{"id":31382,"date":"2025-12-21T17:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T17:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cozydogspaces.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/21\/zoomie-contest-results-lewis-was-running-away-from-poop\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T17:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T17:30:10","slug":"zoomie-contest-results-lewis-was-running-away-from-poop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cozydogspaces.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/21\/zoomie-contest-results-lewis-was-running-away-from-poop\/","title":{"rendered":"Zoomie Contest Results: Lewis Was Running Away from Poop"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"A<\/a>
This is an old still of Lewis running, unrelated to the contest<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The results are tabulated! I don\u2019t do clickbait, so I\u2019ll tell you here at the beginning that Clip A was the escape clip (see the post title), and Clip B was the \u201cautomatic reinforcement\u201d (and possible social reinforcement) clip. Most people picked B as the escape clip, for excellent reasons\/observations.<\/p>\n

Observations and Interpretations<\/h2>\n

I was super pleased and impressed that every single person who entered the contest included an astute observation. Every entrant took the question seriously and wrote down something they noticed. And people noticed all sorts of things that I hadn\u2019t. For instance, that the ground looked wet in one clip and not in the other. <\/p>\n

Two of the people who chose Clip A noted his lowered tail carriage. That was a good tell for him, but it\u2019s so dog-dependent! Because I know him, I can recognize that as possibly meaning, \u201cSomething\u2019s wrong with my butt!\u201d Good catch, you two!<\/p>\n

Many people found it significant that Lewis headed toward me at the end of Clip A and drew various conclusions from that. That was my bad. I tried to make the clips of similar lengths and had to edit Clip B a lot since it was longer and had some pretty obvious \u201ctells\u201d in it. I didn\u2019t want to edit down Clip A much. But leaving in that approach was a mistake, since Lewis approached me at the true end of Clip B as well.<\/p>\n

The other thing I regret relating to Clip B was using the words joy and eustress vs. distress. I should have stuck with \u201cautomatically reinforced.\u201d Lewis was certainly having some kind of fun in the non-escape clip, but if I\u2019m going to draw conclusions about his inner state, I think I would\u2019ve been more accurate to call it \u201cbratty fun\u201d than \u201cjoy.\u201d You\u2019ll see that when you look at the whole clip.<\/p>\n

Finally, many people noticed the tension in his face in Clip B and named that the escape clip. He did indeed have a lot of tension in his face. That is typical for him in any aroused situation. And if we speculate further, this could also have been a less obvious \u201cescape\u201d clip, in the sense that when running, he might have been seeking relief from social pressure, for instance.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a photo of Lewis with a tense face.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

I could never use it for a contest, because no one could guess what activity was going on. Lewis and I were doing our greeting routine after I got home. He is a frenzied greeter. For greetings, I guide him to the back of the couch, where he can get up to my face level. It\u2019s clear he is very, very glad I am home. But he gets aroused, so his face looks like this some of the time. <\/p>\n

I have observed tension in his face in many situations that likely have a positive emotional valence. The question in my mind is why his face is comparatively relaxed in the poop clip.<\/p>\n

The Clips<\/h2>\n

Here are the full clips that the shortened ones for the contest came from. Well, almost full because I didn\u2019t show the poopy butt.<\/p>\n

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