TBR News Media has learned of a remarkable rescue mission of four Mount Sinai-based sailors earlier this month.
Reports indicate that on Sunday, May 8, the sailors aboard the 40-foot C&C sailboat “Calypso,” owned by local resident and member of the Mount Sinai Sailing Association Bob Ellinger, were approximately 80 miles offshore battling against 16-17 foot waves when the boat was hit by a rogue wave estimated at 30 feet in height.
This blow had destroyed the mast, rendering the ship inoperable. While much of the equipment onboard was beyond disrepair, the crew managed to send out an emergency distress signal.
The U.S. Coast Guard responded to the mayday and members of the Air Station Cape Cod MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew located the shipwreck. In a daring effort, battling high seas and strong winds, the helicopter crew successfully rescued all four sailors.
The sailors were later hospitalized and treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
If you have any information regarding this rescue mission, please email [email protected]. Tune into tbrnewsmedia.com for more updates to this developing story.
Brookhaven Town collected 360 lbs. of pet food and supplies during the Long Island Cares 11th annual Legislative Pet Food Drive Challenge. This drive focused on collecting and providing food for the family members most vulnerable to hunger – our pets. This year, the Town accepted donations at seven drop off locations from March 21 through April 22. Donated items included canned dog and cat food, five to ten-pound bags of dry food, treats and various pet care supplies including litter boxes, food bowls, pet carriers, pet toys and more.
Pictured from left are Councilman Michael Loguercio; Councilman Neil Foley; Councilman Kevin LaValle; Long Island Cares – The Harry Chapin Food Bank Food Drive Manager, Billy Gonyou; Councilwoman Jane Bonner; Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich and Supervisor Ed Romaine.
Ella Theresa Sharrock with a hit for the Wolverines in a home game against Ward Melville May 14. Photo by Bill Landon
Timeout Ward Melville
Timeout Newfield.
Ward Melville’s Sophie Reed with a hit for the Patriots in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Alicea Pepitone rounds 2nd base for the Patriots in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Ward Melville’s Isabelle Parente drills one for the Patriots in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Newfield’s Alyssa Monda makes the play for the Wolverines in a home game against Ward Melville May 14. Bill Landon photo
Ward Melville’s Gianna Raftery rips one for the Patriots in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Ward Melville’s Emme Powell heads for third for the Patriots in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Timeout Newfield
Timeout Newfield
Ward Melville’s Hailey Gallin tries for 3rd ahead of Ella Theresa Sharrock’s throw in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Newfield outfielder Shanell Feliz Pena throws in at home game against Ward Melville May 14. Bill Landon photo
Ward Melville’s Sydney Gerle rounds third and heads home for the score in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Newfield outfielder Shanell Feliz Pena makes the catch for the out in a home game against Ward Melville May 14. Bill Landon photo
Newfield pitcher Riley Paige Firenze in a home game against Ward Melville May 14. Bill Landon photo
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Ward Melville’s Gianna Raftery throws for the Patriots in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Timeout Ward Melville.
Newfield on deck in a home game against Ward Melville May 14. Bill Landon photo
Ward Melville’s Hailey Gallin throws for the Patriots in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Ward Melville shortstop Sara Kropp makes the play for the Patriots in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Ward Melville shortstop Sara Kropp makes the play for the Patriots in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Ward Melville shortstop Sara Kropp makes the play for the Patriots in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Ward Melville’s Hailey Gallin throws for the Patriots in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Ward Melville’s Gianna Raftery drills one for the Patriots in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Alicea Pepitone takes a cut for the Patriots in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Newfield pitcher Riley Paige Firenze in a home game against Ward Melville May 14. Bill Landon photo
Sara Kropp safely at third base for the Patriots in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Newfield catcher Teresa Lynn Cotty in a home game against Ward Melville May 14. Bill Landon photo
Ward Melville’s Annabella Segnini scores a run in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Ward Melville’s Hailey Gallin dives back to second base in a road game against Newfield May 14. Credit: Bill Landon
Ella Theresa Sharrock makes the play for the Wolverines in a home game against Ward Melville May 14. Photo by Bill Landon
Newfield’s Emily Rose Wall scores a run in a home game against Ward Melville May 14. Bill Landon photo
Newfield’s Teresa Lynn Cotty takes a cut in a home game against Ward Melville May 14. Bill Landon photo
The score was close through 3 1/2 innings of play when Newfield’s bats began to crack in a home game against Ward Melville outpacing the Patriots, 24-12, for the win in for both teams’ season finale Saturday, May 14.
Bringing together people from a range of experiences and perspectives, Stony Brook University is preparing to complete the first year of its LEND training program, which is designed to help provide support and services for people with autism and neurodevelopmental disabilities.
Over 100 trainees will complete the course this month, as the leaders of LEND, which stands for Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and other related Disabilities, prepare to educate a second year of participants that is expected to exceed 300 people.
Top row: Dr. Matthew Lerner, Dr. Michelle Ballan (co-director and director) 2nd row: Pallavi Tatapudy, Isaac Rodriguez, Morgan McNair 3rd row: Sarah Grosser, Anjolie Nagarwalla, Jenny Andersson Bottom row: Christopher Rosa, Ava Gurba
Matthew Lerner, LEND Center Co-Director, Research Director of the Autism Initiative, and Associate Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry & Pediatrics, and Michelle Ballan, LEND Program and Center Director, Professor, and Associate Dean for Research in the School of Social Welfare and Professor of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine, run the program, which is the first on Long Island to receive a federal grant that supports training students, families, professionals and self-advocates.
Lerner described three key takeaways for the $2.2 million, five-year grant.
First, “if we want to be effective in supporting individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders we have to be interdisciplinary,” he said.
Second, the group, which includes trainees at three different levels depending on their time commitment to the program, needs to “listen to the voices of autistic people,” Lerner added. For too long, “they’ve been an afterthought at the table of care.”
Third, the work is a “process and not an outcome,” he said.
Many of the participants in the program appreciated the opportunity to engage in an interdisciplinary effort.
Self-advocate
Ava Gurba, a self-advocate and master’s student at Stony Brook University who has autism and cerebral palsy, said she saw LEND as her chance to “reframe the professional discipline” and inform people in a range of fields about what life is “really like” for her and others.
Many professionals in health care have limited experience working with self-advocates.
“They have only interacted with disabled people as clients in a therapeutic setting or as research subjects,” Gurba said.
Researchers and service providers don’t often know how to incorporate the lived experience for the family and from self- advocates, she added.
Gurba suggested that some professionals need to “unlearn” practices that don’t incorporate the values and needs of people with disabilities.
The medical community is often looking for cures, while Gurba said she and others with disabilities are more often looking for ways to be integrated into the community, through social, employment, or educational opportunities.
Clinical training
For Alan Gerber, a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at Stony Brook, LEND provided autism-specific clinical training, including planning treatment and reviewing the progress for specific patients.
“It gives me an opportunity to get together with an inter-disciplinary cohort and see things from a different lens,” Gerber said.
Gerber plans to be a clinical researcher and will conduct post doctoral research at the Yale Child Study Center.
LEND “made me think very deeply about what is clinically meaningful research,” Gerber said. When he speaks with families, pediatricians and social workers, he wants to do the kind of research that is “really going to change a family’s life.”
Gerber hopes to remain in contact with other members of the LEND community, where he felt he was part of a team.
Paradigm shift
As a high school bilingual speech language pathologist who works closely with individualized education plans, Jenn Solomon wanted to understand more about the lives and challenges of people with developmental disabilities.
LEND provided a paradigm shift for Solomon in helping her understand disability. “I can listen to what people with disabilities have to say, and I can reflect and learn,” Solomon said.
One of Solomon’s broader goals is to advocate on behalf of students who have obstacles to overcome.
Jenny Andersson, who works for the New York State Department of Education Office of Special Education funded project called the Educational Partnership, suggested that LEND “exceeded what I had imagined.”
Like other trainees, Andersson, who is Director of the Early Childhood Family and Community Engagement Center, appreciated the participation of self-advocates.
“I approach everything in my work now and ask, ‘Did we invite all stakeholders to the discussion?’”
Ripple effects
Andersson is excited to see the ripple effect of the program, where other professionals benefit from what trainees learn and discuss and change their practices.
Indeed, Dr. Pallavi Tatapudy, a second-year psychiatry resident at Stony Brook, said her husband Nishank Mehta, who is a first-year orthopedic surgery resident at Stony Brook, has learned about advocacy from some of the discussions she had through LEND.
“This experience of working together and hearing all of these personal insights, you cannot get from a textbook,” Tatapudy said.
Tatapudy understands the value of consulting with people who have disabilities and with their families. “The patient is the expert,” she said.
When she worked in the inpatient psychiatric unit on the 12th floor of Stony Brook Hospital, Tatapudy said she spoke to a family who was admitting a child with a neurodevelopmental disability. She asked parents for an idea of ways to comfort their child that de-escalate emotionally charged moments at home. His parents said a particular blanket from home provided comfort, which they brought to the hospital.
Tatapudy is “proud” that Stony Brook is a LEND center, joining 60 others throughout the country.
For Lerner, who was a LEND trainee about a dozen years ago and continues to stay in touch with his LEND cohort, the effort helps experts learn from each other and from self-advocates who can share their perspectives. “None of us has enough expertise to do this alone,” he said.
Suffolk County Police Fourth Squad detectives are investigating a motor vehicle crash that killed a man in Saint James in the morning hours of Saturday, May 14.
Robert Greene was driving a 2012 Ford Taurus eastbound on Middle Country Road when his vehicle struck a 2022 International tractor trailer backing in to an Acura dealership, located at 780 Middle Country Road, at approximately 3:35 a.m.
Greene, 33, of South Setauket, was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the tractor trailer, Azeddine Fridjat, 57, of Enfield, Connecticut, was not injured.
The Ford was impounded for a safety check. The tractor trailer was inspected at the scene by officers from the Motor Carrier Safety Section.
Detectives are asking anyone who may have witnessed the crash to contact the Fourth Squad at 631-854-8452.
Artist Charles Wildbank in front of 'Grand Florale'
'Strawberries' by Charles Wildbank
'Petits Battles' by Charles Wildbank
'Red Boy' by Charles Wildbank
'Megabyte' by Charles Wildbank
'Candysticks' by Charles Wildbank
'Listen by Charles Wildbank
'The Mermaid' by Charles Wildbank
Artist Charles Wildbank works on 'The Nap'
'The Nap' by Charles Wildbank
'The Path' by Charles Wildbank
Artist Charles Wildbank in front of 'Emergence'
Artist statement:
‘I paint as if in a dream highlighting my everyday experiences in poetic color and form with emotion. My subjects range from still life, landscapes, and portraits in the photorealistic style and futuristic visionary paintings with a surreal edge.’
By Irene Ruddock
In this interview, you will gain insight on a remarkable artist; a photorealist and visionary explorer who seeks to discover the inner world through art. Born deaf, Charles Wildbank achieved degrees from Yale, Pratt, and Columbia. After a few years of teaching deaf students, Wildbank burst upon the art world with his Fifth Avenue window showcases in New York City, portraits of David Hockney and Luciano Pavarotti and his famed eight foot tall rendering of the Cartier diamond. Read on to be amazed and uplifted by his fascinating career and inner depth that has transformed this artist’s vision and ours along with it.
Tell us about your beginning forays in the world of art? How did being deaf affect your choosing art as your life’s work?
There were hardly any options when it came to communicating as a deaf child other than pointing or drawing sketches to have others understand me. This was followed by strong approvals and eventually requests for some art from me. That is how my art career blossomed since I got adept at rendering just about anything.
How do you hear now? How did you learn to speak so well which is a difficult obstacle for the deaf?
Without wearing a hearing device, I am deaf as a stone, oblivious to all sounds. My parents, in realizing my lack of hearing as a toddler, brought home a rather large amplifier with headphones. For me, it was one of the best gifts. Music would be one of my first sounds. Also, I would wear them in front of a black and white television watching cartoons. This was followed shortly with a large new hearing aid which I could wear strapped around my chest for play outside. This helped me learn to speak and listen and not just read lips.
It was only recently that I received a pair of cochlear implants. That is when I first picked up the sound of fizz when opening a bottle of Perrier water! Every morning since, i woke up to a cacophony of bird songs outside.
For the most part, I enjoy painting in complete silence. Music is always my love as it was my first sound. For instance, I get so moved by the vocal range of one of Maria Callas’ arias, only possible through my cochlear implants. I am so grateful for this timely modern technology. Also, I am grateful for the closed captioning, for through this, I hear most everything, I am still learning how to listen and recognize language by ear. In retrospect, all those years of speech therapy after school hours were worth it!
Being understood has been a very challenging feat for me and it was though family and friends who would help me enunciate new words. It was perhaps through my willingness to accept feedback without feeling criticized which may have been an essential key to this day.
As a former teacher, I was most impressed by your heartfelt desire for parents to encourage children in their passions and gifts. Can you tell us about your family and the importance of their support in your life’s choice of art.
The idea of praising children for any accomplishment became the norm in my family and it is likely not just love, but the side benefit of children giving back. All my siblings had many talents and in turn received their nourishment and it made us all so proud. I’d wish this for every child in this world as it has such a transforming effect on their overall being. Literally, vices such as bullyism and wars would vanish. One cannot underestimate the power of the arts in our love starved world of today. All it would take is some beautiful architecture, some color in the room, some fashion, some life changing art, or a song to make one’s life turn around for the better!
How has your art progressed since the initial foray into the art world?
Though I was mostly self-taught, attending art college landed me into such a creative and stimulating environment among like peers. We visited many museums and galleries and took opportunities to remain inspired such as meeting older professional artists. My art output increased among the local art fairs in the Hamptons due to the delightfully growing demand for my art.
Can you describe the exemplary ‘Hado Series?’
After many years of paving out a career in such hyper- real fashion on Fifth Avenue, I wished to make a leap of imagination by adding a touch of surrealism in my newer work. Since many of my dreams contain a common element of water with giant waves throughout, I adopted this Japanese word HADO, which means “wave”.To achieve this subliminal oceanic effect, I incorporated some of my photographs withdigital tools such as photoshop. I do anything I wished with my more mundane images thus transforming them into another realm from my imaginative choosing. This is followed by using these final images as notes as I paint from my laptop onto a very large canvas. This visual show can observed in my recent “Tempest” and “Emergence” murals.
A lot of us are lost when it comes to understanding digital art, yet you have achieved remarkable work that is not remote or cold in feeling but touches the soul. Can you explain this?
Instead of a computer mouse, I use a special stylus digital pen and tablet with my laptop in creating new images. My photo diaries are uploaded for this purpose, and I often start with a dream in mind’s eye and find elements in reality that I can morph into the composition on the screen. This would take many hours to achieve to my satisfaction. Finally, a grid is laid upon the approved image and sketched by hand onto a new blank canvas. Digitally I can add and take away elements that do not belong and amplify to match any given emotion or whim. Once sketched upon the canvas in pencil, I proceed to paint and brush onto that canvaswith acrylic paint. This process usually take several months to complete.
Your portraits of everyday people are as mesmerizing as your famous portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. What is it that draws you to a person?
Portraits are a very dear subject for me, particularly large ones. Whenever someone visually grabs my attention for any reason, I usually make a request for a pose which often goes rewarded. Perhaps it is their hair or certain attitude that I find appealing.Essentially, I look for that timeless feeling.
Your commission to paint for the ocean liner The Queen Mary 2 had to be an exciting honor.
For those murals on board the QM2, I was approached by agents representing Cunard Lines in Amsterdam by e-mail because my website must have captured their strong interest. There were requirements to be met and one interesting one was that the murals had to be flame proof. After some search online then, I was able to locate a canvas manufacturer that makes this Trevira (TM) brand and ordered 10-foot-wide rolls 40 feet long from Nurnberg, Germany. The ship’s insurance company in London requested my canvas sample and it passed the flame test. These tall murals depict coastal scenes of England and America and are now hung by the elevators on board the QM2. Fans having sailed on board would thoughtfully send me selfies confirming they have admired these murals. Such gestures would make my day.
You are presently showing your work at the Reboli Center’s Bloom exhibit in Stony Brook. What piece do you have on exhibit there?
Originally, I was going to include my latest “Grand Florale” at this ReboliExhibition “Bloom”, however, fortunately and unfortunately, I had sold the mural, all 11 feet of it to a private collector. I decided to exhibit one of my favorites titled, “The Path” which depicts one of my refreshing walks by the beach path covered with rugosa roses inbloom.
How can the public view your work ?
Visit my latest website, http://wildbankfineart.com and facebook page under “Charles Wildbank” and view my story on the Reboli Center website. Also, I welcome visitors to my studio in Jamesport to see my work in person or to join a group for art lessons by appointment.
Councilmember Kornreich, Jennifer Dzonar and Supervisor Romaine. Photo from PJS/Terryville Chamber of Commerce
Colette Frey-Bitzas, third from left, with members of the Three Village Chamber of Commerce and Councilmember Kornreich. Photo from Councilmember Kornreich's office
Jennifer Dzvonar, second from right, with members of the PJS/Terryville Chamber of Commerce and Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich. Photo from PJS/Terryville Chamber of Commerce
Supervisor Romaine with PJCC Chamber of Commerce Director of Operations, Barbara Ransome, Meadow Club owner Indu Kaur and Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich. Photo from Councilmember Kornreich's office
From left, Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich with Colette Frey-Bitzas.
Barbara Ransome
On April 26, Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine and Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich attended the 22nd annual Brookhaven Chambers of Commerce Coalition (BCCC) Awards Night at the Meadow Club in Port Jefferson Station.
Established in 1992, the Brookhaven Chambers of Commerce Coalition represents more than 16 chambers in the Town of Brookhaven. The awards reception honors members that represent the values and mission of the coalition.
During the evening, Brookhaven Town chamber members were recognized by the Supervisor and Councilmember for their service to the business community. In addition to running their own businesses, members share the understanding that small businesses provide jobs to thousands of people and help create a sense of place in the community.
“Congratulations to all the award recipients. This recognition of service to the business community is well deserved, especially after the difficulties brought on by the pandemic. Small business was hit hard, but now it’s their time to rebound and get back to business as usual,” said Supervisor Romaine.
“I was so proud to see our own Jennifer Dzvonar from the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Chamber of Commerce; James Luciano from the Port Jefferson Chamber of Commerce and Colette Frey-Bitzas from the Three Village Chamber of Commerce be nominated as members of the year,” said Councilmember Kornreich.
“The town wide winner was our very own Jen Dzvonar. Thank you, Jen and all our Chamber members for everything you do to make Council District 1 a great place to live and do business. Special thanks to Indu Kaur for hosting the event at the elegant Meadow Club, and a shoutout to Barbara Ransome for running a great event,” he added.
School board elections are a rare chance to make a positive change in the lives of schoolchildren throughout our community.
Too young to vote, these children depend on us to make responsible decisions on their behalf. It is our duty to help them find direction and we must take this responsibility seriously.
For centuries, school boards on this continent have served a vital role, promoting health, prosperity and civility throughout communities across America. Our school boards prepare our youth for the challenges of life, serving as a vehicle for their coming of age.
On Tuesday, voters will decide who will serve on these school boards and, while they are often overlooked, these elections have enormous consequences. Unlike other elected officials who spend much of their time away in some remote capitol, school board members are here on the ground with their students and constituents.
Among many other obligations, school boards hire district superintendents, approve budgets, design curricula and organize districtwide calendars. These individuals will chart the course of our students’ lives from kindergarten through high school. Behind the scenes, their decisions will shape how these children learn and grow, and how they develop into responsible citizens prepared to contribute to our community.
Americans generally believe that our greatest days still lie ahead of us. Even in this moment of partisanship and polarization, we can all agree that our future requires an educated youth. These young souls will soon be leaders among us, which is why our decisions matter today.
We must take greater interest in the education of our youth. We must study our ballots, familiarizing ourselves not only with the names of the candidates but also the person, platform and character behind the name. Does this candidate have integrity? Can this candidate be entrusted with the moral and intellectual development of our children? These are the critical questions we must ask ourselves before entering the voting booth.
To the readers of TBR News Media, take a moment to research the candidates for your district’s board of education. Be prepared before you pull the lever, including studying the proposed 2022-23 school budget.
While we so often hear people tell us their votes don’t count, we are here to tell you that this one does. The enlightenment of our children, the health of our community and the future of our nation are in your hands. Make your voice heard and get out to vote this coming Tuesday.
Once upon a time, the eight parts of speech came together to compete for supremacy.
Convinced of his invincibility, the arrogant noun stood on top of the mountain, rolling his eyes at the other parts of speech, assured of his victory.
“I am, without a doubt, the most important of the eight of us,” he declared. “I hope you’re not too disappointed when you all eat my dust.”
“You think you’re the best and the brightest,” laughed the adjective. “Without me, you’d be a bunch of people, places and things, without much flavor. Why, you’d be like vanilla ice cream without sprinkles, melting in the hot sun.”
“Well, sure, adjectives are helpful,” the noun acknowledged. “You’re like Robin to my Batman.”
“So, you’re the only superhero with any real value?” the pronoun asked.
“No, you and I are a team, right? You stand for nouns, with your ‘he, she, it’ and your ‘who, which and what,’ but, come on? Where would you be without me? I’m the king, the throne, the empire, the country and the world all at once.”
“Maybe, but people would get sick of reading the same words over and over if they didn’t have pronouns,” the pronoun argued. “I may have smaller words in my part of speech, but I take the place of all your huge words, without needing to repeat them all.”
“Good grief,” the interjection interjected. “Come on! I’m not only a conversation stopper, I am often followed by an exclamation point. See? Well, that’s a question, but I’m a forceful part of speech, dang it! Listen to me! I will win this ridiculous competition!”
Slowly and deliberately, the adverb hopped off his adverb couch, gracefully gliding over to the group.
“Seriously, the adverbs gleefully chuckling over there,” he said, pointing to a group of words with “ly” tails, “are highly useful and critically important.”
The preposition had heard enough. He climbed off the fence, down a hill, and near the others.
“The proposition of a preposition winning this contest is high,” she said. “We provide context for so many activities — on the roof, by six o’clock, beneath the surface.”
That’s when they heard a sound without end. When they looked for the source of the noise, they noticed an endless group of words strung together.
“Hello, all you other parts of speech,” the conjunction said. “I have endless storage space and can carry each you indefinitely. I can also sew together seemingly different ideas.”
The noun laughed at the conjunction.
“What good would all those connections be if you didn’t have the rest of us?” he snickered.
Whirring through the air, the verb appeared, disappeared, jumped over the group, slid beneath them, and ricocheted around the meadow.
“Hello everyone,” the verb snickered. “This competition makes me laugh.”
“Crikey! Why is that?” the interjection asked.
“Well, you’d be a pile of stuff without action verbs,” he said. “In fact, you wouldn’t even be anything without a verb. To do anything, to be anything, and to animate your actions, you all need verbs. We lift you off the canvas, transport you to other places, inspire greatness, and demand attention. Yes, all the rest of you have magnificent qualities (special thanks to the adjective for giving us ‘magnificent’), but verbs drive ideas forward, infuse life into your existence, and encourage discourse.”
“I’d be limited without verbs,” the adverb agreed glumly.
“No, verbs soar majestically because of you,” the verb offered reassuringly. “We count on you.”
“Hey! We’re all important!” the interjection concluded.
“That could be true,” the noun concluded. “I still think none of us would be here without me.”
“True, but you’re a long list of stuff that isn’t doing much and that lacks personality without the rest of us,” the verb said, wanting to have the last word. “Now, let the games begin.”
Recent impressive research tells us something we already knew: not every golden retriever always retrieves. We have been fortunate to enjoy three golden retrievers in a row over four decades, and for the first two, when we threw a tennis ball, it was enthusiastically returned and dropped at our feet. Then there was Teddy.
Teddy came to us at eight weeks, a golden ball of fur with two eyes, two ears, a pink nose and a tail. He passed on 12 years later, and during that time, we were convinced he was the most beautiful, most intelligent and most fun dog in the world. But there was one oddity about Teddy the Golden Retriever. When we took him out on the lawn and threw a tennis ball, he would politely sit down and watch its trajectory. Then he would look back at us as if to say, “Yeah? So?”
However, if we brought him to a beach and threw a rock that landed among thousands of other rocks, he would bring back that exact rock and drop it at our feet, backing off, tail wagging, and wait for the next throw. This had a terrible effect on his front teeth. Over the years, it wore them down, but he never seemed to mind and didn’t appear to be in any discomfort.
The other item he retrieved at the beach was seaweed. He would plunge into the water, stick his nose beneath the surface, then come up with a mouthful of seaweed and bring it about 10 feet up on the shore, where he would deposit it. From his many trips to the beach, there remained a line of seaweed that marked his hunting spot.
Although the current researchers never interviewed Teddy, they did surveys of 18,385 dogs and sequenced the genomes of 2,155 dogs for their research paper published in the journal Science. They were looking for predictors of canine behavior and concluded that by breed was essentially useless. This might surprise you, as it did us, except regarding the retrieving aspect we just discussed.
But apparently, stereotypes like pit bulls being aggressive were not validated. In fact, they scored high on human sociability, with videos showing lap-loving pit bulls. According to an article reporting on this study in The New York Times this past Tuesday, written by James Gorman, “Labrador Retrieverancestry [most popular breed in America], on the other hand, didn’t seem to have any significant correlation with human sociability.”
However, the research allows, there are some few predictable traits. “If you adopt a border collie…the probability that it will be easier to train and interested in toys is going to be higher than if you adopt a Great Pyrenees.”
Go figure.
Breed supposedly accounts for only 9% of the variations in any given dog’s behavior. Rather, behavior patterns were strongly inherited, to the tune of 25%, again according to the research, within any given breed. In studying genomes, “several genes [were discovered] that clearly influence behavior, including one for how friendly dogs are.”So if you are about to buy a dog, check out its parents first.
The researchers found 11 specific DNA regions that were associated with behavior, and an interesting comparison can be made with those same areas in human genomics. A region that affects the likelihood of a dog howling corresponds in humans to language development, and another that marks dogs enjoying being with humans presents in human DNA with long-term memory.
So I will tell you a little more about Terrific Teddy. When company would arrive at our home, he would walk up to each newcomer, wag and, I insist, smile, until the person gave him a pat on the head. He would then go on to the next person and wait until the greeting ritual was repeated. After that, he would withdraw to a corner and watch the socializing quietly unless called.
He was a bit of a terror under the table when we were at dinner. He would stealthily snatch the napkins off the diners’ laps. Some day I will write a children’s book about Teddy, the Napkin Snatcher Dog.
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