Ingles

DOES YOUR DOG LOOK LIKE YOU?

You often hear people say that dogs look like their owners. It sounds like a crazy idea, but a new study from California suggests that it´s true – but only in certain circumstances.

Researchers wanted to find out if people really do look like their dogs, and just how this happens. First of all, they took photos of 45 dogs and their owners. They mixed the photosup and asked a group of people to match them.

The people who took part in the research were able to match most of the owners with their dogs if they were pure - bred - dogs whose parents are both the same type of dog. However, they weren’t able to do the matching for mongrels - dogs with parents of two different types. The researches have suggested that this may be because people choose dogswhich look like themselves, and people who want pure-bred dogs choose their pets more carefully.

The researchers say it isn´t clear now the people in their study were able to do the matching. They didn´t simply match hairy dogs with hairy people or big dogs with big people. It seems that they used a more complicated method, such as matching friendly-looking dogs with friendly-looking people.MY WEEK OF LIVING DIFFERENTLY (in this new series of articles, we ask different people to change their lifestyle completely for one week and keep a diary of their experiences. This week we follow web-designer Dwight Miller´s week of living differently).

Dwight doesn´t think much about his body and appearance. He´s a scruffy couch potato. So we challenged him to spend a week paying moreattention to his image.

Here´s Dwight´s diary …

Sunday Evening

My week of living differently starts tomorrow. I´m going to do lots of things I´ve never done before in my life. First of all, I´m having a complete style makeover.

Monday Makeover day

I don´t normally waste time on my hair. I don´t even comb it. For me, a gook haircut is a fast haircut – fifteen minutes maximum. But today,I spent two and a half hours in the chair, bored out of my mind. They put red highlights in my hair and then they gave me a funny red jacket to match. When I came out, my girlfriend said I looked like Ronald McDonald.

Tomorrow, I´m going to have a Pilates class. I´m not sure what Pilates is, but I´ll check on Wikipedia when I get home …

Tuesday Pilates day

OK. So now I Know. Pilates isan exercise method where you have to think a lot about breathing. We spent a lot of time breathing deeply. It was quite relaxing, really. I´ll go to bed early tonight. Tomorrow´s tango day: I´m going to have a dance class.

Wednesday Tango day

It was great fun until I stepped on my partner´s toe! But I think I´ll continue. Tango looks really cool when you can do it well. I´ll probably buy somegood shoes, though. Trainers don´t look right.

Tomorrow, I´m doing something which sounds very exciting and dangerous – Thai boxing!

Thursday Thai Boxing day

Thai boxing is called The Science of the Eight Limbs’ because you use your knees and elbows as well as hands and feet. But for me, it was the science of one limb. I lifted my leg to kick, the instructor kicked my other leg andknocked me over. I fell on my thumb and now it´s really painful. I don´t think I´ll do that again.

Tomorrow´s the last day of my lifestyle makeover, and I´m going to do something calm and relaxing – a Turkish bath.

Friday Turkish Bath day

Normally, I can´t spend more than five minutes doing nothing. I have to be at my computer, or watching the TV, or reading a magazine. But today I sat in asteam bath for two hours doing absolutely nothing and it was fantastic. I got a massage, too, and I came out feeling brilliant – totally refreshed – a new man! I´ll definitely do that again. What a great way to end my lifestyle makeover week!

Next week, read about librarian Linda Smith´s week living and working as a fashion model in Tokyo …


THE KINGS OF COOL

Brazzaville, Congo –...