In Christchurch, where I live and practice, we’re known for our flat landscape in most parts of the city and suburbs. However, we do have some hilly suburbs which are considered prime real estate for those wanting a view and a different level of privacy.
With those hilly sections come challenges.
Homes in these areas tend to require stairs or steep drives and a walk in the neighbourhood demands hill-walking; much different to the single story traditional housing on the flats. That said, new infill developments are building upwards. Usually, these take the form of multi-unit dwellings that are two or three stories high. All have staircases, most are steep to make the most of the available space.
As a mobile practitioner, I work with dogs in a range of settings. One fact that is universal, however, is that an aging dog is more likely to slip on floors and to have difficulty walking up/down stairs and hills. A dog of any age that has an injury is also going to have the same problems.
Owners of smaller breeds can carry them; for larger breeds, this is not an option.
So, if you are relocating to a new home, please think of your dog before signing on the dotted line. Your dog will age must faster than you do. A bit of planning can help you make a good choice so your dog can enjoy your home and neighbourhood for the rest of their life.
P.S. Not every family has the capacity to build a stair lift like Eddie’s family did. (RIP, Eddie)
Kathleen Crisley is Fear-Free certified dog massage therapist and canine fitness trainer. She has a particular passion for working with dogs and their families to ensure injury prevention and quality of life. She specialises in working with anxious and emotionally damaged dogs. Her mobile practice, The Balanced Dog, is based in Christchurch, New Zealand
Last month, the world lost a leader in animal welfare – Jane Goodall. Although she lived to a good age of 91 years, contributing to dialogue about important issues right to the end, it still seems like she was taken too soon. RIP, Jane.
Kathleen Crisley is Fear-Free certified dog massage therapist and canine fitness trainer. She has a particular passion for working with dogs and their families to ensure injury prevention and quality of life. She specialises in working with anxious and emotionally damaged dogs. Her mobile practice, The Balanced Dog, is based in Christchurch, New Zealand
A new study reveals that training service dogs can slow biological aging in female veterans. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University, in partnership with other institutions, focused on women with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—a group often overlooked in military research. Instead of receiving a service dog, these participants volunteered to train dogs for fellow veterans, offering support to others as well as themselves.
For female veterans with PTSD, volunteering to train a service dog can slow cellular aging and ease stress and anxiety Depositphotos
To measure biological stress, the team looked at telomere length (a marker of cellular aging) using saliva samples, and heart rate variability (HRV), a sign of nervous system balance. Over eight weeks, female veterans were randomly assigned to either an active service dog training group or a comparison group that watched dog training videos. Both groups participated in weekly one-hour sessions, and researchers measured outcomes before, during, and after the intervention.
Saliva samples were used to determine telomere length, while heart rate variability provided additional insight into physiological stress. Results showed that those who trained service dogs had an increase in telomere length, indicating slower cellular aging, while the control group experienced telomere shortening and accelerated aging. The benefits of telomere preservation were most significant among women with a history of combat exposure; this subgroup saw the largest gains in telomere length, whereas combat-exposed control participants had the most pronounced declines.
Heart rate variability findings further backed the biological stress benefits, with those in active training demonstrating improved nervous system regulation. Psychological measures were also gathered using standardized questionnaires to assess PTSD symptoms, anxiety, and perceived stress. Both groups reported reductions in these symptoms throughout the study, suggesting that structured activity alone provides some mental health support. However, improvements in psychological outcomes did not differ significantly by intervention or combat experience.
The study, published in Behavioral Sciences, suggests that the skills learned during service dog training—such as positive reinforcement and reading animal behavior—may have strengthened participants’ bonds with their own pets at home, offering additional emotional support. Unlike general volunteering, service dog training uniquely blends emotional healing with building a close relationship between veterans and their animals, providing therapeutic benefits that go beyond typical community engagement.
This first-of-its-kind study found that feeding dogs food from The Farmer’s Dog can impact metabolic health and support healthier aging in dogs. ChristianaT | Pixabay.com
A year-long metabolomic study led by Dr. Heather Huson, associate professor of animal sciences at Cornell University, found that feeding dogs fresh, human-grade food can impact metabolic health and support healthier aging. The research, conducted with board-certified veterinary nutritionists employed by The Farmer’s Dog, analyzed the effects of fresh, minimally processed recipes versus kibble in 22 senior Alaskan sled dogs.
Results showed dogs fed The Farmer’s Dog fresh food experienced a rapid and sustained metabolic shift after just one month, marked by lower levels of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) – harmful compounds linked to aging and chronic disease. These dogs also showed reduced sucrose and 1,5-anhydroglucitol (a glycemic control biomarker), and notably lower concentrations of specific AGEs such as N6-carboxymethyllysine and pyrraline.
“For years, people have been telling us their dogs are thriving on fresh diets like The Farmer’s Dog, and this study finally shows what’s happening beneath the surface — a significant metabolic transformation,” said Jonathan Regev, co-founder and CEO of The Farmer’s Dog. “The gap between highly processed pet foods and minimally processed real food may be even wider than we imagined, and could redefine what’s possible for canine health and longevity.”
Additional findings include higher levels of ergothioneine, a potent antioxidant compound, as well as elevated levels of carnosine and anserine (histidine-related metabolites with antioxidant properties). These shifts suggest increased antioxidant capacity and reduced oxidative stress.
Dogs demonstrated elevated branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) metabolism, with increased levels of leucine, isoleucine, and valine and their derivatives. They also showed higher levels of glycerol and glycerol-3-phosphate (markers of lipolysis), alongside increased long-chain omega-3 fatty acids — including alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoate (EPA), docosapentaenoate (DPA), and docosahexaenoate (DHA). Serum 3-hydroxybutyrate (BHBA), a ketone body, rose reflecting enhanced fat utilization and healthy ketosis.
Malonate, a marker of fatty acid synthesis, was decreased in the fresh food group, suggesting a more efficient metabolic profile compared to the kibble-fed group.
“The magnitude and consistency of the metabolic impacts we observed were quick, sustained and striking,” said Dr. Joseph Wakshlag, DVM, PhD, DACVSMR, DACVIM (Nutrition), one of the board-certified veterinary nutritionists who was involved in the study.
“Fresh, minimally processed food shifted the dogs’ metabolism toward a beneficial alternative metabolic profile in the aging dog with markers for improved muscle and neurological health along with implications for improved antioxidant defense, and diminished AGE formation,” added Dr. Wakshlag. “These results are an exciting milestone for understanding canine metabolic health and nutrition.”
The study was conducted under ethical approval from the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine and published in Metabolites.
It’s been a week since the results of most of the local body elections in New Zealand were announced.
It’s no secret that voter turnouts for these elections are declining with many voters not bothering to cast a vote. I’m in the privileged position of traveling around the Christchurch City, Waimakariri and Selwyn districts and learning from my clients about the issues they face, asking them who were the candidates in their area…Some said outright they wouldn’t bother to vote. Others were more interested in certain issues but with no ringing endorsements of any single candidate.
I share their disenchantment for councils at both the district and regional levels. The jargon, the lack of progress in many areas, and consultations that seems stacked against the average submitter abound.
This election season, my greyhound Sox launched his own informal campaign for mayor (because of his species he was not allowed to enroll as a candidate for the ballot). Each of Sox’s post were written as a conversation between us and taking his simple and child-like understanding of issues to shine a spotlight on issues that are important to us and the dogs that live amongst us.
Some were tongue in cheek, others a bit more serious. But at least we did our part to raise awareness and to encourage people to vote.
This is a compilation of Sox’s many campaign announcements.
Kathleen Crisley is Fear-Free certified dog massage therapist and canine fitness trainer. She has a particular passion for working with dogs and their families to ensure injury prevention and quality of life. She specialises in working with anxious and emotionally damaged dogs. Her mobile practice, The Balanced Dog, is based in Christchurch, New Zealand
“What cannot be denied or evaded is that this science has a moral dimension. How we study animals and what we assert about their minds and behavior greatly affects how they are treated, as well as our own version of ourselves.”
– Dale Jamieson, Professor of Environmental Studies and Philosophy at New York University, a scholar of environmental ethics and animal rights
A new study demonstrates that some highly gifted dogs can categorize objects not just by appearance, but by how they are used. When taught words like “pull” or “fetch,” these dogs later applied the concepts to brand-new toys through natural play, without training or explicit labeling.
This shows that dogs can form mental representations of objects based on their function rather than physical features. The findings highlight the depth of canine cognition and suggest links to the evolution of human language and memory.
Key Facts
Functional Categorization: Dogs grouped toys by use (tugging vs. fetching) instead of looks.
No Training Needed: Skills emerged from natural play with owners, not formal instruction.
Language Insight: Results hint at shared cognitive roots between dogs and humans in learning words.
As infants, humans naturally learn new words and their associations—like the fact that forks are related to bowls because both are used to consume food.
In a study publishing in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on September 18, a team of animal behavior experts demonstrate that dogs can categorize objects by function, too.
In a series of playful interactions with their owners, a group of Gifted Word Learner (GWL) dogs were able to distinguish between toys used for tugging versus fetching, even when the toys in question didn’t share any obvious physical similarities—and then could remember those categorizations for long periods of time, all with no prior training.
“We discovered that these Gifted Word Learner dogs can extend labels to items that have the same function or that are used in the same way,” says author Claudia Fugazza of Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
It’s like a person calling both a traditional hammer and a rock by the same name, says Fugazza.
“The rock and the hammer look physically different, but they can be used for the same function,” she says. “So now it turns out that these dogs can do the same.”
The studies took place in the dogs’ natural home environments with their human owners. At the beginning, the dogs spent time getting familiar with verbal labels for two functional groups of objects: pull and fetch. Their owners used these words with specific toys and played with them accordingly even though the toys didn’t share any similar physical features.
Next, the dogs were tested to see if they had learned to connect the functional labels to the correct group of toys before playing with more novel toys in the two distinct categories. However, this time, their owners didn’t use the “pull” and “fetch” labels for the dogs.
The team found that the dogs were able to extend the functional labels they’d learned previously to the new toys based on their experience playing with them. In the final test, the dogs showed that they could successfully apply the verbal labels to the toys by either pulling or fetching accordingly, even when their owners hadn’t named them.
“For these new toys, they’ve never heard the name, but they have played either pull or fetch, and so the dog has to choose which toy was used to play which game,” Fugazza says. “This was done in a natural setup, with no extensive training. It’s just owners playing for a week with the toys. So, it’s a natural type of interaction.”
The authors note that the dogs’ ability to connect verbal labels to objects based on their functional classifications and apart from the toys’ physical attributes suggests that they form a mental representation of the objects based on their experience with their functions, which they can later recall.
These findings provide insight into the evolution of basic skills related to language and their relationship to other cognitive abilities, including memory, the researchers say.
More research is needed to understand the scope and flexibility of dogs’ language categorization abilities. The researchers suggest future studies to explore whether dogs that don’t learn object labels may nevertheless have an ability to classify objects based on their functions.
“We have shown that dogs learn object labels really fast, and they remember them for a long period, even without rehearsing,” Fugazza says. “And I think the way they extend labels also beyond perceptual similarities gives an idea of the breadth of what these labels could be for dogs.”
I don’t mess around when it comes to new lumps and bumps. This small lump in the center of Sox’s head appeared in late August. After about one week, we made a trip to the vet for an exam and skin scraping.
It’s a benign histiocytoma, thankfully. This is an abnormal growth of histiocytes which are a cell that is part of the immune system. It should ‘self-resolve’ in 2-3 months; the head is a common location for this type of growth. It looks like a single, red, raised lump and it can be itchy which is why it has bled a couple of times.
To avoid infection, I have been treating it with colloidal silver. Avoiding secondary infection is particularly important for Sox because his inflammatory bowel disease is easily upset with antibiotics, which kill off the good gut bacteria.
No one, including a vet, can diagnose a lump with the naked eye. Sox’s lump could have been something more sinister such as a mast cell tumour. Keep a watch for lumps and bumps and get them checked out!
Kathleen Crisley is Fear-Free certified dog massage therapist and canine fitness trainer. She has a particular passion for working with dogs and their families to ensure injury prevention and quality of life. She specialises in working with anxious and emotionally damaged dogs. Her mobile practice, The Balanced Dog, is based in Christchurch, New Zealand
“And finally, thanks to my dear Moochie, muse and companion, the best dog any writer ever had…Moochie, I hope that wherever you are, you can catch every cat you chase, that you can get to every chicken wing you find, and that nobody complains when you wake them up in the middle of the night and pretend you have to go out just so you can nudge them out of the warm spot in the bed. I was so lucky to be your person.”
– Author Jennifer Weiner in the Acknowledgements of her book, The Summer Place
A photograph of Moochie, from Jennifer Weiner’s Instagram account
I’ve just read this piece by Dr Mia Cobb of the University of Melbourne and had to share it. Thankfully, it was published under a Creative Commons license to enable re-publication with citation.
But something has changed globally over the last year, and it has big implications for dogs worldwide.
This rapid cascade of bans signals something much bigger. Picture: Getty Images
But what does this mean for the other dogs in our lives? The detection dogs in our airports, the dogs assisting people with disabilities, those supporting students in our schools or even the dog asleep on your couch?
We may donate to assistance dog charities, watch border detection programs on TV and admire search-and-rescue teams helping in disaster zones without considering what daily life looks like for these canine workers.
As people become increasingly conscious about animal treatment, from farm animals to those in entertainment, this awareness is expanding to include all the ways we ‘use’ dogs.
Our expanding awareness of animal treatment now includes all the ways we ‘use’ dogs. Picture: Getty Images
The recent greyhound racing collapse demonstrates how quickly public support can evaporate when welfare concerns aren’t adequately addressed.
Consider the contrast between those who embrace scrutiny versus those that resist it.
Some organisations or operators working with dogs proactively demonstrate their welfare standards, welcome independent oversight and engage openly with concerns. Others operate behind closed doors or respond defensively when questions arise about how their animals are bred, reared, housed, trained and rehomed.
Those thriving under increased public attention share common approaches: they treat welfare as a core priority rather than a compliance exercise, even when it means making major changes to the way in which they operate (for example, their training methods or the equipment used).
They also understand that genuine transparency builds public trust in ways that defensive responses never can.
But there’s an important distinction between real change and ‘welfare washing’ surface-level improvements designed more for public relations than to genuinely assure animal wellbeing.
The public is becoming increasingly sophisticated at spotting the difference.
The speed of recent racing bans – three jurisdictions in around 18 months – shows how rapidly momentum can build once public opinion shifts.
What earning trust looks like
The organisations embracing increased welfare scrutiny share common characteristics.
They proactively demonstrate care standards rather than waiting for pressure. They welcome independent monitoring and engage genuinely with concerns rather than dismissing them.
There’s a reframing from dogs as tools we use to co-workers we partner with. Picture: Getty Images
Most importantly, they recognise that working with dogs comes with profound responsibilities.
This reframing, from dogs as tools we use to co-workers we partner with, means ensuring dogs have agency in their daily lives – the ability to make choices about when to rest, opportunities to be dogs rather than just workers and environments that offer them positive social and physical experiences.
It means transparency about career length, retirement plans, injury rates and living conditions. It means treating welfare as a core business priority, not a public relations exercise.
The dogs supporting our lives
International Dog Day provides an annual opportunity to shine a spotlight on all the dogs we rely on in our lives, not just our pets at home.
t’s a chance to ask: are we caring for these animals as well as we can?
The greyhound racing industry’s decline shows what happens when the answer is unclear or unconvincing.
Public trust, once lost, is extraordinarily difficult to rebuild, especially when alternatives exist that don’t rely on the use of real animals.
Everyone relying on dogs should be asking themselves: if public attention suddenly focused on our operation tomorrow, would we welcome that scrutiny? Can we demonstrate genuine care for our animals’ wellbeing, not just their productivity?
The dogs supporting our lives – whether working at airports, guiding people safely across roads or living as companions in our homes – deserve nothing less than our full consideration of their wellbeing.
Are we caring for these animals as well as we can? Picture: Getty Images
And as the racing industry is discovering, the public increasingly expects to see proof of that care, not just promises.
They’ll be part of building a sustainable future where our partnerships with dogs are genuinely rewarding for both species. Those who can’t may find themselves wondering how something that seemed so permanent could disappear so quickly.
The choice is theirs to make – but the window for making it may be narrower than they think.
DoggyMom.com 