sandgrubber

BBC News - Pampered pooches ride Japan's Shinkansen in style https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-61543052 special coach for owners with pets on bullet train. Cute pictures.

Worth noting that this was from a vet practice in Arizona. Perhaps a region where big mean dogs are seen as weapons

No question, undisciplined biters are a menace. But it's not spare the rod and spoil the dog. Well behaved, lovable dogs are often taught in ways that are so soft you'd hardly call them discipline, and are treated almost as children. I doubt there's big overlap between vet-biters and dogs whose owners call them 'furbaby' and allow them on the bed and sofa. Formal training often isn't required to get a dog to be well mannered and reasonably polite. Just consistent gentle encouragement/discouragement by the owner. Often not much more than tone of voice and an occasional push or pull. Body language, tone of voice, treats for good behaviour, and patience cause puppies take awhile to catch on to some things.

https://www.vetmed.wisc.edu/lab/corl/canine-genetic-testing/?fbclid=IwAR2kSkhycxEcTEAT6XSlGMMzd-bwHmDpIU3aA8wHTWacul8j-_exZLzknRI University of Wisconsin is announcing agenetic test predictive of cruciate ligament rupture in Labradors. It's the first test I've heard of for a polygenetic condition. No idea how good it is. In their dataset they found 62% heritability of CL rupture. If so, the test could be very useful.

Sounds like your pup gets jollies from ripping and teating. If so, mere chewing probably won't satisfy. Problems from cardboard are rare...I've never heard of one. So let him have cardboard. Sticks with bark aren't bad if large enough that he can't get them stuck, although they are harder to clean up after. In my experience, the more dangerous stuff is filling from stuffies, corn cobs, and things that splinter.

And don't forget the people who die trying to rescue a pet from flood, fire or other disaster. Many people have very deep emotional bonds to their pet. The many jokes about loving the pet more than the partner aren't entirely jokes. It's a feature of our time.

The concept of doghood has also changed. Beating a dog isn't acceptable to most. There are behaviorists and it is generally accepted that dogs have emotions (which are probably different from human emotions). Few dogs in rich countries have the opportunity to wander, choose mates, or form packs. More dogs are child surrogates. More are professionally groomed. I don't go out for the more elaborate dog spoiling practices, foods, toys, etc because I live a low maintenance lifestyle and prefer low maintenance dogs. lt all seems like fuss and bother to me. But if someone wants to call their cherished pet a furbaby and pay $25/kilo for dogfood, far be it for me to judge, so long as they arent cruel and don't starve it or feed it into obesity.

They did full genome sequencing! If I'm not mistaken that makes it one of the largest dog genome studies ever done. Ostralander's big study sequenced less than 1000. And they selected the dogs they sequenced to get representation of different categories. None of the other full genome / breed studies have ever attempted to link behaviour to genetics. The study of crossbreeds is a way to get at heritability. In a way it's good that their results aren't what pedigree dog people would expect. It will encourage further work to try and disprove their conclusions. I must admit, I've met a few Labs that weren't gentle, biddible and relaxed dogs, and some pitties that had no fighting drive. The Science Friday podcast interviewed one of the PIs this week. She mentioned that study of actual working dogs would be interesting, as they do get selected strongly for behaviour. [Science Friday] Dog Breeds And Dog Behavior, Polar Science Update, Decarbonizing Transportation. April 29, 2022, Part 2 #scienceFriday https://podcastaddict.com/episode/139025982 via @PodcastAddict

Watch it and decide later. 4 mo is too young to decide on breeding, for many reasons.

The ANKC (and others) also seem to be pushing for extinction through limited registration, denigrating"BYBs" and closed registries. I'm all for keeping pedigrees and for rational health testing (ie required tests depend on frequency of problem, seriousness of problem and reliability of the test). I'd also like to see genetic testing used to prevent inbreeding. What I mostly sense is trying to limit breeding to titled dogs and dogs that pass rather arbitrary health testing claiming to be "ethical ".

Yes, it's consistent with anecdotal. Where I appreciate this is that anecdotes often forget the dogs that die young. Lifetables show this factor. For me one surprise was that Yorkies come out so well. They seem like a good option for people who are downsizing and don't want the feistiness of a JRT or the various problems with many toy breeds. Another surprise was that the "small dogs live longer" rule doesn't hold very well. BCs, Labbies, and the ESS have better life expectancies than most toy breeds (also better than mixed breed, though it's alwayshard to know what mix that means).

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10341-6#Fig2 This used very large sample to get longevity and construct life tables for different breeds. Also gives info by sex, and by neutered or entire. Gundogs and terriers neck and neck in lifetables. Females outlive males. Neutered outlive entire. Brachy breeds don't do well.

I'm sure the argument will continue. The most energetic debaters don't give a hoot about science (on many other topics as well).

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2317115-dingo-genome-suggests-australian-icon-not-descended-from-domestic-dogs/?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=8ecc01904a-briefing-dy-20220426&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-8ecc01904a-45542558 Latest genetic research shows large difference between dogs and dingoes

A recent paper relating lifespans to mutation rates, and cancer incidence, has been making scientific headlines. This wonderful graphic says it all. Bottom line...they still don't know why mutation burdens are different. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04618-z?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=549b352785-briefing-dy-20220420&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-549b352785-45542558

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-social-self/201908/the-well-being-benefits-seeing-pets-family-members there's some psychological research that sees it as healthy to consider pets as family members

Here's one on kinked tail https://dognews.com/Veterinarian-Merry-Fitzgerald-discusses-spinal-anomalies-from-hemivertebra-to-kinked-tails-in-dogs seems it may be autosomal recessive...thus I was wrong in previous post. Could possibly trace back to ancestral bulldog population. More information on the kink required.

If your dig has cancer and you want to contribute data for research https://darwinsark.org/about-cancer-project/ quoting their intro page...follow link to enroll your dog DARWIN’S ARK CANCER PROJECT Welcome to the latest initiative of the Darwin’s Ark team. Together, we’ll be learning more about why dogs get cancer and the best ways to help them. We plan to study risk factors passed down from parents to puppies, test methods to detect cancer in a blood sample, and compare exposures to potential cancer risk factors in each dog’s home and surrounding areas. Like people, dogs get many different types of cancer and receive many types of treatment. We’re working together with top cancer scientists in the Broad Institute’s Gerstner Center for Cancer Diagnostics, the Count Me In Initiative, and the UMass Cancer Center, and we will freely share our data (with personal information removed). This means that everything we learn can be used and shared world-wide for years to come, for the benefit of our pets, and in time our loved ones and ourselves. If your dog has cancer now or has had cancer in the past, please enroll them in our new Darwin’s Ark Cancer Project. All dogs – purebred, mixed, or mystery – are welcome. Dogs with any type of cancer can enroll without any specific testing or treatment to qualify.

I don't like hearing men call women "baby" either. Infantalising... But there's nothing wrong with emotionally bonding with an non-human animal, so long as you respect that it isn't human. Wasn't so long ago that many scientists denied that non-humans had emotions.

Developmental abnormality? If a throwback it would be far more than 5-6 generations. Would have to be a pretty horrible breeder to put a dog with a congenital defect on main register...or to breed from such a dog in the time before main register was introduced.

But not as a 5 or 6 generation throwback.

Throwback seems unlikely. The breed mixing for bull terriers mostly took place in the 19th century. I think some other breeds got mixed in later to get colors, but I don't think any curly tail species were used. So there have been a few hundred generations for the curly tail to be culled out. Genetic testing would be a good idea.

Early desexing is a problem in some breeds but not others. Here's a recent mega study that crunched the numbers https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2020.00388/full&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiZhef0rNv2AhVw4XMBHTITC-AQFnoECAMQAg&usg=AOvVaw11bejoqYTUbpOeLmWySNYu

I respect breeder costs. Nonetheless, it's a sorrow to see the costs of both puppies and houses with yards appropriate for a dog rising to the point where a lot of people are priced out of the market. Oldie bemoaning the good old days...but I remember a time when a lot of pups came from families deciding have a litter for the experience...or due to accidents...and formal breeding was less important. I, myself, see the love of puppies as a major reason to breed, and am inclined to pricing at the low end when I do have a litter. But my finances are in good shape and I can afford to weigh the benefit of doggy benefits high when doing a cost benefit analysis. IMO, the derision of back yard breeders hasn't helped the dog scene. I think the pedigree dog world is gradually dying out, in part, because it has been so unfriendly to new entrants and people who want to have an occasional litter without thinking of themselves as breeders.

IMO testing isn't the issue for two reasons. First, the tests aren't that expensive. Second, 'testing' as done in pedigree dog circles isn't a very good predictor of health. Unfortunately, the things that can be tested for often aren't the biggest health problems, and commonly recommended tests aren't very good at predicting. Eg, there are no reliable tests for allergies, cancer proneness; perfect and elbow scores for parents only increase the chances for the pups; annual eye exams are recommended because a dog that looks good one year may be uncertifiable the next (after siringmanylitters). Also, though genetic tests for degree of inbreeding (associated with many health problems) are now available, very very few breeders do them. The pretence that 'we are ethical because we do xyz tests' is a sham. I would much rather see a 10 generation pedigree with records of what ancestors died from at what age...snowballs chance in hell of finding that.