Why Do Dog Breeds Look Like That?

From the Dachshund's stubby legs to the Shar-Pei's wrinkly skin, breeding for certain characteristics has left its mark on the dog genome. Researchers have identified 155 regions on the canine genome that appear to have been influenced by selective breeding.
With more than 400 distinct breeds, dogs come in a wide range of shapes, sizes, fur-styles, and temperaments. The curly-haired toy poodle, small enough to sit in a teacup, barely looks or acts like the smooth-coated Great Dane tall enough to peer like a periscope out of a car's sunroof. Not so apparent are breed differences in how the dogs' bodies function and their susceptibility to various diseases.

Although domestication of dogs began over 14,000 years ago, according to Dr. Joshua Akey, University of Washington (UW) assistant professor of genome sciences, the spectacular diversity among breeds is thought to have originated during the past few centuries through intense artificial selection of and strict breeding for desired characteristics. Akey is the lead author of the effort to map canine genome regions that show signs of recent selection and that contain genes that are prime candidates for further investigation. Those genes are being examined for their possible roles in the most conspicuous variations among dog breeds: size, coat color and texture, behavior, physiology, and skeleton structure.

The researchers performed the largest genome-wide scan to date for targets of selection in purebred dogs. The genomes came from 275 unrelated dogs representing 10 breeds that were very unlike each other. The breeds were: Beagle, Border Collie, Brittany, Dachshund, German Shepherd, Greyhound, Jack Russell Terrier, Labrador Retriever, Shar-Pei, and Standard Poodle.

The study was conducted, the researchers said, because the canine genome, the product of centuries of strong selection, contains many important lessons about the genetic architecture of physical and behavioral variations and the mechanisms of rapid, short-term evolution. The findings, the researchers said, "provide a detailed glimpse into the genetic legacy of centuries of breeding practices."

[Source: Science Daily]

Ithaca Pioneers Dog Waste Composting

Several years ago, dog owners in the college town of Ithaca, N.Y., began worrying about all the plastic bags filled with dung that ended up in the landfill.

Leon Kochian, a professor of plant biology at Cornell and, more to the point, the owner of a yellow lab, recalled the thinking at the time: “This is Ithaca. There’s got to be a more environmentally sensible way to do this.”

This year, with Mr. Kochian’s nudging, one of the city’s dog parks — part of the Allan H. Treman Marine State Park — became a dog waste composting park.

Special corn-based bags, made by the Biobag Company, based in Florida, are available at several stations in the park. Dog owners put the bag and its contents into large bins near the park’s entrances, which are removed once a week by a company called Cayuga Compost.

At its composting facility, Cayuga dumps the waste into a pile — mixed with a bit of yard and wood waste — quite separate from the company’s regular food-waste compost.

And there it will sit — until the company figures out what it might be good for.

Late next year, Cayuga plans to run tests to determine the composition of the dog waste (after all, a dog’s diet is arguably more varied than virtually any other animal’s, in accordance with the whims of their owners). If it matures into nutrient-rich compost, it might be applied to potted plants or landscaping, said Mark Whittig, Cayuga’s operations manager. If the compost is of poorer quality, it could be used for blending with topsoil, he said.

To read the full story, head on over to The New York Times

Three Genes Determine The Nature of a Dog's Coat

How did the dog get its coat? Kipling never pondered that question — he was more concerned with how the leopard got its spots, among other things — but scientists have. And the answer, they report in Science, lies in just three genes.

Edouard Cadieu and Elaine A. Ostrander of the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, and colleagues looked at the genetic differences within single breeds that have more than one coat type. Purebred dogs are particularly suited for this kind of study, Dr. Ostrander said, because they have been selectively bred to segregate traits — there are long- and short-haired dachshunds, for example.

The researchers then used that information to look at a large dataset of genetic information from about 900 dogs representing 80 breeds. They were able to identify mutations at specific points, or loci, on three genes linked to fur length, curliness and growth pattern (bushy eyebrows, beards and other features that dog breeders refer to as furnishings).

Then they looked at these three loci, on the genes of another 662 dogs representing 108 breeds — from fluffy Old English sheepdogs to short-haired pugs. They found that the presence of the mutations or not, in various combinations, accounted for the variation in coat in 95 percent of the breeds. Only a few breeds, including Afghan hounds, have coats that can’t be explained by these genes.

There’s a certain elegance to the findings, Dr. Ostrander said. “We look at so much of the complexity in the world around us and say, Oh gosh, the underlying genetics must be so complicated,” she said. “But we’re beginning to feel that in fact nature is simple.”

The eventual goal, Dr. Ostrander said, is to use the same kind of sampling and comparison techniques to uncover how genetic variations combine to cause human diseases.

[Source: NYTimes.com]

Dogs and 2-Year-Olds on Same Mental Plane

According to accumulating research, the beloved family dog is really a toddler with a snout and tail.

"Dogs basically have the developmental abilities equivalent to a human 2-year-old," said dog expert Stanley Coren, who was scheduled to present recent canine research developments at the American Psychological Association annual meeting this week in Toronto.

The average dog can learn 165 words, although "super dog" Rico, a border collie, could understand 200 spoken words. Experts think some dogs can learn up to 250 words.

Dogs can count up to four or five and can correct you if you can't add one plus one.

One dog apparently learned to "read." Coren recounted the case of the canine who was able to "deliver" mail addressed to two girls, one with a short name and one with a long name. Although the owner thought the dog was actually reading, it turns out the canine was gauging the length of the name, not the individual characters, enabling him to deliver the mail to the right person.

To read this rest of the article, head on over to AJC.com

Babies and Dogs Get Each Other, Study Says

You may not understand what your dog is trying to tell you, but your baby might. Infants as young as six months old can tell what kind of mood a pooch is in by its bark, according to a new study.

Brigham Young University researchers showed babies two different pictures of the same dog, looking aggressive and then friendly. They then played sound recordings of a happy and an angry bark in a random order.

Amazingly, the babies spent most of the time staring at the matching picture after hearing the sound.

“Emotion is one of the first things babies pick up on in their social world,” said Ross Flom, a professor at the university and lead author of the study. “We chose dogs because they are highly communicative creatures both in their posture and the nature of their bark.”

The experiment backs up the idea that even before they can speak, babies can understand and respond to the tone of human and animal voices.

Thankfully, it seems no babies got too alarmed by the aggressive barks. “Many of them enjoyed it,” Dan Hyde, one of the study’s co-authors said of the experiment. “Others just looked on.”


[Source: NYDailyNews]

FDA Approves First-Ever Cancer Drug For Dogs

The first cancer drug created specifically for dogs has been approved by the FDA. The drug, manufactured by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's animal health wing, is called Palladia and was developed to treat canine cutaneous mast cell tumors.

Cutaneous mast cell tumors account for about 20% of skin cancer in dogs. Although some mast cell tumors can be surgically removed with relative ease, other cases have historically proven more difficult to treat, and the cancer has been known to spread to other parts of the body.

"This cancer drug approval for dogs is an important step forward for veterinary medicine," Bernadette Dunham, director of FDA's center for veterinary medicine, said in a statement Wednesday.

"Prior to this approval, veterinarians had to rely on human oncology drugs, without knowledge of how safe or effective they would be for dogs," Dunham said. "Today's approval offers dog owners, in consultation with their veterinarian, an option for treatment of their dog's cancer."

"At the completion of a Palladia clinical study, approximately 60% of dogs had their tumors disappear, shrink or stop growing," Dr. Cheryl London of Ohio State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, who worked with Pfizer in the development of the drug, said in a statement. "Also, we determined that dogs whose tumors responded to Palladia experienced an improved quality of life."

The drug will be available initially only through a small number of veterinary oncologists; it's expected to be more widely available beginning in early 2010, according to Reuters. It comes in pill form and is given every other day, generally for a period of several months or longer.

[Source: LATimes.com]

South Korean Scientists Engineer Glow-In-The-Dark Dogs. Seriously.

South Korean scientists say they have engineered four beagles that glow red using cloning techniques that could help develop cures for human diseases. The four dogs, all named "Ruppy" — a combination of the words "ruby" and "puppy" — look like typical beagles by daylight.

But they glow red under ultraviolet light, and the dogs' nails and abdomens, which have thin skins, look red even to the naked eye.

Seoul National University professor Lee Byeong-chun, head of the research team, called them the world's first transgenic dogs carrying fluorescent genes, an achievement that goes beyond just the glowing novelty.

"What's significant in this work is not the dogs expressing red colors but that we planted genes into them," Lee told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Scientists in the U.S., Japan and in Europe previously have cloned fluorescent mice and pigs, but this would be the first time dogs with modified genes have been cloned successfully, Lee said.

He said his team took skin cells from a beagle, inserted fluorescent genes into them and put them into eggs before implanted them into the womb of a surrogate mother, a local mixed breed.

The glowing dogs show that it is possible to successfully insert genes with a specific trait, which could lead to implanting other, non-fluorescent genes that could help treat specific diseases, Lee said.

The scientist said his team has started to implant human disease-related genes in the course of dog cloning, saying that will help them find new treatments for genetic diseases such as Parkinson's. He refused to provide further details, saying the research was still under way.

[Source: Associated Press]

Science Says Robot Dogs Are Almost As Fun As Real Ones

Whether something is living or not is a crucial distinction, and it's one that children already understand by the age of five. What then do children make of the latest generation of robot pets - toys designed to be as "alive" as possible? It's a surprisingly little researched area, but with the shuttle rate of technological advance in toy-land, it's one that's bound to become increasingly relevant.

Gail Melson and colleagues filmed 72 kids, aged 7 to 15 years, playing for 45 minutes with a Sony Aibo robot dog and for 45 minutes playing with a real-life pooch of the Australian Shepherd breed. The Sony 210 Aibo dog was the most advanced robot dog at the time this research was conducted. It was capable of walking after a pink ball, kicking and headbutting it. It could also shake itself, sit down, lie down, offer its paw, learn, and display positive and negative emotion via lights.

As well as filming the children, the researchers also asked them questions about the biological (e.g. does X eat?), mental (e.g. can X feel happy?), and social (e.g. does X like you?) properties of the two dogs, as well as their moral standing (e.g. is it OK or not OK to hit X?).

The picture that emerged was mixed. On the one hand, the children clearly saw the real dog as more real and alive than the robot dog. They also examined the robot dog as if it were an object rather than a creature - prodding it and picking it up. On the other hand, there were signs that the children saw the robot dog as more than a mere toy. For example, over 80 per cent of the children spoke and gave commands to the robot dog as often as they did to the real dog. Nearly half the children petted the robot dog gently at least once, despite its metallic surface. Moreover, the children were no more likely to say it was okay to hit the robot dog than they were to say it was okay to hit the real dog! In all cases there was a trend for older children to see the robot dog as less real.

"These children were surprisingly willing to treat the robot dog as 'dog like'," the researchers concluded. "...[S]uch findings may be evidence of the emergence of a new ontological category, neither artifact nor living being."

For more, check out the British Psychological Society's Blog

Three-Legged Pup Gets New Limb

It gives one paws -- or, at least, paw.

Bronx pooch Cassidy had just three legs to stand on until he got a fourth, thanks to a cutting-edge technique that made him a walking miracle. The German-shepherd mix has become one of the few animals in the world to receive a permanent prosthetic limb, and is a trailblazer whose surgical experience could help humans.

The dog, who lost his right rear leg below the knee joint, had an "osseointegration" procedure in which a titanium implant was attached to the tibia, a leg bone. A removable, C-shaped foot made of titanium, carbon fiber and rubber screws onto the prosthesis.

"The implant is permanent and goes into the bone like a dental implant in humans, and then the bone and the implant fuse," said Steve Posovsky, 61, a retired dentist from Long Island who with his wife, Susan, adopted Cassidy in August 2005, when the dog faced euthanasia.

Posovsky was watching a morning news program that showed "this dog that had been found in The Bronx with his leg cut off wandering the streets who was about 2½ years old.

"When I saw him on TV, I had to get him," said Posovsky, who lives most of the year in Florida. "He was 30 pounds underweight. He limped along. He had almost no hair," recalled Posovsky, who said that before his surgery, Cassidy "would walk for 10 minutes and have to plop down and need a rest."

"Now, he can walk for hours."

After taking in Cassidy, he and his wife contacted Dr. Denis Marcellin-Little, a surgeon with the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine in Raleigh and had a removable prosthesis made.

Cassidy "kicked off" the leg, so they decided to go with a permanent one. Last August, the permanent prosthesis was implanted, and last month, the final version of the foot was perfected.

"What is being assessed and being designed for Cassidy may improve our knowledge and may ultimately help in what is being done for people," he said.

Meanwhile, Cassidy "is very happy," Posovsky said. "He walks on the beach with me every day with his new leg. When he's running I take his leg off. I'm a nervous father."

[Source: New York Post]

We Look Like Our Pets. Science Says So.

We've all heard it before: the longer we're together, the more we start to look alike. And while this theory usually applies to old married couples, science says it's not uncommon for it to happen with our animals as well.

After years of head scratching, a study offers proof that dogs really do resemble their owners — at least when purebreds are involved. Matching a mutt to her master is another story, according to Nicholas Christenfeld and Michael Roy, researchers from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). The full report, "Do Dogs Resemble Their Owners?" was published in the journal Psychological Science.

The two psychologists found that when people choose a dog, they often select one that, at lest at some level, resembles them, and, when it comes to picking out a purebred puppy, they get an even closer pet replica of themselves.

When given a choice of two dogs, 28 judges (undergraduate college students) correctly matched a group of 45 dogs with their owners (who were chosen and photographed at random) nearly two out of three times. A dog was regarded as resembling its owner if a majority of judges matched the pair. With mutts, however, the pattern went to the dogs. There was little or no evidence of resemblance between the mixed breeds and their owners.

The data did not reveal how judges were able match the dogs to their owners. The matches were most often based less on obvious characteristics, for example, between hairy people and hairy dogs or big people with big dogs than on some combination of of physical and personality traits. The conclusion? It appears we are happiest with creatures that are most like ourselves.

[Source: SFGate.com]

South Florida Couple Gets First Commercially Cloned Dog

Six years ago, a Boca Raton family froze their dog Lancelot's DNA. Monday they picked up their new pooch that just happens to have all their former dog's genes.

"The only sad thing about dogs is that they have such a short life, wouldn't it be wonderful if you could live your life with the same dog," said Nina Otto, Lancy's owner. Turns out you can... sort of.

"It truthfully is amazing to me that this process has come to be and that I am getting, if not my dog, certainly the essence of Lancelot and it looks so much like him that, well... He's a clone, so he should look like him," said Otto. "Lancy was the first dog, commercially that they did clone because his DNA was frozen and very viable."

Bioarts International CEO Lou Hawthorne, a cloning and stem cell research guru, brought little Lancy to Miami International Airport from Korea. The adorable Lancy is cute as a button, but a clone is a walking controversy. "People think that cloning dogs is a stepping stone to cloning people. Dogs are actually harder to clone than people," said Hawthorne.

The 3-month old puppy is reportedly a clone of a canine the Otto family just couldn't live without, their yellow 11-year-old Labrador Sir Lancelot, who died last year on New Year's Eve. "Lancelot was very human and he... He just... We used to call him our prince charming, " said Otto.

The price of royalty is steep. For what it cost to buy a modest home or fancy car, the Ottos cloned the dog they say was worth so much more. "It cost over 150-thousand dollars, so it was a lot of money. So, as I said before I did sell something that was precious to me to get something that was even more precious to me," said Otto.

Nina Otto sold some big time jewelry to finance what she describes as the future. "Yes, it's expensive now, but as we know with everything, once it becomes college knowledge, it loses its value and it will become less expensive, " said Otto.

Sitting on 12 acres in Boca Raton, the Ottos have 9 dogs, 4 birds, 10 cats, 6 sheep and now little Lancy. The bright ray of life will fit in just fine, but in a dim economic climate why would someone spend six figures on a dog. "It was last may. I probably, at this point and time I would've said, you know, we really shouldn't do it, it's just economically not a good idea, but it was done, so thank god and thank god... The money is gone and he's here and that's what's more important to me," said Otto.

[Source: msnbc]

Pets Everlasting

The most difficult thing about the cloned puppies is not telling them apart, but explaining why they don’t look exactly alike. This was the problem Lou Hawthorne faced on a recent afternoon hike with Mira and MissyToo, two dogs whose embryos were created from the preserved, recycled and repurposed nuclear DNA of the original Missy, a border collie-husky mix who died in 2002.

To be sure, they have a very strong resemblance to each other and to Missy. It’s just that sometimes, as soon as people hear that the dogs are clones, the questions start coming:

“Why is one dog’s fur curlier?”

“Why aren’t the dogs the same size?”

“Why is one of them darker?”

“Why does this one have a floppy ear?”

Mr. Hawthorne, who is 48, is highly invested in the notion of likeness. With clones, after all, what good does similar do? It is Mr. Hawthorne’s biotech company, BioArts, which is based here in the Bay Area but has arrangements with a laboratory in South Korea, that performed the actual cloning.

To read more about this unique pair, visit NYTimes.com

With Treats, Dogs Seem to Know What's Fair

To the list of the qualities of dogs — enthusiastic and steadfast come to mind — can be added another. That pooch of yours, researchers say, may be envious.

Scientists in Austria report in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that a dog may stop obeying a command if it sees that another dog is getting a better deal.

In this way dogs may be showing a sensitivity that is similar to, although perhaps more primitive than, that shown by chimpanzees and some monkeys. Until now those primates were the only nonhumans to show what is called “inequity aversion” in the absence of a reward.

The finding may come as no surprise to some dog owners, and it didn’t completely surprise Friederike Range, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vienna who led the study. “We have a dog at home,” she said, “and I know how jealous she is of different people and situations.”

The study tried to quantify the behavior by using well-trained dogs that readily offer a paw on command. The researchers used two dogs side by side but treated them differently, giving one a better reward (sausage) and the other a lesser one (bread) when the paw was given, or giving one dog no reward at all.

They found that the quality of the reward made little difference. But in the case in which one dog got no treat at all, that dog became less and less inclined to obey the command.

[Source: NY Times]

Dog's Artificial Elbow Surgery Has Potential for Humans

Jake the dog is somewhat of a celebrity in the veterinary world. The 11-year-old yellow Labrador retriever of Grand Rapids was the first dog in the Midwest and only the 11th in the world to get a new type of elbow prosthesis that reduces infection and wear and tear - and that eventually could be used in humans. The $5,000 surgery was performed at the Michigan State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital last spring.

Now, after six months of rehabilitation that includes running on an underwater treadmill, Jake is giving high fives, jumping off the bed and going without his leash. "He's actually acting like he's a younger dog again, which is so cool," owner Sue Falk said. "He's just more playful and not as concerned about each step." Jake's turnaround is a dramatic difference from several years ago, when he had a bad limp and refused to go on daily walks in the woods behind Falk's home.

"We are very happy with Jake because, with other dogs, the recovery has not been as fast," said MSU Dr. Loic Dejardin, who performed the four-hour surgery in April. In the six months since getting his new elbow, Jake has undergone extensive physical rehabilitation. In addition to running on an underwater treadmill, Jake has been navigating obstacle courses and doing home exercises with Falk.

Since Jake received the elbow, Dejardin has performed similar surgeries on four other dogs at MSU and will fly to Canada soon to perform another. Dejardin said the elbow - which became available in March - has worked so well in dogs that it is being considered for use in ankle replacements in people. "If it happens, that would be the first time that we know of an implant designed with a dog in mind having an application in humans," Dejardin said.

[Source: Mlive.com]

Study Says Jilted Dogs Get Jealous

Dogs get jealous when jilted, suggests a new study that found canines feel especially intense jealousy pangs when in a "love triangle" involving their owner and another, more recently introduced, person or animal.

The finding suggests dogs may also experience pride, embarrassment, shame and other secondary emotions outside of basic emotions such as anger, anxiety and surprise. Scientists previously thought only humans and chimpanzees showed behaviors linked to secondary emotions.

A genetic propensity for jealousy may even run as deep as a dog's ancient wolf ancestors. "I would definitely think you would find jealousy in wolves," said lead researcher Paul Morris. "For example, sexual jealousy would be an extremely powerful motivator in the wild state. Jealousy would also relate to position in hierarchy and alliances between animals within a pack."

The researchers asked the pet owners to report observations of both primary and secondary emotions in their animals, which included cats, pigs, horses, rabbits, rats and hamsters, as well as dogs. All the animals received high scores for secondary emotions, with over 80 percent of owners claiming their dogs showed signs of jealousy.

Morris also studied the phenomenon directly with his own two dogs, Silver and Jessie. He went out of his way to shower Silver with attention, and then only occasionally gave Jessie her usual head pat. Jessie showed her teeth and snarled, but contained her anger and tried to push her way back into the mini pack.

"Jealousy is at its heart related to the real or anticipated loss of love, affection and attention," Morris told Discovery News. "Dog jealousy is different to human jealousy, in that it is tied to the here and now; dog jealousy occurs only in the presence of the interloper. So when I talk about dog jealousy, I see it as a much more primitive and hugely less elaborate version of human jealousy."

[Source: The Discovery Channel]

From Russia With Love & Via Satellite - Putin's Dog

In case you missed it, last week the Associated Press wrote about how Russian officials tested the country's forthcoming satellite system on an unlikely subject--Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's dog. But don't fret, animal activists aren't worried. We'll let the Associated Press take it from here:

Putin listened as his deputy, Sergei Ivanov, briefed him on the progress of the Global Navigation Satellite System. Then footage broadcast on Russian TV showed them try a collar containing satellite-guided positioning equipment on the prime minister's black Labrador Koni.

Ivanov said that the equipment goes on a standby mode when "the dog doesn't move, if it, say, lies down in a puddle."

Putin interrupted him jokingly: "My dog isn't a piglet, it doesn't lie in puddles. She wags her tail, she likes it," Putin said after watching Koni outside his collonaded residence on Moscow's western outskirts.

Fortunately for Putin's dog and many others, the satellite-guided tracking systems carry no known health risks, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

"While PETA is not familiar with the actual device that Prime Minister Putin used on his dog, if the collar is similar to those used in the U.S., which are not shock collars, it is probably harmless," PETA spokesman Michael McGraw said in an e-mailed response.

The GPS tracking devices in the U.S. use the Global Positioning System to determine the precise location of an animal, person or vehicle. When put on wild animals, usually in a collar, they allow scientists to study their behavior and migration patterns.

[Source: Los Angeles Times]

Scientists Find World's Oldest Dog

An international team of scientists has just identified what they believe is the world's first known dog, which was a large and toothy canine that lived 31,700 years ago and subsisted on a diet of horse, musk ox and reindeer, according to a new study.

Remains for the older prehistoric dog, which were excavated at Goyet Cave in Belgium, suggest to the researchers that the Aurignacian people of Europe from the Upper Paleolithic period first domesticated dogs.

If Paleolithic dogs still existed as a breed today, they would surely win best in show for strength and biting ability. "In shape, the Paleolithic dogs most resemble the Siberian husky, but in size, however, they were somewhat larger, probably comparable to large shepherd dogs," said Mietje Germonpré, a paleontologist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.

Isotopic analysis of the animals' bones found that the earliest dogs consumed horse, musk ox and reindeer, but not fish or seafood. Since the Aurignacians are believed to have hunted big game and fished at different times of the year, the researchers think the dogs might have enjoyed meaty handouts during certain seasons.

The earliest dogs likely earned their meals too. "I think it is possible that the dogs were used for tracking, hunting, and transport of game," she said.

[Source: The Discovery Channel]

Playing May Be More Important Than Winning

It may not be such a dog-eat-dog world after all, at least among puppies. A new study has found that young male dogs playing with female pups will often let the females win, even if the males have a physical advantage. Male dogs sometimes place themselves in potentially disadvantageous positions that could make them more vulnerable to attack, and researchers suspect the opportunity to play may be more important to them than winning.

The gentlemanly dog behavior is even accompanied with a bow. "We found that self-handicapping tends to occur in conjunction with play bows," lead author Camille Ward told Discovery News. "A play bow is a signal that dogs use when they want to communicate playful intentions to a potential play partner,"

Ward and her colleagues studied puppy litters from four dog breeds: a shepherd mix, Labrador retriever, Doberman pincher and malamute. Play data was collected when the pups were between three and 40 weeks old. The scientists examined how the puppies played with members of their own sex as well as with the opposite sex. Females were more likely than males to initiate play with their own sex, but that may be to stave off more vicious behavior later.

While males were less likely to initiate play with other males, they seemed eager to play with females, and would go to all sorts of lengths to keep the play going. The male puppies, for example, would sometimes lick the muzzles of their opponents, giving the female a chance to bite them in a vulnerable position. They would also even completely drop to the ground from a moving, standing or sitting position, looking like a boxer down for the count. They might lose the game in the short run, but they could win at love in the future.

"We know that in feral dog populations, female mate choice plays a role in male mating success," said Ward. "Perhaps males use self-handicapping with females in order to learn more about them and to form close relationships with them -- relationships that might later help males to secure future mating opportunities."

[Source: Discovery News]

Dogs Catch Human Yawns

Spying someone yawning often makes us yawn. Now, a new study shows your canine buddy can catch yawns from you, too. The results suggest domestic dogs have the capacity for a fundamental form of empathy, the researchers say.

The phenomenon, called contagious yawning, has previously been found only in humans and other primates such as chimpanzees and is thought to relate to our ability to empathize with others.

Researcher Ramiro Joly-Mascheroni first tested the phenomenon in his dog, a Labrador. Immediately upon yawning himself, Joly-Mascheroni's dog immediately yawned. And sure enough, tests on friends' pups showed similar results.

For the study, the furry cast included a wide range of dog breeds from a Greyhound to a Staffordshire Bull Terrier to a Dalmatian. In total 29 dogs went through two testing scenarios each lasting five minutes, one in which a human (not the owner) called the dog over and while keeping eye contact with the dog he or she would act out yawns that included the vocal portions.

In the non-yawning scenario, the human went through similar motions, except he or she didn't yawn vocally and instead just opened and closed their mouths.

During the yawn sessions, 21 dogs (or 72 percent of them) yawned, while no dogs yawned during the non-yawning scenario. That's compared with 45 percent to 65 percent found from past studies in humans and 33 percent found for chimpanzees.

In addition to yawning, the dogs showed similar reactions to human yawns. "In the yawning condition, we found the dogs reacted pretty much in the same way," Joly-Mascheroni said. "They all acknowledged the yawn in some way either by dropping their ears or turning their heads away."

[Source: Livescience.com]

City Uses DNA to Fight Dog Poop

An Israeli city is using DNA analysis of dog droppings to reward and punish pet owners. Under a six-month trial program launched this week, the city of Petah Tikva, a suburb of Tel Aviv, is asking dog owners to take their animal to a municipal veterinarian, who then swabs its mouth and collects DNA. The city will use the DNA database it is building to match faeces to a registered dog and identify its owner.

Owners who scoop up their dogs' droppings and place them in specially marked bins on Petah Tikva's streets will be eligible for rewards of pet food coupons and dog toys. But droppings found underfoot in the street and matched through the DNA database to a registered pet could earn its owner a municipal fine.

"My goal is to get the residents involved, and tell them that together, we can make our environment clean," said Tika Bar-On, the city's chief veterinarian who came up with the idea for the DNA experiment. Bar-On said the DNA database could also help veterinarians research genetic diseases in dogs, investigate canine pedigree and identify stray animals, replacing the need for electronic chip identification. "The sky is the limit on how far we can take this," she said.

So far, Bar-On said, residents have "reacted positively to the program and are cooperating because they want their neighborhood to be clean". She said Petah Tikva would consider making it mandatory for pet owners to provide DNA samples from their dogs if the trial program is successful.

[Source: Reuters UK]