I finally had a chance to post a recap of the ALPO “Real Dogs Eat Meat” event. The event took place on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 with Taye Diggs, who read excerpts from the “Real Dogs Eat Meat” handbook. The handbook features stories written by 20 paw-thors about the joy of being a dog! The reading was held live in the Meatpacking District in NYC and there were 20 VIP dog guests who had the pawsome opportunity to sit with Diggs and his dog, Sammy Davis Jr.

All 20 VIP guests left with a baggie full of a bandana, food, coupon, and a book provided by ALPO.

Images via ALPO

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This Wednesday, May 19, award winning actor and dog lover, Taye Diggs will read excerpts from ALPO’s “Real Dogs Eat Meat” handbook. The reading will be held LIVE in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan, NYC. The handbook features stories from 20 “paw-thors” that focus on the joys of being well… a dog! The lucky “paw-thors” won a national photo/essay contest and had the honor of sharing their stories of the life a dog.

Mr. Diggs will read to real dogs and their owners during the event and the reading will stream live on Alpo’s website so everyone in the world can celebrate the life of a dog. If your dog loves to chew bones, drool, and chase sticks, don’t miss out on this one time, live event.

Please register for the event at www.ALPORealDogs.com and watch the live streaming on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 10 am EST.

Images via ALPO

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According to the National Council on Pet Population, over 4 million dogs are euthanized each year. While it’s unclear as to how many black dogs are euthanized, animal humane societies know the ratio of black dogs put to sleep is far greater than dogs with any other coat color.

The Humane Society of the United States estimates that 15% of dogs are fortunate to be reunited with their owners, nearly 60% of dogs that enter shelters are euthanized, and only 25% of dogs entering a shelter are lucky enough to be adopted.

Black Dog Syndrome is caused by visible shedding of hair on furniture and carpets. Their faces aren’t seen as well as light coated dogs and so people assume black dogs are more aggressive. A black dog also has a tendency to show white fur as they age, giving them an older appearance than they really are.

It’s up to rescue shelters to avoid Black Dog Syndrome by placing bright collars and hankerchiefs to create a warm presence and allow the dog to become more appealing at first glance. Potential adopters should throw away any presumptions before entering a shelter because every dog needs a home.

If you’d like to know more about Black Dog Syndrome, you can visit Black Pearl Dogs and Black Dog Rescue Project

http://www.blackdogrescueproject.com/black-dog-syndrome.html

http://www.blackpearldogs.com/

Thank you to everyone who sent images

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In the first episode, Dog Whisperer: Cesar Goes Down Under, Cesar helps tame three dogs, Willow, Bonnie and Jack. The episode begins with Cesar traveling south of Sydney to teach Willow, a massive Great Dane, to stop biting his owner. Willow’s persistent jumping and biting tend to go way beyond “play,” particularly during runs through Australia’s massive sand dunes.

Next, Cesar helps 4-year-old bearded collie, Bonnie. Bonnie’s unpredictable aggression has crushed her family’s dreams of enjoying the dog park. And finally, Cesar faces a true Australian challenge when he rehabilitates Jack, a 17-month full-sized French mastiff weighing a whopping 150 pounds. Jack’s owner fears the aggressive mastiff is going to hurt someone, and is in desperate need of Cesar’s expertise to help her stop Jack from jumping, biting and harassing visitors.

“Dalmatian on the Dunes” – Paul has a hard time keeping his great Dane from jumping all over him when he and his workout buddies fun the sand dunes.

The new season begins December 28, 2009

Images via National Geographic Channel

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We love our job, and we want to do the very best job possible for you and your dog. Do your part and we can both work together to make sure your dog gets the best care possible! Vet visits aren’t cheap so it makes sense to make the most of the time you have with us. Here are my suggestions for how to make your visit to your vet as enjoyable and productive as possible.

1. Be on time for your appointment. Although sometimes we are running late because of an unforeseen emergency, we do try and keep to our appointments as much as possible. If you’re late, you’ll possibly have to wait until we can fit you in, which is less convenient for you.

2. Please speak to my staff nicely. You may have had a bit of a wait, or you may be really stressed and anxious about your pet, but we’re all people too, and we’re doing the best we can for you. Nobody responds well to rudeness, and the tech staff are more likely to go that little bit out of their way for you if they’re spoken to with kindness.

3. Be in the moment. Leave your cell phone off. You’re here for our advice and help, and we’d like to be able to show you our findings and discuss options for treatment without interruption. You’ve got message bank.

4. Make a list. I love clients who come in with a list of details and questions. When we’re done, I run through the list and if everything has been discussed, I know that client will be happy that all their questions have been answered. If your dog is sick, and you may need to make decisions about his care, make sure those who control the family budget are there, so we can start with his treatment as soon as possible. Also, don’t send your dog along with someone else and hope you get the right information – it’ll be second hand and sometimes important things are forgotten.

5. Warn us if your dog is likely to bite. We’re not going to think badly of you, we’ll just pop a gentle muzzle on so we can safely examine him. If your dog bites us, we’ll still do a good job but we won’t be very happy. Dog bites can do severe damage, and I have seen veterinary staff have to take time off work to recuperate from a dog bite. It can be avoided.

6. Don’t keep secrets. You may be embarrassed to tell us that your dog with diarrhea was fed half a chocolate mud cake yesterday, but that sort of information can make it so much easier for us to diagnose what’s going on. Similarly, we’re quite familiar with dog’s body parts, even the private bits, so don’t be shy about telling us what’s happening with your dog’s testicles, or your bitch’s vulva. It’s all in a day’s work for us.

7. If you don’t understand, ask. I personally love drawing pictures to explain what I’m talking about. I don’t usually use technical jargon when speaking to dog owners, but sometimes the explanations can be a bit tricky to follow. Feel free to ask me to repeat myself, or explain it in a different way. I want you to fully understand what’s happening with your dog.

8. Lastly, remember that we’re dog lovers too. I own four dogs, and I love them dearly. I’ve also had to euthanize several of my own dogs. Don’t be scared or embarrassed to tell us you’re frightened your dog is dying. It’s okay. Part of my job is to inform you, to reassure you and to comfort you.

Dr. Susan Wright is a staff veterinarian for Dog Fence DIY.

Image via Flickr: Jacy80

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When Oprah visited the White House to air her special White House during Christmas, she met with President Obama, the First Lady, and last, but not least, Bo! Bo has grown quite large since the last time he made a public appearance. In this video clip, provided by Mediaite, Bo greets them with a waggin’ tail and is wearing a Christmas collar with jingling bells.

He shows Oprah and his fur mom some tricks and in the end, gives them both a high five!

Image via Flickr: White House

“Bo” Obama Gives Michelle Obama & Oprah A High Five

Posted to mediaite by Mediaite TV on December 13, 2009

Click to Play | View Details

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Sunbear Squad, Inc. began in 2002 when an 18-month-old chocolate Labrador Retriever named Sunbear, was left in a West Virginia townhome, locked in a laundry room for six weeks without any food, water or care. When he was finally found, the damage was done; Sunbear died three days later. His death caused hundreds of people to write to West Virginia lawmakers to convict Sunbear’s former caretaker and strengthen animal cruelty laws.

Today, Sunbear Squad, Inc. continues Sunbear’s legacy and asks everyone to “Watch, Listen, Call” and “Be a Better Good Samaritan for Pets.”

Anna Nirva, from Sunbear Squad, will give our readers “Weekly Watch Tips” to “prepare individuals to always call authorities when animal abuse, neglect, or distress threatens an animal.”

Here is the tip for the week of December 13th:

“Watch for tracks in the snow or mud leading to occupied dog houses—if you don’t see footprints, the dog is not being fed or watered. Take action to save them.”

Become a fan of Sunbear Squad and help make a change.

Click here for a more rescue stories.

Imagine living in a circle, as far as your chain will stretch. You have a drafty igloo doghouse, or the back seat of an old car, or a hole under a porch, but when the cold winds blow you still shiver hard. Your water bowl is empty sometimes and frozen other times. You wait for feeding time. It’s the only time you have something to look forward to. And you hope they don’t forget again.

Have you found where the chained dogs live in your neighborhood yet? Please put that on your to-do list for this week. Then plan to drive by and observe them as often as you can. If you see a problem, please contact the owner immediately and offer neighborly help for the dog’s sake. Be friendly and non-judgmental to get approval to visit the dog and give treats, or offer to rehome the dog. If you can’t reach or work with the owner, call the authorities if your county has humane animal welfare practices in place. Local animal rescues might be helpful as well.

Fight the continuous chaining of outside dogs, which is inhumane and dangerous. Read more here: Dogs Deserve Better: PACA Bill

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If you have a naughty or nice story of your pet, enter the Petco “Naughty or Nice” contest. There will be one winner from each of the six categories: Naughtiest Dog, Naughtiest Cat, Naughtiest Other Pet Type, Nicest Dog, Nicest Cat & Nicest Other Pet Type.

If you don’t want to enter, you can always vote for the Naughiest or Nicest pet story!

Winners could win a $100 Petco Gift card and products from Bissell’s Pawsitively Clean line.

The contest ends December 30, 2009 and the winners will be announced on January 5, 2010. Good luck!

Images via Petco

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The “Great Pet Showdown” by New Scientist Magazine has proven that dogs are the better pet, but just by one point. To avoid a tie, the magazine placed 11 categories, some including brain, history, bonding, popularity, understanding, and problem solving to a test.

They found cats and dogs to be tied 5-5, but dogs took the showdown home with the 11th category, utility.

Here is the actual breakdown, courtesy of New Scientist Magazine:

1. BRAINS

At 64 grams, the average dog brain is far bigger than its feline equivalent, which weighs in at a mere 25 grams. But then the average dog is much heavier than the average cat. If instead you measure brain mass as a percentage of body mass, cats win by a whisker.

Felophiles should not gloat yet. In general, smaller mammals have slightly larger brains relative to their body size than bigger ones. This means cats’ brains are exactly the mass you would expect for their size, whereas dogs have slightly more upstairs than you would predict.

On size alone, then, the results are ambiguous. That is perhaps all to the good, because brain size is not a reliable measureof intelligence. In fact, if you want to assess smarts you are far better looking at behaviour than crude neuroanatomy – more on that later. However, there is one anatomical measure that gives a pretty good indication of information processing capacity: the number of neurons in the cortex, or executive brain. Here cats trounce dogs, with 300 million neurons compared with a piddling 160 million (Trends in Cognitive Science, vol 9, p 250).

WINNER: CATS
RUNNING SCORE: CATS 1 – 0 DOGS

2. SHARED HISTORY

Several research teams have compared DNA from dogs with that of grey wolves, their closest living ancestor, to try to pinpoint the date of domestication.

In the first study of this kind in 1997, Robert Wayne’s team at the University of California, Los Angeles, came up with a date of 135,000 years ago. Since then, the entire dog genome has been sequenced and Wayne now believes his date may be a little premature. Nevertheless, given the discovery of archaeological remains of dogs dating from 31,000 years ago and the large divergence between dog and wolf DNA, he still suspects that domestication occurred at least 50,000 years ago.

Other DNA studies, however, suggest domestication could be more recent. The latest analysis, published in September by Peter Savolainen at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, comes in at 16,000 years. It also points to an origin south of the Yangtze river in China and speculates that the first dogs were not working dogs, but destined for the dinner table (Molecular Biology and Evolution, vol 26, p 2849).

Our knowledge of feline domestication is also fuzzy. Evidence from ancient Egyptian burials and hieroglyphs indicates that cats were popular in homes from about 3000 BC onwards. However, the synergy with humans probably stretches further back. As soon as our ancestors began farming, their grain stores would have become magnets for vermin, and therefore cats. In 2007, comparisons of the DNA of wildcats from across the globe with that of domestic cats confirmed their origins in the Fertile Crescent east of the Mediterranean, the cradle of agriculture (Science, vol 317, p 519). What’s more, cats seem to have wormed their way into our homes and hearts from an early stage, as evidenced by a 9500-year-old burial of a kitten alongside a human on Cyprus. While impressive, it still leaves Felix looking like a newcomer compared with Fido.

Cats seem to have wormed their way into our homes and hearts from an early stage.

WINNER: DOGS
SCORE: CATS 1 – 1 DOGS

3. BONDING

The bond between a dog and its owner is remarkably similar to that between a parent and child. A secure baby behaves in a characteristic way in strange situations: it is courageous and happy to explore while its mother is around, becomes distressed when she leaves, will settle with a stranger in time, but has eyes only for mum when she returns.

Dogs put through the “strange situation” test respond in the same way. That is probably no surprise to dog people, who often cite unconditional love as their pet’s more endearing quality. Are cats so very different?

Adam Miklosi from Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary, whose group did the work with dogs, tried this experiment with cats – but they were having none of it. The lab setting was very upsetting and stressful for them, presumably because cats tend not to leave their territory. Nevertheless, Miklosi suspects that cats bond with their owners in much the same way that dogs do – if only he could persuade them to take the test.

Even the most besotted owner will admit that cats like their independence. Evolution is to blame. By nature, cats are loners. Dogs, meanwhile, are descended from pack animals and have an instinct to affiliate, and domestication has changed the focus of this instinct. Give a 4-month-old puppy the choice and it will choose a human companion over a dog. It seems they just can’t help but love us.

WINNER: DOGS
SCORE: CATS 1 – 2 DOGS

4. POPULARITY

Arguably the ultimate test of whether an animal makes a good pet is how many people actually own them. Here cats are clear winners. Although worldwide figures are hard to come by, recent studies show that in the top 10 cat-owning countries there are almost 204 million felines. Pet pooches in the top 10 dog-owning countries number fewer than 173 million.

WINNER: CATS
SCORE: CATS 2 – 2 DOGS

5. UNDERSTANDING

Rico the border collie is famously able to understand over 200 words (Science, vol 304, p 1682). He’s a clever boy, but even dogs with more limited comprehension can often recognise and respond to dozens of commands and requests for objects. And words are not the only channel of communication open to them.

Pooches can follow human pointing gestures, such as an outstretched finger or a nod of the head, to find food. That may not seem impressive, but chimps struggle to do it. Dogs also hold eye contact with humans – which wolves tend not to do – and use gaze alternation to bring objects to their owner’s attention. They seem predisposed to inspect our faces for information, reassurance and guidance, according to Alexandra Horowitz who studies animal cognition at Columbia University in New York, and whose book Inside of a Dog was published in September.

However, Horowitz provides a cautionary tale for anyone tempted to overestimate their dog’s level of comprehension. Her experiments revealed that a pooch’s characteristic “guilty look” does not in fact signify an understanding of transgression, but is often simply produced in response to a scolding, regardless of whether or not it has been disobedient (Behavioural Processes, vol 81, p 447).

Cognitively speaking, cats are similar to dogs, says Miklosi, so you would expect them to have similar patterns of behaviour and abilities. A big difference is that they are not compliant or motivated, making them devilishly hard to work with. Nevertheless, Miklosi’s team found that Felix is just as capable as Fido when it comes to following pointing gestures to find food. However, if the food is hidden and impossible to retrieve, dogs are far more likely to solicit help from their owners by gaze alternation, whereas cats mostly try in vain to obtain the reward for themselves (Journal of Comparative Psychology, vol 119, p 179). Understanding that humans can get you what you want may seem like cheating, but add to this the dog’s superior vocabulary and eagerness to engage with its owner and it is only fair they win this one.

WINNER: DOGS
SCORE: CATS 2 – 3 DOGS

6. PROBLEM SOLVING

“Cats don’t understand string theory” ran the headlines earlier this year after an experiment showed that if you offer kitty a choice between two pieces of string, one with a morsel of food at the end, they often fail to pull on the string attached to the reward (Animal Cognition, vol 12, p 739). Before canine-lovers crow… dogs do not pass the test either.

What’s more, neither pet can use figurative cues to find hidden food. In other words, they don’t understand X marks the spot. On the positive side, both are pretty good at retrieving bits of food from stashes placed at various distances from each other and from themselves. Although they employ slightly different strategies, their choices about the order in which they visit sites is efficient and logical (Behavioural Processes, vol 73, p 22).

Not much else is known of cats’ problem-solving capabilities. Dogs have been subjected to far more testing, and have often failed to shine. In fact, there is a long-standing view that dogs are dunces compared with their wolf cousins, whose brains are a third bigger. One classic study showed that wolves learned to open a door with a complicated catch simply by watching another wolf do it, whereas dogs failed to master the catch even after years of seeing the door opened and closed.

But Miklosi, along with Jozsef Topal of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, suspected that a dog’s partnership with its owner might be making it appear more stupid than it really is. The more intimate the bond, they reasoned, the more likely a dog is to relinquish its powers of independent thought and action to its owner.

Their suspicions were confirmed when they tested a variety of dogs on a task in which they had to pull on the handles of a plastic dish protruding from underneath a wire fence to retrieve some food. The most highly bonded dogs performed worst – but their success rate improved as soon as their owners encouraged them. The researchers conclude that dogs are not poor problem solvers, per se, but tend to favour a collaborative approach.

The full genius of this strategy is only revealed when you consider seeing-eye dogs. In their collaborations with blind owners, they often take the usual canine role of junior partner, but when the need arises they step in to solve problems their human cannot master. Chalk one more up to the small-brained wolf.

WINNER: DOGS
SCORE: CATS 2 – 4 DOGS

7. VOCALISATION

Shared ancestry means that all mammals tend to produce the same kinds of vocalisations to convey certain meanings. For example, they make sudden sounds with rising or rapidly fluctuating pitch to attract attention or demonstrate arousal, motivation or readiness. Both cats and dogs play on this mammalian mutual understanding in their vocal interactions with humans. Analysis of cat miaows reveals that they contain acoustic patterns that grab our attention. But the vocal repertoire of cats is quite limited and their calls tend to be idiosyncratic, so they are often interpretable only by their owners.

Dogs have far more vocal flexibility. They can vary the length, range, pitch, frequency modulation and tonality of their barks and they use this ability to produce characteristic barks in different situations. Even someone who has never owned a dog can make a good stab at telling, simply from its barks, whether it is lonely, aggressive or happy. Miklosi’s group, who made this discovery, point out that other adult canids, including wolves, rarely bark. He suggests that during the course of domestication dogs may have evolved their elaborate vocal repertoire especially to communicate with us (New Scientist, 12 June 2004, p 52).

That’s clever, but complexity is not everything. After all, no matter how much you love your pet, the barking or miaowing can get on your nerves. It looks as though cats may have found a way around this, though. A study published earlier this year reveals the subtlety with which they can use their crooning to ensnare us. By embedding an urgent high-frequency miaow into a blissed-out purr, they produce a sound that brings out our nurturing side. Karen McComb from the University of Sussex in Falmer, UK, who analysed these “solicitation purrs”, suggests they work on a subliminal level in much the same way as a baby’s cry, which has a similar frequency range (Current Biology, vol 19, p R507). For their guile, cats get the cream.

WINNER: CATS
SCORE: CATS 3 – 4 DOGS

8. TRACTABILITY

Dogs are easy to train because we have selected them to be so. They have evolved to fit into our homes and meet our needs, and they find it easy to learn and obey our rules. They are especially skilled at cognitive tasks that require cooperation and sharing information to achieve a goal.

While other animals such as chimps and dolphins learn by emulation – watching another individual carry out a task and then trying to achieve the same result – dogs learn in the same way as human infants. This process, called pedagogy, entails implicit teaching, with the dog attending to cues such as eye contact, gesture and vocalisation, and then directly imitating the actions of its master (New Scientist, 23 August 2008, p 33).

The most basic way to train a dog involves reinforcing the behaviours we want to encourage by giving Fido a titbit of food. Cats can be taught using rewards too. “They respond to stimulus and reinforcement,” says Miklosi. But since no one has really tried training cats, we do not know the full extent of their abilities. Although there may be fewer ways to do it, they can probably achieve similar ends to dogs, Miklosi believes. “But dogs really want to do it. They are more interested and take it more seriously.”

Besides, even without explicit instructions dogs naturally pick up the rules of domestic behaviour. This happens through play, according to renowned animal behaviourist Marc Bekoff of the University of Colorado, Boulder. He argues that the function of rough-and-tumble play is to develop a rudimentary sense of morality, and that such interactions with their owners allow dogs to test the limits of what is acceptable in a domestic setting. Dogs win paws down.

WINNER: DOGS
SCORE: CATS 3 – 5 DOGS

9. SUPERSENSES

Smell, sight and hearing are the most important senses for both cats and dogs. Having created endless breeds of dog to capitalise on their various perceptual talents, we should expect them to outperform the less highly selected cat – and they do show some quite amazing abilities. A bloodhound’s nose, for example, contains 300 million smell receptor sites compared with just 5 million in humans. Its sense of smell is up to 100 million times more sensitive than yours.

However, while a dog’s keen nose is legendary, cats are no mean sniffers either. In fact, because there is so much variability among breeds of dog, the average cat, with its 200 million smell receptors, actually has a more acute nose than the average dog.

Neither Felix nor Fido can match us when it comes to visual acuity, but their ancestry as nocturnal hunters has left them with some impressive visual abilities. Both have a faster “flicker-fusion rate” than we do, meaning the cells in their retinas take more snapshots of the world per second than ours, giving them superior sensitivity to movement. The main reason for this is that their eyes contain many more rod cells than cones, which also explains their poor colour vision. On the up side, rods are particularly good for seeing in low light. Here, once again, cats have the upper hand. Felix can see in light levels six times as low as we can, while Fido’s limit is thought to be about five times ours.

Add hearing to the list, and cats score a hat trick. Their auditory range extends from 45 to 64,000 hertz, far wider than that of dogs at between 67 and 45,000 hertz.

WINNER: CATS
SCORE: CATS 4 – 5 DOGS

10. ECO-FRIENDLINESS

Cats love wildlife – in the UK alone they kill more than 188 million wild animals each year. But dogs are no bunny huggers. They have been implicated in the decline of the rare European nightjar, they disturb ground-nesting birds and, even when walked on a lead, their mere presence may reduce biodiversity (Biology Letters, vol 3, p 611).

The real difference in ecological impact comes in consumption. A medium-size dog’s ecological footprint – the area of land required to keep it fed – is 0.84 hectares annually. You could run two SUVs on that and still have change. Even a toy dog such as a chihuahua has a footprint of 0.28 hectares per year. Meanwhile, your average cat’s ecological pawprint, at just 0.15 hectares, looks positively virtuous (New Scientist, 24 October, p 46).

WINNER: CATS
SCORE: CATS 5 – 5 DOGS

11. UTILITY

Dogs can hunt, herd and guard. They can sniff out drugs and bombs and even whale faeces; they guide blind and deaf people, race for sport, pull sleds, find someone buried by an avalanche, help children learn and possibly even predict earthquakes. Cats are good if you have an infestation of rodents.

Perhaps that assessment is unfair, though. After all, we love our pets for other reasons. Cats are beautiful and soft, and stroking them has been shown to reduce stress. Then again, dogs are also good stress-busters: owning one can lower your blood pressure and cholesterol levels. What’s more, Fido has other health benefits. Daily dog walks may be a chore, but they repay the effort, not just in terms of regular exercise, but also by providing immune-boosting opportunities for social contact with other dog walkers. That’s why in a head-to-head contest of health benefits, it’s dogs all the way (British Journal of Health Psychology, vol 12, p 145).

Daily dog walks may be a chore but they provide regular exercise and immune-boosting opportunities for social contact with other dog owners
WINNER: DOGS
SCORE: CATS 5 – 6 DOGS

Image via Flickr: 97439weathernerd

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Champion dogs will come together in Long Beach, CA tomorrow to participate in the 9th annual AKC/Eukanuba National Championship. The event will feature over 5,000 dogs to compete for various titles and a chance to become this year’s “Best in Show.” Last year, a pointer named CH Cookieland Seasyde Hollyberry, or Holly, won the title.

The event is for two days, December 12 and 13th, and alongside the National Championship, dogs will also compete in the annual AKC Agility Invitationals and the AKC National Obedience Invitational.

To celebrate the American Kennel Club’s 125th anniversary, the club is allowing any AKC registered purebred, unaltered dog to compete.

Some other things to look forward to are the dogs from Meet the Breeds and the newest breeds: 10 Irish Red and White Setters, 6 Norwegian Buhund, and 15 Pyrenean Shepherds.

The show will be broadcasted on Animal Planet on February 6, 2010 at 8 PM ET/PT.

Images via AKC

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