Detecting Early Stage Lung Cancer May Become a Clinical Function of Sniffer Dogs

Lung cancer is one of the most deadly cancers, and one that all too often is not detected early enough for treatment to be effective. Although progress is being made, as discussed in the papers below, standard x-rays often fail to detect lung cancer early enough for any therapy to be successful. The fact that dogs are fairly good at detecting a significant proportion of lung cancers thus makes their use in a clinical setting a real possibility....

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Livestock Guard Dog Exclusion from Dog Bite Liability Complicates Cyclist’s Lawsuit

Livestock guarding dogs are raised with sheep or other livestock, and become so attached to the herd that they protect the herd and its members, sometimes to the death when a predator, such as a mountain lion, is sufficiently dangerous.  They are raised with the herd animals they will protect, and are encouraged to prefer the company of those animals to that of people.  Unlike herding dogs, they are not servants of the shepherd, but rather...

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Do Dogs Display Guilt after Eating Forbidden Hot Dogs? It Depends How the Data Is Massaged

An advertisement in a Budapest newspaper sought participants in a study about pet dogs.  The ad specified that the only owners who need reply were those whose dog (1) was older than eight months, (2) had lived with the owner for at least six months, (3) could remain calm if left alone in an unfamiliar room for three minutes, and (4) had not participated in food-reward studies. Also, owners had to say that if they prohibited their dog from eating...

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