Beagles, beagles, beagles . . . and maybe people

I recently read in the newspaper that the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University has found that certain antioxidant supplements increased the ability of older beagles to learn a new task. In other words, maybe you CAN teach an old dog new tricks. The beagles were taught how to find a food treat by identifying certain colored objects where the treat would be. A yellow peg was used as a marker, and for one of the tasks, four of six beagles receiving the supplement learned very quickly to identify the correct marker and find their treat. Only two of six beagles not receiving the supplements succeeded. It didn’t say what happened to the four that missed. Do you suppose they ever got any treats at all? Just for going through the test should have been enough to give them a bone or a doggie biscuit. They went through 15 weeks of training and the outcome was this: 80 percent of supplemental dogs were successful and only 50 percent of the others could learn how to do it. It goes on to say that clinical experiments with humans using the supplements are under way. How do they test humans? Do they put some chocolate behind a red peg someplace and then let everyone loose? Will it take 15 weeks to learn something new, and if you’re really old, after 15 weeks you’ll be that much older and probably have forgotten what you were doing in the first place? Do you suppose I could get in on that study and learn how to work all the buttons on my Volvo so that I wouldn’t be throwing my seat back when all I wanted was to open a window – my window, not the one in the back seat and not the one on the passenger side – just MY window? Maybe I should look into those supplements. Do you suppose they are doing a similar study in Sweden on humans where I could learn how to fix my Volvo myself? Some of the things are fixable but very costly. Maybe I could learn how to be a Volvo mechanic! What an exciting thought. But that would require a new passport, and I hate passport photos. I’ll have to think about it.

I had a beagle years ago that ate 13 chickens belonging to a neighbor a couple of blocks away. He had never been in any study at OSU or anyplace else, but do you suppose there was a colored marker at the house where the chickens lived and he went to it every time? How would he know if he hadn’t been in the study? Or do you think it’s just that beagles are hunters? What a mystery. I’d like to know how the experiments are coming with humans which are supposedly under way right now. Where do they get these people anyway? And why wasn’t I notified?