A UMass-Amherst doctoral candidate, Kathryn Lord, designed a study of dog barks. Some of the reporting that's coming from her study (but not this very interesting article) seems to be missing her point. She says that dogs don't bark to convey very specific messages, and people seem to be interpreting that to mean Rex the dog doesn't bark differently at different times.
What Lord is actually saying makes more sense–dogs don't bark to say things like "Bobby's fallen in the well–bring rope and a lean beef Pupperoni while you're at it," but they certainly are capable of conveying broader things. My own half-Beagle half-Rat Terrier certainly conveys different messages when she wants to play versus when someone comes to the door. And when someone dares to walk past the house in the street, she comes heartbreakingly close to a full Beagle howl. Alas, her genes don't allow for it. But she's so close.
ADDITIONAL: Here's an interesting discussion on an unusual coincidence. Seems the writer of the blog penned an article 15 years ago about the remarkable timing of the Shoemaker-Levy comet impacts on Jupiter's atmosphere, which lined up very closely with the timing of the moon landing of 1969. Now, on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, another cosmic object has impacted the Jovian atmosphere. Could it mean anything? (I bet against, but it's an interesting discussion nonetheless…)
