Now this is just too cute! We always say that you can learn much from dogs and animals and this latest study shows that yet again that dogs, just puppies even, have much to teach us. Ok, so maybe it sounds sexist, letting girls win or come first in this day and age of PC, but I am a bit of a believer in old fashioned manners and etiquette.

In this study out of the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan, which studied ‘play data’ from puppies between 3 and 40 weeks old from four dog breeds: a shepherd mix, Labrador retriever, Doberman pincher and malamute. They examined how the puppies played with members of their own sex as well as with the opposite sex.

What they found was that young male dogs playing with female pups will often let the females win, even if the males have a physical advantage.

Male dogs sometimes place themselves in potentially disadvantageous positions that could make them more vulnerable to attack, and researchers suspect the opportunity to play may be more important to them than winning.

The gentlemanly dog behavior is even accompanied with a bow.

“We found that self-handicapping tends to occur in conjunction with play bows,” lead author Camille Ward said. “A play bow is a signal that dogs use when they want to communicate playful intentions to a potential play partner.”

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On the 4th of July, two 21 year old Mankato/Litchfield men, Alex Curtis Krause and Braydon Charles Jerve, brutally killed Krause’s girlfriend’s dog, a little Pomeranian. They staked the dog out in the yard by its leash, shot it with an arrow, beat it over the head with a log then dumped its dead body in the trash.

They were both charges with felony animal cruelty. Now one of the two, Braydon Charles Jerve, got himself a deal. Pleading guilty to animal cruelty, the charge was dropped from a felony to a misdemeanor. Supposedly, he just beat the dog over its head to end its suffering after Krause’s arrow didn’t kill it. Likely story! Oh, I’m sure he beat the little dog over the head to kill but doubt there was any ‘end its suffering’ kindness there, he just wanted to kill the dog.

So these two pieces of trash torture and kill a dog together, one puts a little spin on the story and will wound up with the usual ‘wrist slap’ sentence no doubt.

Another fine hour for our judicial system! Or maybe in-justice system would be more like it.

Two misdemeanor marijuana drug paraphernalia possession charges from a July 11th arrest were also dropped in conjunction with the plea deal. And all he had to do was sign a statement against his friend, Alex Curtis Krause, who will be on trial in December for the felony animal cruelty charge.

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