sandgrubber

These days, lots of people, in effect, abandon their kids, particularly when they hit the mid-teens. No surprise that pets are treated the same way. Society's got some BIG problems. I'd love to know the demography of the pet dumpers. I suspect what we're seeing that my generation (the boomers), on average, didn't do well teaching responsibility to their kids.

I'd say he's saving birds from planes as much as the other way around! Great story.

Why, then, are almost all fat dog stories about Labs or Lab X's? Why (so I'm told) is it almost impossible to get a dingo to put on weight? Why do so many sea mammals put on blubber? Remember, the Lab ancestor, the Lesser Saint John's Dog, was a working dog who did a lot of swimming in extreme cold water. I heard a medical geneticist the other day saying that 68% of obesity in humans is genetic. It is extremely well documented that success rates for taking of weight and keeping it off are very low. I expect, one of these days, we'll hear stories about use of Labradors as models to help identify the genes that contribute to obesity in humans. Of course, genetics can be used as an excuse, and humans have so much control over dogs' diets, even a dog who is programmed to get fat can be kept slim. One of my cousins has a well trained, reasonably slim Lab who has been trained not to scavenge food from the wastebasket. But put a bread crust in the trash, and the poor dog will stare at the trash bin for hours.

I find it hard to form an opinion without knowing more about the history of this case and understanding what the police expected to find . . . and why they thought a dog was warranted. Imagine what would have happened in this scene if Australia didn't have strict gun laws!

Well . . . the law is against you (and against what I regard as right). What do you do? Sigh, it means getting off your bum and taking political action. My reading is that the simplest and best solution is to expand the legal definition of 'vermin' to include free-ranging cats.

Alas, it's not that simple. The local laws don't always correspond to what happens locally . . . and sometimes expensive court cases are required to get the laws enforced, or to relax excessive enforcement. Poor dogs. Hard to understand the difference between vermin, endangered species, and neighbor's pet.

It would be interesting to know if Tiger and Zena had a history of attacking other dogs.

The data base lists hereditary diseases that have been reported, not diseases that are common. I find a dozen or more diseases listed for Labradors that neither I, nor any of the Lab breeders I know, have never heard of. The number of diseases listed for a breed may be a better indication of how common the breed is than how much of a genetic burden it carries, on average.

Not to mention that EIC rarely occurs without heavy exercise . . . most affected dogs (ie, dogs with a double dose of the faulty gene) are never symptomatic. I wouldn't worry about the long rib cage / short coupling. Labs are supposed to be short coupled, and it generally doesn't interfere with their packing on weight. I agree with others about no more than two meals a day and cutting the canned . . . especially catfood. Chicken mince is fine, especially if it was made for dogs (includes bones) and you don't cook it. Then either going the raw food . . . or quality dry food route . . . or some combination. If you dog is happy eating carrots, he is hungry. You are starving him. Personally, I'd correct the diet first . . . if that goes nowhere, I'd work with a good vet.

In my experience, dogs will not eat aloe vera or drink its juice. I certainly wouldn't. Tastes awful! Does anyone know how much 200 mg/kg is in relation to amounts put in the occasional dog treat that includes aloe vera?

+1 see http://www.naybesa.com/?p=3733 for additional info and pictures (and some atrocious spelling). Seems there's suggestion that Cocaine was well fenced and someone let him out, and some witnesses saw no attacks on children . . . cute looking pup.

'This obscenity' is not going to cease, unless some major technological breakthrough makes it obsolete or political pressure gets overwhelming. It's good to see forces relatively close to the industry working to decrease the extent and minimize the damage.

I think many geneticists feel that subspecies are not valid taxa unless backed by genetic evidence. You'll find people from Wayne's group identify by haplotype and geographic origin, but rarely use Latin subspecies names. I suspect they'd say their way is more scientific than carrying the classification past Canis lupus. Most of their Middle Eastern wolf DNA came from Isreal, and their results seem to show the Isreali wolf population to be heterogeneous . . . . if I'm reading correctly. I think it was Retrieverman who brought in the subspecies names.

I'm sure that has happened. But it is still a concern if police are in effect using the dog as a means to search without a warrant. Have a read of this . . . http://www.springerlink.com/content/j477277481125291/fulltext.html dogs will give false positives when there's nothing, and the thing they signal is affected by the handler. And I have little doubt that dogs can be trained not to give false positives.

Oops, You're right on two counts. The paper is a year old . . . I didn't notice the date. The more recent paper is Bridgett M. vonHoldt, John P. Pollinger1, Dent A. Earl2,et al, 2011, A genome-wide perspective on the evolutionary history of enigmatic wolf-like canids, Genome Research in May 2011. I can't access Genomic Research, but Discover Magazine published a lay version. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/05/a-map-of-charismatic-canid-genomic-variation/ This doesn't really address the geography of dog origins . . . more focus on wolf x coyote mixing in North America. It does show PCA results separating the dog cluster and various wolf population clusters. This suggests dogs are closest to Southern Europe or the Middle East. Looks like the first two dimensions in the PCA didn't explain a high percent of the variance, which if I remember my stats raises doubts.

According to more recent study, it's more complex. I think they're finding that, as you might expect, the original semi-domesticated or domesticated dogs crossed out to other wolf populations along the migration route. They didn't worry much about pedigrees in prehistory, nor was it easy to confine a bitch on season . . . . so you'd expect that the local boys would inject DNA as dogs migrated from the Middle East through South Asia to Australia.

Published online 28 June 2011 | Nature 474, 551 (2011) | doi:10.1038/474551a News Call to curb lab tests on dogs Canine remains the default option in outdated pharmaceutical toxicology. Marian Turner Dogs make popular laboratory subjects, with uses including drug-toxicity testing, above.Y. Forestier/CorbisMan's best friend bears a heavy burden in the pharmaceutical industry. Every year, tens of thousands of dogs are subjects in drug-toxicity studies in Europe and the United States, even though many scientists think that they are poor predictors of drug effects in humans. Discussions on this sensitive issue have now been opened up by a hefty donation from Hildegard Doerenkamp, a Swiss philanthropist and passionate dog-lover, to the Zurich-based Doerenkamp–Zbinden Foundation, which supports work to reduce animal testing. Toxicology researchers from academia and industry, and animal-welfare groups met in Budapest last week to develop an action plan and discuss how to spend Doerenkamp's donation of more than €1 million (US$1.4 million) to drive change. Scientists need to identify what information dog tests provide that tests in vitro or on rodent species cannot, they say. And regulatory authorities such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency need to harmonize their requirements for dog testing so that pharmaceutical companies can minimize the number of animals they use. Regulatory authorities usually require that drugs are tested for toxicity in both a rodent and a non-rodent species. The latter tends to be dogs, because they are readily available, easy to handle and in many ways physiologically similar to humans. Pharmaceutical testing accounts for around three-quarters of all dogs used in science. But scientists inside and outside industry say that dogs are not always the best option for testing and could, in some cases, be replaced by in vitro tests. In spite of these reservations, and public disquiet over the use of dogs in testing, very little has been done to curb the practice, says Thomas Hartung, a molecular toxicologist and head of the Centre for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, which organized the meeting. Regulatory agencies are nervous of changing procedures. Any adverse reactions to a new drug, for example, could be blamed on new tests failing to spot dangers. Only if a battery of in vitro alternatives can match the level of toxicity prediction that dogs can provide will regulators agree to a change, says Hartung. So far only one such test — used to predict whether a compound could lead to cardiac arrhythmias — comes close, but it has not yet been internationally validated. In its action plan, to be published in the next few months, CAAT will call for the setting up of a database of dog-test results to help to identify more targets for in vitro tests by highlighting physiological effects seen only in dogs. It will also call for a better definition of those tests for which dogs provide the best model, and those for which another species — such as the mini-pig — should be used instead. Toxicologist Georg Schmitt of Hoffmann La-Roche in Basel, Switzerland, says that pharmaceutical companies should not use dogs by default simply because facilities and test protocols exist. "Dogs can be oversensitive to some compounds, such as hormones, and their gastro­intestinal system behaves differently to that of humans," says Schmitt. He says that studies in which dogs have proved to be poor models should be published. The full article is posted with free access on nature.com . . . but you need to sign up and sign in to get to it.

New Finding Puts Origins of Dogs in Middle East By NICHOLAS WADE Borrowing methods developed to study the genetics of human disease, researchers have concluded that dogs were probably first domesticated from wolves somewhere in the Middle East, in contrast to an earlier survey suggesting dogs originated in East Asia. Enlarge This Image Julie Fletcher/Getty Images The dingo was one of the breeds studied to determine where dogs were first domesticated from wolves. Multimedia Graphic From Ancestral Wolf to Modern Dog This finding puts the first known domestication — that of dogs — in the same place as the domestication of plants and other animals, and strengthens the link between the first animal to enter human society and the subsequent invention of agriculture about 10,000 years ago. A Middle Eastern origin for the dog also fits in better with the archaeological evidence, and has enabled geneticists to reconstruct the entire history of the dog, from the first association between wolves and hunter gatherers some 20,000 years ago to the creation by Victorian dog fanciers of many of today's breeds. A research team led by Bridgett M. vonHoldt and Robert K. Wayne of the University of California, Los Angeles, has analyzed a large collection of wolf and dog genomes from around the world. Scanning for similar runs of DNA, the researchers found that the Middle East was where wolf and dog genomes were most similar, although there was another area of overlap between East Asian wolves and dogs. Wolves were probably first domesticated in the Middle East, but after dogs had spread to East Asia there was a crossbreeding that injected more wolf genes into the dog genome, the researchers conclude in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. The archaeological evidence supports this idea, since some of the earliest dog remains have been found in the Middle East, dating from 12,000 years ago. The only earlier doglike remains occur in Belgium, at a site 31,000 years old, and in western Russia from 15,000 years ago. . .. for full article and illustrations see http://www.nytimes.c...nce/18dogs.html a news treatment of the previous theory (2002), apparently bumped by this one, can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2498669.stm

As posted above, I wrote to the Green MP involved. He replied saying there was a misunderstanding. Dogs are not being used as a replacement for a more invasive search, they are being used as a justification for a more invasive search. The dog signals. The police, in effect, have a warrant and can go ahead with the search. Statistical review shows a very high rate of false positives here: dogs signal, police search and find nothing. There is ample evidence, including scientific study, to show that handlers can affect their dogs, and direct their signalling in the case where there is no real scent trigger. I think this IS a problem. Police can use dogs to justify almost any search. It's a violation of civil rights . . . and a sign of poor dog training. I'd think that if dogs were given strong rewards for finding nothing when there was nothing to find . . . and false positives were not rewarded at all . . . not even by the excitement of watching some suspect get searched . .. that the false positive rate would plummet. I'd guess this could be implemented very simply by putting handler/officers on probation is they run up too many false positives and suspending them if the problem continues. In sum, there is a problem. No need to dump the dogs . . . who have unquestionably high ability to detect scent, plus being much cheaper and more portable than electronic scent detection equivalents. That would be like dumping the judiciary because judges had been writing too many search warrants when there was nothing to find. Better to set up a reward structure that recognises that false positives are a problem.

Another observation from Retrieverman. . .. and another weakness in ethology studies linking dog behaviour to wolf behaviour. for full article see http://retrieverman....c-dog/#comments The primary ancestors of the domestic dog July 11, 2011 by retrieverman Canis lupus arabs– the Arabian wolf: And Canis lupus pallipes– the Iranian wolf: According to recent genome-wide analysis, most domestic dogs share many more genetic markers with Middle Eastern wolves than with any other subspecies. Arabian wolves weigh 25-55 pounds. Arabian wolves have the same "small dog" gene that causes very small size in domestic dogs. They also have the fused middle toes on the front feet, a trait they share with basenjis. Iranian wolves go 55-70 pounds, rough the same size as a typical golden retriever. Neither of these wolves are the big "moose-killer" wolves from the northern parts of Eurasia and North America that every knows so well, that everyone sees in zoos, and that everyone thinks are the primary ancestors of the domestic dogs. Research that in anyway compares dogs to these wolves is methodological murky, for these wolves are actually quite specialized in their behavior. These smaller Middle Eastern wolf subspecies are much more generalist in their behavior and prey choices. It might be a better study to compare "primitive" domestic dogs, like dingoes and basenjis, with these wolves. . .. posting the newspaper version of this in the News section . . . when I posted this I hadn't noticed that it was actually a News item and the Retrieverman Blog is commenting on that news.

If some of these animal rights orgs ever get their way, you can say goodbye to your companion dog, may as well replace It now with a hardy stuffed toy! I'm sure It can be a great companion for you and It's rights will never be violated! Take away a working dogs ability to work and you may as well kill them all, Is that what you want What do you suppose will happen if all these dogs were just companions? Sure some may very well adapt to a life of sleeping and eating, but I guarantee many won't! I've said It before every dog has a purpose, take away that purpose and you'll be left with nothing let alone a companion Your right about the animal groups. Dogs are what we make them. Pits are no more natural fighters than GSDs are natural, shepherds. Agility would be better for dogs than seeing them blown to bits on the battlefield. I was taught the Golden Rule (do as you would be done by). I'd rather be blown to bits in my prime doing something that I found satisfying than live to a lonely, depressed, miserable ripe-old age with little that satisfies my inbuilt desires. The dogs to feel sorry for are the social animals kept in solitary confinement in someone's back yard for the duration of their life.

get rid of puppy farming and this problem would go away. I exported two pups to Singapore . . . both to wealthy ex-pat businessmen who were unable to find acceptable Labradors in Asia and turned to Oz cause quarantine is to be avoided for young pups. In researching the process I found some parts of AQIS disgustingly pro-export . . . like, all foreign exchange earnings are good. Wouldn't surprise me if there were some 'regular' exporters who have set up 'efficient' mechanisms for bulk export.

Mobile vets are great and will often give good discounts for a full litter. Figure. They pay $5/vac. It takes an hour or so. If they make $20/pup, a litter of 12 returns a pretty good wage.

My two Lab girls alert bark . . . to flying plastic bags, garbage cans that have been put in something other than their usual place, kids roughhousing next door. Also, if I say 'hello' in a loud voice, they go sailing out the door barking and looking for something to bark at. But I've had people come right up to the door and they just go out and wag and ask for attention, quietly. I'm ok with this. When they bark, they just bark once or twice . . . and the neighbors are happy with the noise level.

Breeders are obliged to 'improve the breed' . . . but there are many opinions about what constitutes an improvement. It's important to educate yourself about your breed and about dogs, dog health, dog behaviour, and dog genetics. Showing has both positives and negatives. It allows you to see lots of other dogs and get to know people in your breed circle. It teaches you how judges are interpreting the breed standard . . . sometimes this is confusing because they don't justify their evaluations and a lot of things seem arbitrary. It may also inculcate a sort of "show blindness" that makes you compete to achieve the modern ideal for conformation and turn your attention away from temperament and health. I think it is more important, as a breeder, to formulate where you want to go with your breed, and the ability to look critically at dogs based on your ideals than it is to be a showie. Eg, if you are not worried about eye colour or tail-set, but are very concerned about whether dogs are calm and make good family members, or whether they can herd sheep, you will find shows are helpful to a degree, but that they wear thin after awhile. If you ever develop kennel blindness and cannot see the faults you would like to improve upon in your dogs, you should hang up your hat as a breeder. But you can critically appreciate dogs without being a showie.