My heart belongs to the Boston Red Sox. Always has, always will.
The shine of their 2013 World Series win hasn’t come off yet (after all, it’s not even been a week!) However, at this point I would like to remind everyone that the Golden Retriever puppies predicted the Red Sox win on Jimmy Fallon.
Dogs have an intuition that we are only beginning to understand!
Kathleen Crisley, specialist in dog massage, rehabilitation and nutrition/food therapy, The Balanced Dog, Christchurch, New Zealand
Posted in Dogs, Humor/humour
Tagged Boston Red Sox, Jimmy Fallon, Red Sox, World Series
Whether your dog wags on the right side or the left means something – to other dogs and to observant humans…
Photo Credit: Siniscalchi et al.
Research by an Italian team has shown that dogs, like humans, have asymmetrically organized brains, with the left and right sides playing different roles. The team has published their research in the journal Current Biology.
The research team had already found that dogs wag to the right when they feel positive emotions (upon seeing their owners, for instance) and to the left when they feel negative emotions (upon seeing an unfriendly dog, for example). That biased tail-wagging behavior reflects what is happening in the dogs’ brains. Left-brain activation produces a wag to the right, and right-brain activation produces a wag to the left.
The latest research, however, shows that the direction of tail-wagging means something to other dogs. While monitoring their reactions, the researchers showed dogs videos of other dogs with either left- or right-asymmetric tail wagging. When dogs saw another dog wagging to the left, their heart rates picked up and they began to look anxious. When dogs saw another dog wagging to the right, they stayed perfectly relaxed.
Researcher Giorgio Vallortigara of the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences of the University of Trento says that the direction of tail-wagging a clear indication of right or left brain activation and could have many applications, such as determining state of mind during a visit to the vet.
So now that you know about this research, think about the wags on these dogs and what are they trying to say?
Posted in research
Tagged behavior, behaviour, brain activation, canine behavior, Current Biology, dog behavior, tail wagging
“I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.”
– Rita Rudner, comedian
For the record…I like Poodles. In fact, I like all dogs.
A single injection eased severe, chronic pain caused by late-stage bone cancer in dogs, according to a study in the November issue of Anesthesiology. Dogs with bone cancer that received a neurotoxin injection had significantly more pain relief than those that got standard care without the injection.
“Dogs are part of the family and we do everything we can to relieve them of pain and discomfort when they are sick,” said Dorothy Cimino Brown, D.V.M., School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. “In addition to sharing emotional attachments with our dogs, humans share many of the same ailments our pets suffer when fighting cancer. By studying the positive pain relief this treatment afforded dogs, we are hopeful it may also be effective for humans.”
A radiograph of a dog’s leg with a cancerous lesion. (Credit: Image courtesy of American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA))
The owners of 70 dogs enrolled their pets in this study. Half the dogs received an injection of a neurotoxin, called substance P-saporin (SP-sap), as well as standard care. The other half (i.e., the control group) received standard care without the neurotoxin injection. The average age of the dogs was between 8 and 9 years and their average weight was 90 pounds. Multiple breeds participated in the study, including: Rottweilers, Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers and mixed breeds.
The evolution of bone cancer pain in dogs parallels what occurs in humans, with the frequency and intensity of pain increasing over weeks and months. As the cancer advances, both canine and human patients experience life-altering pain, which greatly affects their daily activities and quality of life. The standard treatment for dogs with late-stage bone cancer can include opioids, steroids, and palliative radiation. All of these treatments can have negative side effects.
Within six weeks of beginning the study, 74 percent (26) of the dogs in the control group needed to be “unblinded” (i.e., their status in the study revealed) and their pain relief regimen adjusted compared to 24 percent of the dogs (eight) in the group that received the injection. This was a statistically significant difference.
Other study results included a 6 percent increase in pain severity scores for dogs in the control group, while the dogs in the SP-sap group had no change in pain severity score. In addition, the dogs in the control group had an 8 percent increase in how pain interferes with their typical activities, while the SP-sap dogs had a 5 percent improvement in this pain impact score. Finally, one dog in the control group responded with improved lameness, while 6 dogs in the SP-sap group became less lame. While these secondary study results were not statistically significant because they were only assessed two weeks after injection, they are promising.
Daisy (my Daisy) is (not surprisingly) a fan of Snoopy because he was born at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm. (I’ve tried to explain that the Farm was named long before Daisy was born, but she doesn’t quite grasp that concept.)
Mr Schultz, creator of Peanuts, clearly didn’t know about puppy mills when he was creating the story of Snoopy’s adoption – because the Farm looks nothing like the puppy mill operations we see today. Snoopy was able to be raised with his mother and siblings in a ‘free range’ environment which included a healthy buffet for dinner and musical interludes…
This YouTube video shows what the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm looked like:
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all puppies were raised in these conditions?
I’ve previously written about how to test if your dog is right-pawed or left pawed. Researchers at the University of Adelaide led by Dr Luke Schneider tested a group of 73 dogs using 50 manipulations of an object to determine their paw preference. They then interviewed the dog owners about their dog’s behavior to see if there was a pattern.
“We found that dogs with a preference for left paws were reported by their owners to show high levels of aggression towards strangers. The left pawed dogs scored almost twice as high as ambilateral (ones with no preference) and also higher than dogs with right paws.
“There is research in the human world as well that positive and negative emotions can be located in the left and right hemispheres and it seems to go the same way in humans and other animal species, that the negative emotions are located in the right hemisphere. There are many, many overlaps between human and animal brains.”
Blake the Beagle shows his preference for the right paw
When testing dogs for paw preference, the research team found a roughly even split between those dogs that had a right paw preference vs those with a left paw preference.
None of the dogs in the study were noted as particularly aggressive, and so the research team wants to do more work with dogs who are noted for aggression-type responses. A larger testing group would also help to validate results. The research team’s study has been published in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior.
This month, Ralph Lauren, has chosen to feature rescue dogs in showing his Fall 2013 Accessories Collection. This collection includes items of dog apparel, such as cashmere sweaters! (October is Adopt a Shelter Dog month, by the way)
If you buy any of the featured items between 15 October and 15 November, 10% of the proceeds will be donated to the ASPCA.
And now…..Ralph Lauren presents The Dog Walk:
Posted in animal welfare, dogs in advertising
Tagged accessories, Accessories Collection, adopt a, ASPCA, cashmere sweaters, collection, Dog Walk, Fall 2013, October, Ralph Lauren, rescue dogs
Dogs have been used in advertising for a long time – it’s not a new trend. Anyone who likes dogs will spot the ads that use a dog and they are more likely to remember the product or service.
Today I spotted this ad on a local website for a car dealership.
Is the Chocolate Labrador a Volkswagen fan?
Posted in dogs in advertising
Tagged advertising, Amarok, Chocolate Labrador, Dog, dogs, labrador, Volkswagen
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