On May 24, the Office of the Chief of Protocol released a list of gifts that were accepted by President Obama and other high officials from foreign leaders in 2010. From Doris Leuthard, President of the Swiss Confederation, the President received a red leather dog collar and leash with silver-colored fastenings. The circumstance justifying acceptance was that “non-acceptance would cause embarrassment to donor and U.S. Government.” That was true of the other two dog-related gifts, one of which included a bronze water-dog statue (presumably...
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
He Will Be Missed by His Jack Russell: Pets as Bereaved Survivors in Obituaries
Every once in a while I come across a study that I wish I had thought of doing myself. Such is the case with a paper that appeared in the latest issue of the journal Anthrozoös about companion animals in obituaries. Four researchers, two from universities in Virginia, one from a university in Maryland, and one from the Institut für angewandte Ethologie und Tierpsychologie in Switzerland, undertook such a study, noting that in newspapers...
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Only 40% of German Shepherd Police Dogs in New Zealand Serve Until Scheduled Retirement
A survey of handlers of German shepherd police dogs in New Zealand found that although dogs were scheduled to retire at eight years of age, only 40% actually remained in service that long. Of 182 dogs on which information was gathered, 48 were still in service, while 94 were in retirement, 24 had been euthanized, 11 had died, and five had been killed. Of the 94 in retirement, 61 had retired because of inability to cope with the physical demands of the work. Of these 61, 42 had degenerative musculoskeletal and lumbo-sacral diseases. ...
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Extraverted Dogs Seem to Enjoy Dog Parks, but Neurotic Dogs May Find Them Stressful
In writing a summary of dog park law, Fran Breitkopf and I noted that dog park sociology would inevitably become a topic for scientific journals. We were thinking about what dog parks mean for people, rather than dogs, but four Canadian researchers (Ottenheimer Carrier et al., citation below) have published a study suggesting that dog parks may be very entertaining places for dogs that score high on Extraversion in personality tests, while...
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