Category Archives: research

Visual identification of breed – one reason why BSL doesn’t work

Posted on June 23, 2013 | 6 comments

I’m ‘on the record’ that I don’t support breed specific legislation (BSL) and I consider it one of New Zealand’s great shames that it has adopted such laws  (just one of the issues I raised when I submitted to the review of the Animal Welfare Act).

Breed specific legislation doesn’t work because, in part, these laws rely on visual identification of breeds.  If a dog is identified as one of the banned or dangerous breeds, it can (literally) be ‘all over, Rover.’

There’s scientific research that shows why visual identification is a fatal flaw in BSL.  Some of this research has been conducted by Dr Victoria Lea Voith who is based at the Western University of Health Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine.

In 2009, Voith and her colleagues published results of a study comparing visual identification of dog breed with DNA results.   They showed that there was a very low accuracy rate when visual identifications were verified with DNA.  The research team concluded:

  • There is little correlation between dog adoption agencies’ identification of probable breed composition with the identification of breeds by DNA analysis
  • Further evaluation of the reliability and validity of visual dog breed identification is warranted
  • Justification of current public and private policies pertaining to breed specific regulations should be reviewed

This year (2013), Voith and her colleagues published another paper entitled “Comparison of Visual and DNA Breed Identification of Dogs and Inter-Observer Reliability”   Since their previous paper was based on the identification of breed by a single person, the research team wanted to see if the success rate of breed identification improved when multiple people were involved.  The research team presented one-minute video clips of the same 20 dogs to over 900 people who were engaged in dog-related professions or services.

For 14 of the dogs, fewer than 50% of the respondents visually identified breeds of dogs that matched DNA identification. For only 7 of the dogs was there agreement among more than 50% of the respondents regarding the most predominant breed of a mixed breed.  In 3 of those 7 cases, the visual identification did not match the DNA analysis.

This time, the research team concluded:

This study reveals large disparities between visual and DNA breed identification as well as differences among peoples’ visual identifications of dogs. These discrepancies raise questions concerning the accuracy of databases which supply demographic data on dog breeds for publications such as public health reports, articles on canine behavior, and the rationale for public and private restrictions pertaining to dog breeds.

Dr Voith explains her research in this YouTube video:

If you still want to know more about this issue, you can visit the Breed Identification page of the National Canine Research Council.  On this page, you can download color posters that further explain the problems associated with visual identification of breeds.

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Dogs help to improve moods of teens in treatment

Posted on June 22, 2013 | Leave a comment

Lindsay Ellsworth, a doctoral candidate at Washington State University,  has a new, mood-boosting therapy for teenagers in drug and alcohol treatment.

The treatment is shelter dogs!

A participant at Excelsior Youth Center in Spokane, Wash., gives treats to a shelter dog from the Spokane Humane Society. A first-of-its-kind study demonstrates how dog-interaction activities improve the mood of teenagers living in residential treatment centers. Photo courtesy of Washington State University

A participant at Excelsior Youth Center in Spokane, Wash., gives treats to a shelter dog from the Spokane Humane Society. A first-of-its-kind study demonstrates how dog-interaction activities improve the mood of teenagers living in residential treatment centers. Photo courtesy of Washington State University

On Friday afternoons, a group of approximately four dogs from the Spokane Humane Society visit the Excelsior Youth Center, where teenagers in treatment there can help brush, feed and play with the dogs.

“We found one of the most robust effects of interacting with the dogs was increased joviality,” she said. “Some of the words the boys used to describe their moods after working with the dogs were ‘excited,’ ‘energetic’ ‘and happy.'”

Ellsworth’s study is the first of its kind to demonstrate how dog-interaction activities improve mood among teenagers living in residential treatment centers.

Ellsworth’s methodology is fairly standard to research projects, involving a test group and a control group.  Once a week, during the daily recreation time at the Center, Ellsworth breaks about eight participants into two groups. One group plays pool, video games or basketball provided in the treatment center. The other group interacts with the shelter dogs for about an hour.

Before the activity period, participants identify 60 mood descriptors on a scale of one to five on what is known as the PANAS-X, a self-reporting method organizational psychologists use to scale and study emotion. After the activity, the participants fill out the same scale.

Robert Faltermeyer, executive director of the youth center, and the staff are hopeful this kind of science-based program could be established as part of treatment centers’ structured activities.

“It’s an opportunity for kids in a real chaotic life, making unhealthy choices, to focus in on a specific task with an animal,” he said. “It empowers them to make positive changes even on the simplest scale of correcting the animal’s behavior.”

Source: Washington State University media release

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Helping pet owners make tough choices

Posted on June 15, 2013 | 1 comment

When your dog becomes seriously ill, it’s your job as the owner to make decisions about quality of life.  And it’s one of the toughest decisions we face during our lives.

Researchers at Michigan State University  are developing a new tool to help people assess their pet’s quality of life, a key factor in decisions about when to order life-prolonging procedures and when an animal’s suffering means it’s time to put them to sleep.

The research team, led by veterinarian Maria Iliopoulou, created a survey to help dog owners monitor the quality of life of 29 dogs undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer.   The owners completed the questionnaire when they received their dog’s cancer diagnosis and answered questions about how their dog was behaving then and how they behaved six months prior to the diagnosis.

Similar questions were asked in questionnaires administered at three and six weeks into chemotherapy. Meanwhile, the veterinarians treating the dogs filled out shorter surveys based on their observations.   The research team wanted to see if owners and clinicians agreed.

The research found that there was a close match between owners and vets, particularly in questions involving play behaviour, the dog’s happiness as perceived by the owner and clinical signs of disease.  These areas of commonality create the basis for a tool that will help to facilitate client and vet communication.  If there’s agreement about what constitutes quality of life, then it is these criteria that owners and vets should use to help agree on next steps for the dog’s care.

For the study, dog owners completed a questionnaire at the time of diagnosis about how the animal was behaving then and how they typically behaved six months prior. Follow-up questionnaires filled out three and six weeks later documented changes in behavior as the dogs underwent chemo. Meanwhile, the veterinarians filled out shorter surveys based on their observations. – See more at: http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2013/helping-pet-owners-make-tough-choices/#sthash.aUqdUd6n.dpuf
Dr Iliopoulou and her dog Rocky (photo by G L Kohuth)

Dr Iliopoulou and her dog Rocky (photo by G L Kohuth)

The research team has published their results in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.  All dogs were patients at the Michigan State University Animal Cancer Care Clinic.  The plan is to expand the work using a much larger sample size of patients and Iliopoulou hopes to develop questionnaires for dogs suffering from other diseases as well.

Source:  Michigan State University media statement

ichigan State University researchers are developing a new tool to help people assess their ailing pets’ quality of life, a key factor in decisions about when to order life-prolonging procedures and when an animal’s suffering means it’s time to let go. – See more at: http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2013/helping-pet-owners-make-tough-choices/#sthash.aUqdUd6n.dpuf
ichigan State University researchers are developing a new tool to help people assess their ailing pets’ quality of life, a key factor in decisions about when to order life-prolonging procedures and when an animal’s suffering means it’s time to let go. – See more at: http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2013/helping-pet-owners-make-tough-choices/#sthash.aUqdUd6n.dpuf

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OCD – dogs and humans are not that different

Posted on June 13, 2013 | Leave a comment

The structural abnormalities in the brains of dogs suffering from canine compulsive disorder (CCD) are similar to the abnormalities found in humans suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) according to new research.

A collaboration between veterinarians at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University and researchers at the McLean Imaging Center at McLean Hospital, in Belmont, Massachusetts have published their findings in Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry.

The study involved 16 Doberman Pinschers, 8 with CCD and 8 without.  Dogs with CCD engage in repetitious and destructive behaviors such as flank- and blanket-sucking, tail chasing, and chewing,  whereas people with OCD tend to have repetitious behaviors that interfere with their daily life.

Here’s a video of a German Shepherd with CCD engaging in a circling behavior:

“While the study sample was small and further research is needed, the results further validate that dogs with CCD can provide insight and understanding into anxiety disorders that affect people.  Dogs exhibit the same behavioral characteristics, respond to the same medication, have a genetic basis to the disorder, and we now know have the same structural brain abnormalities as people with OCD,” said Nicholas Dodman, BVMS, DACVB, professor of clinical sciences at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.

It should be noted that the research also provides insight into dog behavior and management.  In some cases, a dog labelled as ‘bad’ or ‘destructive’ may actually have a biological basis for their problems.

Source:  TuftsNow media release

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Hypothermia after surgery involving anaesthetic

Posted on May 25, 2013 | Leave a comment

A  research team from the Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera directed by Professor José Ignacio Redondo has published research  in the journal Veterinary Record about the prevalence of hypothermia in dogs after surgery and other diagnostic tests that require anaesthetic. 83.6% of the 1,525 dogs studied presented with the complication, whereas in humans this percentage is between 30 and 60% of cases.

This research supports what many of us have experienced with our own dogs.  For example, when Daisy had a dental cleaning earlier this year, her vet reported to me that her temperature dropped after the surgery and they had extra blankets around her to warm her.  For this and other reasons, I’m glad I use a veterinary practice that is full-service, and I’m not an owner that is focused simply on costs.  (I’ve heard of people shopping around for the lowest cost for a dental; chances are that their pet will not be monitored closely and may not even be given fluids as part of the surgery and recovery.)

The researchers analysed over 1,500 cases of anesthetized animals in the University Clinical Hospitals of the CEU Cardenal Herrera and Cordoba. The variables directly related to hypothermia in dogs registered at the end of an operation include the duration of the pre-anaesthesia and anaesthesia, the physical condition of the animal and, also, their posture during surgery (sternal and dorsal recumbencies showed lower temperatures than lateral recumbency).

Hypothermia is the most common anaesthetic complication in dogs.  The researchers recommend that temperature should be continuously monitored and vets should take preventive measures to avoid heat loss during procedures.

Source:  AlphaGalileo Foundation media statement

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Researchers identify gene associated with eczema in dogs

Posted on May 18, 2013 | Leave a comment

A novel gene associated with canine atopic dermatitis has been identified by a team of researchers led by professors Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, Uppsala University and Åke Hedhammar, SLU, Sweden. The gene encodes a protein called plakophilin 2, which is crucial for the formation and proper functioning of the skin structure, suggesting an aberrant skin barrier as a potential risk factor for atopic dermatitis.

Details appear in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.

Atopic dermatitis (or eczema) is an inflammatory, relapsing non-contagious skin disease affecting about 3-10 percent of dogs. The skin of a patient with atopic dermatitis becomes easily irritated by various allergens such as certain types of food, pollens or house mites. Such irritation causes very strong itching which leads to scratching, redness and flaky skin that becomes vulnerable to bacterial and yeast infections.

Despite many scientific efforts, little has been known about the genetics of the disease. In their study, researchers from Uppsala University, SLU and Broad Institute, compared DNA samples from a large group of German shepherd dogs affected by atopic dermatitis with DNA coming from healthy dogs to reveal the specific DNA segment associated with the disease.

“With the help of pet owners, we have managed to collect a unique set of DNA samples from sick and healthy dogs which allowed us to gain insight into atopic dermatitis genetics,” said first author Katarina Tengvall, Uppsala University.

Purebred dogs such as German shepherds have been selected for specific physical features for several generations. Selection led to an inadvertent enrichment for disease-risk genes in certain breeds. Moreover, the resulting architecture of canine DNA makes it easier to pinpoint segments that carry these disease risk-genes. This helped the researchers to reveal the genetics of atopic dermatitis. They found a region associated with the atopic dermatitis containing the gene PKP-2, which encodes Plakophilin-2, a protein involved in the formation and maintaining of the proper skin structure.

“The finding that certain variants of the PKP-2 gene may increase the risk of developing the disease opens new possibilities in understanding the disease mechanism leading to atopic dermatitis,” continues Katarina Tengvall.

These findings will not only lead to better understanding of the disease, which may lead to better treatment strategies long term. It also opens up the possibilities of development of a genetic test for the disease.

“Our study suggests that plakophilin-2 and an intact skin barrier is important to avoid atopic dermatitis”, says senior author, Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, professor at Uppsala University and Director of SciLifeLab Uppsala. “Another gene involved in the skin barrier has recently been linked to human atopic dermatitis emphasizing the similarity between canine and human atopic dermatitis” said Kerstin Lindblad-Toh.

Source:  AlphaGalileo Foundation media statement

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Dogs reduce your risk of heart disease

Posted on May 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

The American Heart Association has released a scientific statement citing the link between pet ownership and reduced risk of heart disease.

The statement is published online in the association’s journal Circulation.

“Pet ownership, particularly dog ownership, is probably associated with a decreased risk of heart disease” said Glenn N. Levine, M.D., professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and chair of the committee that wrote the statement after reviewing previous studies of the influence of pets.

Research cited to support that statement includes:

  • Pet ownership is probably associated with a reduction in heart disease risk factors and increased survival among patients.  “It may be simply that healthier people are the ones that have pets, not that having a pet actually leads to or causes reduction in cardiovascular risk,” Levine said. (Disclaimer:  These studies aren’t definitive and do not necessarily prove that owning a pet directly causes a reduction in heart disease risk.)
  • Dog ownership in particular may help reduce cardiovascular risk. People with dogs may engage in more physical activity because they walk them. In a study of more than 5,200 adults, dog owners engaged in more walking and physical activity than non-dog owners, and were 54 percent more likely to get the recommended level of physical activity.
  • Owning pets may be associated with lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and a lower incidence of obesity.
  • Pets can have a positive effect on the body’s reactions to stress.

“In essence, data suggest that there probably is an association between pet ownership and decreased cardiovascular risk,” Levine said. “What’s less clear is whether the act of adopting or acquiring a pet could lead to a reduction in cardiovascular risk in those with pre-existing disease. Further research, including better quality studies, is needed to more definitively answer this question.”

Even with a likely link, people shouldn’t adopt, rescue or buy a pet solely to reduce cardiovascular risk, Levine said.

Statement co-writers are: Karen Allen, Ph.D.; Lynne T. Braun, Ph.D., C.N.P.; Hayley E. Christian, Ph.D.; Erika Friedmann, Ph.D.; Kathryn A. Taubert, Ph.D.; Sue Ann Thomas, R.N., Ph.D.; Deborah L. Wells, Ph.D.; and Richard A. Lange, M.D., M.B.A.

Source:  American Heart Association media statement

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What we share with our dogs

Posted on April 29, 2013 | Leave a comment

We all know that we share love with our dogs.  But microbes?

A new CU study indicates parents are more likely to share bacteria with their dogs than their kids, a finding with biomedical implications. Photo courtesy Natural Resources Conservation Services

A new study indicates parents are more likely to share bacteria with their dogs than their kids. Photo courtesy Natural Resources Conservation Services

Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have looked at the types and transfer modes of microbes from the guts, tongues, foreheads and palms (or paws) of members of 60 American families, including dogs.  They found that humans shared more microbes with their dog than their own children.

The team swabbed various parts of the body to obtain microbial samples on  couples, children and dogs.  For humans, the team looked at the tongue, forehead, right and left palm and fecal samples to detect individual microbial communities. Dogs were sampled similarly, except that fur was sampled instead of skin on the forehead and all four paws were swabbed for bacteria in the absence of canine palms.

“One of the biggest surprises was that we could detect such a strong connection between their owners and pets,” said Associate Professor Rob Knight, the study’s leader.

The micro-organisms humans carry around have been linked to a broad spectrum of diseases ranging from malnutrition and obesity to diabetes, asthma and depression.  “There is mounting evidence that exposure to a variety of environmental sources of microbes can affect long-term health, findings known as the ‘hygiene hypothesis,’ ” said doctoral student Se Jin Song.

Proposed by British epidemiologist Richard Strachen in 1989, the hypothesis is that children who have had a lack of exposure to bacteria and micro-organisms might be more prone to getting sick because many microbes have co-evolved with people to be beneficial.

Dogs were a key part of this research, said Knight.  “Since so many people consider their pets truly a part of the family, it seemed appropriate to include them in a study involving family structure.”

The results of the study have been published in the journal eLIFE.

Source:  University of Colorado at Boulder media statement

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Do sterilized dogs live longer?

Posted on April 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

New research from the University of Georgia suggests that neutering procedures could add to the length of a dog’s life and alter the risk of specific causes of death.

Looking at a sample of 40,139 death records from the Veterinary Medical Database from 1984-2004, researchers determined the average age at death for intact dogs—dogs that had not been spayed or neutered—was 7.9 years versus 9.4 years for sterilized dogs.

These figures may seem low considering how many pets live much longer, but the researchers noted that the life spans would be lower than those seen more widely because their sample was taken from dogs seen at teaching hospitals (so other things would have been going on and the study population would have had more sick animals).

The researchers stand behind their results – that the difference between neutered and intact is real.

Dr. Kate Creevy, an assistant professor of internal medicine at the College of Veterinary Medicine. “The question that raises is why would you die younger if you have offspring?”

For the first time, researchers have been able to measure costs of reproduction in terms of the actual causes of death, finding that the causes of death differed between sterilized and intact dogs. Dogs who had undergone a gonadectomy (a spay or castration) were more likely to die from cancer or autoimmune diseases. Those in the sample who still had functional reproduction systems at death were more likely to die from infectious disease and trauma.

“Intact dogs are still dying from cancer; it is just a more common cause of death for those that are sterilized,” said Jessica Hoffman, a UGA doctoral candidate in the Franklin College of Arts of Sciences who co-authored the study.

Some of the reproductive hormones, particularly progesterone and testosterone, she said, could suppress the immune system, explaining why there is an increased risk of infection among dogs that have been sterilized.

The full journal article, published in PLoS One, can be viewed here.

Source:  University of Georgia media statement

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Pet obesity at the molecular level

Posted on April 14, 2013 | Leave a comment

A University of Illinois research team led by Professor Kelly Swanson has published research which describes how nutrients and biological compounds in foods can affect gene expression in animals.

The research will help to understand the underlying reasons for obesity in pets.  Professor Swanson explains that obesity has its roots in the domestication of dogs.  Because dogs no longer hunt or compete for their food and are speyed or neutered (so not having to mate),  the typical dog has much smaller energy requirements than its forefathers.

The research team explains that when more energy (food) is consumed than is required, it is stored as fat in the adipose tissue (fat tissue).  Adipose tissue secretes more than 50 substances known as adipokines, which are cell-signaling molecules that are involved in metabolism, immunity and inflammation.

In obese dogs, levels of the adipokine leptin increases while the levels of the  adipokine adiponectin decreases.

The researchers aim to study obesity at the molecular level, so they can help to prevent it happening.

Source:  University of Illinois media statement

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