Clever canines: can dogs really tell when you’re being

AKDSEODogs

Name: Canis familiaris (AKA dogs).

Age: As a distinct species, at least 15,000 years old.

Appearance: Varies widely.

Common traits: Excellent sense of smell, exceptional intelligence.

What are you talking about? My dog is a moron. It’s more of an emotional intelligence.

Why would a dog need emotional intelligence? They specialise in understanding humans.

Again, not my dog. He speaks barely a word of English. Maybe not, but most dogs can pick up on human gestures without training. For example, they know what pointing at something means.

Big deal. Apes don’t understand pointing.

I thought apes were smart. They are on many levels, but they just aren’t as attuned to human behaviour as dogs are.

Give me another example. According to a new study from the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, dogs can even interpret our intentions.

What does that mean? It means your dog knows the difference between you being unkind, and you being merely hopeless.

How would you go about discovering something like that? Through experimentation. In the study, humans were placed inside transparent boxes, with a small hole through which they could feed the test dogs a bit of food.

I’m more or less with you so far. On some occasions the experimenters pretended to be clumsy and dropped the food inside the transparent box; on others they withheld the food in a teasing fashion. The dogs consistently displayed more patience with clumsiness.

So how do you measure the amount of patience being displayed by a dog? I’m glad you asked: right-tail wagging.

Come again? A tail wagging more to the right is thought to be associated with the left side of the dog’s brain, and with more positive dog emotions.

Seriously? “The rightward tail bias found in the clumsy condition is supportive of the interpretation that

… Read more

Senior Dog Nutrition and Supplement Tips

AKDSEOPets and Animal

Dogs age in a variety of ways. Some changes are obvious, like greying of the fur or weight gain. Others, like a slower metabolism or reduced immune function, may not be as obvious. However, one of the most important changes in a senior dog’s life is a change in his nutritional needs.

A senior dog needs more quality protein than a younger dog. This is because senior dogs may have a lower ability to absorb and digest nutrients and require less energy. Various reasons for this could include dental disease or other medical conditions.

Of course, not all dogs are fat, but weight control is also possible with regular exercise and controlled eating. However, fat is high in calories, so your dog will need more fat if his energy requirements decrease.

Many of the same supplements we take for ourselves as we age may also benefit our dogs. However, check with your veterinarian before adding joint supplements to your dog’s diet. If you have a senior dog, consider giving him an all-in-one Balanced Breed multivitamin. Balanced Breed is approved by pet pharmacists and made with all-natural ingredients in the United States. Balanced Breed helps senior dogs with immunity, joints, skin, and overall health, just to name a few.

Below are some of the most essential supplements you should consider for your senior dog

Green-lipped mussel, chondroitin, and glucosamine

These are all good options to protect the cartilage. If your dog already has osteoarthritis, you can add a joint supplement containing these ingredients to his food to help him get back to normal (or close to it). Because they are safe and long-lasting, joint supplements can be used for early interventions and ongoing treatment of arthritis.

Antioxidants

Research has shown that antioxidants, combined with behavioral enrichment, can help improve … Read more

10 families in Iowa town told to give up dogs by authorities

AKDSEODogs

KEYSTONE, Iowa (KCRG/Gray News) – Ten families in an Iowa town must get rid of their family dogs after being told to do so by local authorities. The dogs are pit bulls or look like pit bulls.

The Benton County Sheriff’s Office told the dog owners living in Keystone that they had 10 days to find new homes for their pets, according to KCRG. That was on July 22.

MaKinzie Brecht found out her dog Nightmare couldn’t live with her anymore during the course of a normal day.

“My mom told the sheriff where I was,” she said. “He came and spoke to me at my work and let me know that me, along with nine other addresses, were turned in because we had pit bulls or dogs that look like pit bulls.”

Benton County has an ordinance prohibiting dangerous animals; included in the list is “any dog which has the appearances and characteristics of being the breed of Staffordshire Terrier, American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, any other breed commonly known as pit bulls, pit bull dogs or pit bull terriers, or a combination of any of these breeds.” The ordinance dates from March 21, 2000.

According to Preston Moore, Iowa state director for the Humane Society, the Benton County ordinance is “one of the most vague.”

“It doesn’t actually necessarily say a dog has to be proven to be a quote unquote pit bull,” Moore said. “In Benton County, a dog just has to have some characteristics of those dogs. And then a very arbitrary process can take place where somebody can determine this dog happens to look like, sort of, one of these dogs, so it’s not allowed.”

Gabby Gormley is one of the Keystone dog-owners who was told to get rid of her pet because

… Read more

Chris Evans shares his approach to dog parenting

AKDSEODogs

His owner is also actor Chris Evans, which makes the pair’s selfies ten times more “like”-able on Instagram.

Named after a character from the movie “Oliver & Company,” Dodger is a boxer-mix that the Marvel star adopted in 2015. One half of a “pair of dysfunctional codependents,” Dodger has at least as many admirers as his famous owner, who this week announced a partnership with dog food company Jinx in a move that’s as on-brand for Evans, one of Hollywood’s most prolific dog dads, as one could get.

In a conversation with CNN, Evans talks about how Dodger inspired his new business venture, which will have him playing “an active role in the business and creative direction of the brand,” according to a press release, and the humbling pleasures of pet parenting.

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

CNN: I was told Dodger was going be here, and I see him roaming about.

CHRIS EVANS: Yeah, yeah. He’s back there.

Not exactly a keep-him-on-your-lap-during-a-Zoom dog.

No, he might take up the whole frame.

Chris Evans announced his partnership with dog food company Jinx on Wednesday.

I’m a passionate dog mom myself, so I wanted to ask you a little bit about your journey as a dog dad, and what inspired you to get involved with a company like this.

I mean, we’re always looking for different partnerships and ways to expand and have fun creatively beyond acting. I had actually been giving Dodger the Jinx treats for a while, and he loved them, and then my business manager brought me this opportunity. When you actually sit down with the company, you get to know the people, it’s so nice to meet people who have a shared passion and who kind of seem like they’re really doing something good in the world and actually helping. Then on

… Read more

Dogs can ‘see’ with their noses, study suggests

AKDSEODogs

Dogs are renowned for their ability to identify and track objects by scent. Now it’s been revealed they enhance this talent with special brain structures that link it to how they see.

A study published this month in the Journal of Neuroscience revealed that vision and the sense of smell are connected in the brains of dogs, something not yet found in any other species.

“The most interesting thing about this research are the connections from the nose up to the occipital lobe, which houses the visual cortex,” said veterinary neurologist Philippa Johnson, an associate professor at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and senior author of the study. 

She and her colleagues studied MRI scans of the brains of 23 dogs that showed neurological connections between the olfactory bulb, where smells are recognized, and their occipital lobe, where vision is processed.

Humans, who rely mainly on vision, have no such connections in their brains, although it’s possible there’s something similar in other animals that depend heavily on scent, Johnson said.

The discovery suggests smell and vision in dogs are integrated in some way, although it’s not known how dogs experience the two senses functioning together.

“Scent contributes to the visual cortex in dogs, but a dog’s experience is hard for us to know,” Johnson said. “But I think they can use scent to work out where things are.”

She explained that when humans walk into a room, they primarily use their sense of vision to establish who is there or how furniture is positioned. But dogs seem to integrate scent into their interpretation of their environment and how they are orientated in it, she said.

That’s borne out by the behavior of dogs that have lost their vision but don’t seem greatly affected by the fact that they have

… Read more

Seven pseudoscorpion species discovered by Bush Blitz

AKDSEOInsects Arthropods Arachnids

Australia’s leading species discovery program, Bush Blitz, has discovered seven pseudoscorpion species which are believed to be new to science, during an expedition to Wilinggin Country in the West Kimberley region of Western Australia.

The pseudoscorpions were discovered by Dr Mark Harvey, Head of Department and Curator (Arachnids and Myriapods) from the Western Australian Museum, at Charnley River Station, an Australian Wildlife Conservancy property, and at Wunaamin Conservation Park.

Dr Harvey, who is an arachnologist specialising in spiders, scorpions and pseudoscorpions, believes some of the pseudoscorpions may be endemic to the Kimberley region, meaning they are found nowhere else in the world.

As the name suggests, pseudoscorpions are not actually scorpions – although with eight legs and the pincers of a scorpion they look very similar. Pseudoscorpions and scorpions are both arachnids, but pseudoscorpions have a pear-shaped body and no tail. They look like a cross between a spider, a scorpion and a tick.

Like spiders, pseudoscorpions hunt their prey or ambush them. They have glands in their claws that produce venom, which is used to immobilise their prey. They can also spin silk from a gland in their jaw to make cocoons for mating or moulting.

Bush Blitz undertakes expeditions on conservation areas across Australia. It has discovered more than 1,800 new species of Australian plants and animals in the last decade – adding thousands of new species records to those already known.

There are an estimated 580,000-680,000 species in Australia, but up to three-quarters of this biodiversity is yet to be identified and scientifically described. Around forty-five per cent of continental Australia and over 90 per cent of our marine area have never been comprehensively surveyed by scientists.

Fifteen scientists, Indigenous rangers, Traditional Owners and five Western Australian teachers from the Bush Blitz TeachLive project are working together

… Read more