose to the ground. I think that is the effect of gravity.” He added: “Did you see the movie
Turner & Hooch?
You should, before you write about drooling.”

Indeed. If you want a graduate course in drooling, drop this book and run to your local video store. We’ve heard they are doing a sequel to
Turner & Hooch
. It’s called
Flews 2
.

 

Submitted by Catherine Price of New York, New York
.

 
 

Why
do dogs eat cat feces? Why do they sometimes eat their own feces?

 

And you thought the chapter about drooling was disgusting? Read on.

The nasty habit of eating feces is called “coprophagia” (wasn’t that a Stephen King title?). Many puppies have a preoccupation with their own or their, pardon the expression, littermates’, feces. But many canines continue to expand their culinary horizons as they get older, and experiment with the feces of other animals. Cat feces tend to be most easily available to domestic dogs, and more readily apparent to dog owners, but dogs won’t stop with cat litter.

Why do dogs continue to eat food that, at best, gives them
bad breath, and at worst, leads to parasites and illnesses? Sometimes, undigested food can be found in animal stools. With their keen sense of smell, dogs can spot these “opportunities.”

But more often, coprophagia is a symptom of a poor diet or nutritional deficiency. Carol Barfield, an official of the United Animal Owners Association, wrote
Imponderables
that her female Keeshond, Mattie, used to “clean up the cat litter box at any opportunity.” After Barfield drastically upgraded Mattie’s diet, the feces fetish disappeared almost immediately. Barfield is delighted that now she removes litter, rather than Mattie, from her cat litter box.

Our favorite lecturer on canine topics, Fred Lanting, sent us a delightful letter on the subject of coprophagia. Although he, too, mentioned nutritional deficiencies as an explanation for this habit, he has a simpler explanation for dogs’ behavior:

 

Dogs eat cat feces simply because they like the taste. Many animals eat (or at least sample) feces. They also lick urine markings to tell them something about the animal they are “researching,” but the eating of feces is more than territorial data-gathering. It’s also a gourmet delicacy—they think. Can you imagine a dog not liking ripe olives or oysters and wondering about that dumb human who’s eating bitter berries and a mollusk that looks like snot? Sounds like a Gary Larson “Far Side” anthropomorphism, doesn’t it?

Dogs also eat the traces (droppings) of other species. They are positively
addicted
to rabbit “pellets,”
love
deer “nuggets,” horse “road apples,” etc. On the other hand, they don’t come more than a millimeter close to possum, goose, and many other droppings. They will pass up fox feces, as a rule.

 

Why do they eat their own feces? Or the feces of other dogs? Lanting continues:

 

If they eat dog feces, it’s due to a number of possible reasons: boredom; pancreatic insufficiency; or temperamental or hormonal problems in the dropper or droppee, depending on the details.

Wild canids (chromosomally compatible with domestic dogs) also eat feces of other species. Sparrows feast on the undigested grain in horse feces. Dung beetles’ only
raison d’être
is feasting
on feces. Was it Cole Porter who said, “Birds do it, worms do it, dogs and fish and maybe cats do it…”? I doubt if anyone has made a study of the catholicity of coprophagy. Usually, pet owners want to know how to
stop
it, not who else is doing it.

 

Submitted by Nadia Norris of Saint Paul, Indiana. Thanks also to Vince Tassinari of Van Nuys, California
.

 
 

 
 

How
do they keep the water in water towers from freezing in the wintertime?

 

We were on the road promoting our last tome,
Do Penguins Have Knees?
, and radio host Mike Rosen was asking about one of the Imponderables in the book: Why are water towers built so high? We provided our concise, prefabricated answer, sounding, we hoped, as if the study of water towers was one of our driving passions in life.

When it came time to answer phone-in questions, and a caller asked about how they kept the water in towers from freezing, we replied with a resounding “Duh.”

Callers soon pounced in with different theories. One caller was sure that there were heating elements in the water tower. Another swore that often water did freeze inside the tower. A third caller claimed that the constant movement of the water inside the tower kept it from freezing.

Time to contact our water tower sources again. Who would
have ever thought there would be an Imponderable about water towers in successive books?

It turns out there isn’t a single, simple answer to this Imponderable, but most of the time the third caller got it right. SUNY Professor Peter Black, affiliated with the American Water Resources Association, told
Imponderables
that in all but sparsely populated agricultural areas, water inside the tower is moving all the time. He added that wood is a good insulator, and that freezing is rarely a problem.

Thomas M. Laronge, whose Thomas M. Laronge, Inc., consults on water treatment and other environmental issues, isn’t quite as sanguine. He points out that water usage tends to be lower in winter than in summer, especially in agricultural areas, and that evaporation consumption is much lower. If the demand is low enough so that water isn’t constantly flowing within the tower, the water can easily freeze.

Many water towers are equipped with a cathodic protection system, designed to counteract corrosion. The natural corrosion tends to make the water inside the tower flow in one direction; the cathodic protection system acts as a bucking mechanism to send the current flow in the opposite direction. A byproduct of this system is the constant movement of water, and a cessation of any tendency toward freezing.

Even the first caller wasn’t entirely wrong. Thomas Laronge says that in rare instances, in small water systems, water towers may be insulated and/or heated by a jacketing system, in which warm water flows on the outside of the jacket and cool water flows on the inside of the jacket to prevent freezing.

Even if the water in the tower does freeze, service may continue without any problems at all. Laronge explains:

 

The density of water is greater than the density of ice. Therefore, if an ice plug forms, it will tend to form on the top of the water surface. Water can still flow through the bottom of the tower. Only the volume is restricted.

Another reason why water towers may not freeze completely is that sometimes an insulating layer of ice forms within the tower.
The ice actually transfers heat slower than does the metal of the tower. Therefore, the ice barrier actually reduces the tendency for water towers to freeze.

 

Submitted by an anonymous caller on the Mike Rosen Show, KOA-AM, in Denver, Colorado
.

 
 

Why
do quarterbacks call the snap with the exclamation “hut”?

 

Put men in a uniform. Give them a helmet. And they all start speaking alike. At least, that’s what all of our football sources claimed. Pat Harmon, historian at the College Football Hall of Fame, was typical:

 

In Army drills, the drill sergeant counts off: “Hut-2-3-4.” He repeats “Hut-2-3-4” until the men get in right. Football language has copied the drill sergeant.

 

We’ll have to believe our football authorities, since no evidence exists that the “hut” barked by quarterbacks has anything to do with little thatched houses.

In fact, “hut” wasn’t always used as the signal. Joe Horrigan, of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, sent us a photocopy of a section of the 1921
Spalding’s How to Play Football
manual that indicates that perhaps we aren’t as hip as our forbears:

 

When shift formations are tried, the quarter-back should give his signal when the men are in their original places. Then after calling the signal [he] can use the word “hip” for the first shift and then repeat for the players to take up their new positions on the line of scrimmage.

 

Our guess is that the only important virtue of “hut” is that it contains one syllable.

 

Submitted by Paul Ruggiero of Blacksburg, Virginia
.

 
 

Why
are elections in the United States held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November rather than on the first Tuesday in November?

 

We had almost given up trying to answer this Imponderable when we contacted Professor Robert J. Dinkin, of California State University, Fresno, who specializes in the history of U.S. elections. Although Dinkin says he has never seen anything written on this subject, he does have an interesting conjecture.

Hallowmas, also known as All Saints’ Day, was celebrated in most locales on November 1. Although candy companies have now insured that Hallow’s Eve is the bigger holiday, All Saints’ Day was a major celebration in the past. Therefore, as Dinkin speculates: “By making elections on the first Tuesday after the first Monday, no such scheduling conflict could occur.” We could only find one other conjecture, from Megan Gillispie, of the League of Women Voters, who claims that the contorted “first Tuesday after the first Monday” language was simply an attempt to prevent elections from landing on the first day of the month “because merchants were busy closing their accounting books and courthouses were often busy with beginning of the month business.”

No one seems able to find any primary sources to bolster their arguments. Can any of our enterprising readers?

 

Submitted by Barry Gluck of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Thanks also to Lynda Frank of Omaha, Nebraska
.

 

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