B&N Signing, Dogs and Writing, Counting Crows
Hi,
I haven’t posted two weeks back to back in a while, but I have some news and links to share, and didn’t want to make last week’s message too long.
Barnes and Noble Signing
If you live near Paramus, New Jersey, I’ll be signing copies of Shadows of the Past at the Route 17 store next Saturday, the 17th. Here’s a link with details. If you’re in the area and want to drop in and say hello, I’d love to meet you.
Dog Training and Writing
My guest appearance on the Story Magic podcast hit the series of tubes we call the Internet this week. In it I talk about dog training and writing. They have more in common than you think!
About twenty years ago my wife and I adopted a demon puppy that literally made me become a dog trainer. I apprenticed at a local dog training school and eventually ended up running my own dog training business for a few years until the hideous real estate market in this area made it impossible to grow it into a full time endeavor.
Dog training, if you’re doing it right, is about learning theory. You need to understand how the dogs learn so you can teach them how you want to behave. But here’s the rub: dogs learn the same way we do, and once you understand how that works, you can’t unsee it. It effects how you look at nearly everything.
My part-time dog training has had a few fits and starts over the past few years, but it looks like I may be about to go back to regular training one or two evenings a week in the fall.
Counting Crows (no, that those guys)
Back when I started attending classes and seminars about animal behavior, there were still plenty of people that would tell you that only humans use tools (despite Jane Goodall documenting chimps using sticks to eat termites in the late 1950s), count, or demonstrate altruistic behavior.
We’ve come a long way in twenty years. Birds, elephants, octopi, dolphins, and other animals have been documented using tools and several species have been shown to demonstrate altruism, even as skeptics argue over what the term really means. Whales appear to have some form of phonetic language, or at least a way to address messages to individual members of their pod.
Now, we have research pointing to counting by crows.
Free Ebooks!
Another thing I haven’t done in a while is share some free ebooks! Take a look at these latest specials!
I’m part of a fantastic science fiction and fantasy giveaway this month! You’ll find a huge selection of free books over here.
Refer a subscriber to my list from this link, to get a free ebook copy of Shadows of the Past!
Eric Goebelbecker
Trick of the Tale LLC
25 Veterans Plaza #5276
Bergenfield, NJ 07621-9998
Know what else counts? Cicadas!
I live in one of the regions that got overrun with cicadas this year, so I paid extra attention to a recent article in Scientific American about how those broods keep time. They count cycles of sap! The experiment they used forced some trees to go into an extra cycle (controlled environment or something) and the cicadas came up early.