Sunday, April 28, 2019

Dog panoramas


This squirrel is nuts....


Squirrel trying to hide nut in dog from r/aww

Loyal dog remains by fallen master

If not for his barking, searchers may have never found the man who fell during his hike.

"Authorities searched the area, but had no luck.
By 4:45 p.m., they had found his vehicle, which had a list of geocache locations that the team mapped out and set out to look through.  It wasn't until nearly 6 p.m., when a deputy searching through one of the locations was startled by the sound of barking.  "The deputy continued hiking toward the sound of the dog's barking, and spotted a dog matching the description of Daisy up a very steep embankment above the Marshall River," the sheriff's department said.   The deputy climbed another 30 minutes through thick woods until he reached the dog, who was by his owner."





Service dogs vs cows: guess which one has the most genetic research behind it?

One gives us milk and one saves our lives.  Guess which one has the most research behind it?

It is amazing to think that far more has been done in the realm of cows than dogs when it comes to genetic research.  Turns out, according to this article, for purposes of milk production, cow DNA was studied in more than 300,000 cows, going back to the 1940s.  This research was largely done in the 1990s.  In the meantime, half of all service dogs fail-out before graduation, and this occurs after a year or more of training has been already spent.  The fall-out is that only 5% of the current need is being met.  It is staggering to think that 95% of all places (and people!) requiring a service dog are not getting one.

The Workign Dog Project hopes to change all this.

"The Working Dog Project is a collaboration of The Theriogenology Foundation (which represents veterinarians who specialize in reproductive health), The Broad Institute (associated with MIT), the American Kennel Club, numerous dog breed organizations, and universities such as Auburn and Cornell....  The Working Dog Project [is showing] that not every dog was cut out to be a sled dog, pilot dog, security dog, bomb-sniffing dog or recovery dog. And that DNA analysis can assist in separating super-achieving canines from those that are more at home sleeping on the couch."







Thursday, April 25, 2019

Dog College

Carroll College in Helena Montana has a wonderful program where students not only foster dogs, but train them in: "service, narcotics detection, and search and rescue." Once the dogs graduate, they are ready for permanent adoption.

21 dogs recently graduated from the program.


Saturday, April 20, 2019

"My very own Pupper!!!"


Dog is excited to get a puppy from r/aww

Dogs do not drive cars ... yet

But as passengers, they do need car seats

...and a harness.

"Ellis recommends the Sleepypod Clickit Sport, which she uses on her Cavapoochon, Rossi, because it has been tested and approved by the Center for Pet Safety, a third-party company that does dog-equipment crash tests at 30 mph. The vest’s three-point design evenly distributes force throughout the dog’s torso and minimizes movement, decreasing damage in the event of an accident."

Check out the "Sleepypod Clickit Sport" dog harness at Amazon




Friday, April 19, 2019

I would do my laundry here


Saving a dog from the dogcatcher from r/HumansBeingBros

And here I was paying $$$ for human...

The Best Personal Trainer Might Be a Dog
"Your dog could very well make for a decent fitness coach, according to a new study out Thursday. It found that adults in the UK who owned a dog were fourfold more likely to get the recommended amount of weekly exercise as non-owners."


Tuesday, April 16, 2019

So that's the reason dogs take so long to find a place to poop...


Searching the entire yard for a half hour is him really trying to find the magnetic pole!

"The theory is that a dog creates a map of scents from odiferous sites like a food store or fertilized garden — or even just a hint of an owner’s scent in the ground or air.
Dogs are especially sensitive to the odor of the humans in their lives. One study used MRI imaging to study activity in the caudate nucleus, a brain area associated with the expectation of a reward."

Oh … and, they are magnetically pooping!


Sunday, April 14, 2019

Cat Experiencing The Snow

Cat dunk

Don't Eat This!!!

Reddit /r/gifs



"Don't eat this"


Dogs Watch Us Carefully and Read Our Faces Very Well

Psychology Today has a fascinating artilce on the study of dogs and their reaction to human faces

"Research shows that dogs pay particularly close attention to human facial expressions—perhaps because we don’t have tails and our ears don’t move."

Psychology Today has a fascinating article about just how good dogs are at reading human facial experessions, as well as their responses.  Dogs turn to mouth-licking as a way to respond to their perception of our 'angry face.'

Apparently, just like humans, dogs release oxytocin.  They do this when seeing a happy, human face.  This is the 'trust hormone,' which builds bonds in humans … and in dogs!

They even used fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to study dog brains while showing the dogs human faces.  This is non-invasive and harmless to the dogs.


Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Good Dog


techcrunch.com has an excellent article on a brand new startup and website that specializes in "vetting" (no pun) dog adoption, cover the website:gooddog.com

This is where Good Dog, a startup that just raised $6.7 million from David Tisch’s BoxGroup, Felicis, Slow Ventures and others, can be helpful. Good Dog, launching today, is a marketplace that pre-vets breeders, shelters and rescues and centralizes the dog-search process.

“I’ve been fortunate to be involved with Josh and Lauren since the inception of Good Dog,” Tisch said in a statement. “As I was embarking on my own dog search, it quickly became clear that this was a totally broken process, opening up a massive opportunity within the $72 billion dollar pet market.”

Good Dog co-founders Lauren McDevitt and Josh Wais, former early Jet employees, came up with the idea while they were looking for a pup to add to their family. What was most troubling in their search, McDevitt told TechCrunch, was that there was a lack of standard and expertise.

“It was hard to determine the good from the bad,” she said. “It was hard to identify who was doing the right thing. Some put dogs in harm’s way and made it hard for well-intentioned people to find the right dog.”

Good Dog focuses on educating people about what it takes to take care of a dog, as well as what kind of dog may be best for them. The startup then enables those looking for dogs to explore profiles from trusted, vetted providers and then facilitates connections.



-db