and diseased animals) and even the carcasses of euthanized dogs and cats from shelters. Today the nutritional content and safety of pet food is a mainstream concern given growing consciousness about nutrition
The pet-food market has grown dramatically with some pet food companies even marketing organic food for dogs and cats.
This much-needed upgrade of the regulatory framework comes as the FDA is still trying to determine the precise cause of a six-year spate of pet illnesses involving more than 3500 dogs with nearly 600 known fatalities apparently stemming from jerky-style pet treats.
This latest food safety scare while substantial is small in comparison to the 2007 scandal that ultimately claimed the lives of thousands of dogs and cats.
Given the concerns about pet treats you might consider baking your own healthy dog treats as a precaution.
Healthy recipes for treats your dog will love can be found at: humanesociety. org/dogs.
Pacelle's most recent Op-Ed was Hunt club Auctions Opportunity to Kill Endangered Rhino. This article was adapted from The Case of the Terrible Treats
As the period ends dogs cats and pigs become commonplace. Other than a few birds that were classified as dinosaurs most notable the Titanis the dinosaurs were gone.
Thriving populations of wolves deer lynx beaver eagles boar elk bears and other animals have been documented in the dense woodlands that now surround the silent plant.
and trafficked wolf pelts from Greece at Beijing's Capital International airport for example was a commendable act by China's General Administration of Customs.
We still do not know why a dog says'bow-wow 'and a cat says'meow'Yoshimura said in a statement.
when chased away by larger animals like bears or wolves Elbroch said. Although condors don't chase the cats away apparently their presence is irritating enough to drive away the cats.
Patagonia Expedition in Pictures His group tracked cougars using dogs often chasing the cougars for up to five hours.
and severed leg bone of a 14-year-old girl they have dubbed Jane. The bones were scattered amongst butchered dog and animal bones.
</p><p>The new study published today (May 1) in the journal PLOS ONE may explain how the carcasses of several carnivore species including saber-toothed cats and bear dogs wound up in an underground cavern
></p><p>Big dogs apparently die younger mainly because they age quickly researchers say.</</p><p>These new findings could help unravel the biological links between growth and mortality the scientists added.</
<a href=http://www. livescience. com/27676-why-small-pups-outlive-large-dogs. html target=blank>Why Small Pups Outlive Large Dog Breeds</a p><p
insects and fish and people and dogs all have bilateral symmetry. It now appears that the closest relative of Bilaterians are jellyfish
Though anatoxin-A can be deadly to other animals including dogs and cattle reports of human deaths are rare.
Scientist Risked Execution for Fox Study (Op-Ed) Brian Hare is an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke university
and the founder of Dognition a website that helps you find the genius in your dog.
This post was an adaptation from his book The Genius of Dogs co-authored with Vanessa Woods (Dutton 2013.
and finally solved the puzzle of how the wolf turned into the dog. Â For almost a century Darwin's biggest idea had a hole in it.
Everyone knew that you could selectively breed dogs for certain physical characteristics like size or coat color.
while the firstâ wolf  changed into a dog or a wild boar into a pig.
 Belyaev began his experiment with the silver fox because he could disguise his work as a commercial endeavor.
Silver foxes were prized in Russia for their fur and Belyaev's official research objective was trying to breed foxes for better fur.
Adopt a Pet Fox for Science's Sake Instead of trying to create a domesticated species by selecting for each physical trait Belyaev selected for one simple behavioral trait
whether the foxes would approach a human hand. Â After only 45 generations the experimental foxes began to change in ways that might take thousands if not millions of years in the wild.
By the time I arrived years later to see the ongoing work Belyaev's experimental foxes were radically different from their control population.
They had smaller skulls and canine teeth. Their coats were splotchy and their tails were curled.
They also had floppy ears and barked. Â When I met the bred foxes for the first time one jumped in my arms
and licked my face. The difference between the experimental and the control foxes were remarkably like the differences betweenâ wolves  and dogs.
 Belyaev had done it. He had taken a population of wild animals and essentially domesticated them.
I tested the foxes in 2004. My team's previous research had shown that dogs are remarkable at reading human communicative gestures.
Dogs were better than wolves and better than even humans'closest living relativesâ chimpanzees. The question was
whether Belyaev's foxes would share this talent for reading human gestures. Â They did.
This had huge implications to how scientists think about the domestication of dogs. The most common assumption is that some hunter-gatherer with a soft spot for cuteness found some wolf puppies
and adopted them. Â Instead the foxes raise the real possibility that natural selection may have shaped wolves into the first proto-dogs in a very similar way without intentional human intervention or control.
Ray Coppinger of Hampshire College and others have speculated that as humans began forming more permanent settlements over the last 15000 years a new canine food source appeared that led directly to the evolution of the dogs we know
and love garbage. Â Only those wolves who were least fearful and nonaggressive toward humans would be able to take advantage of that new source of food.
It would not have taken many generations for those friendlier wolves to undergo physical changes like coat color.
Soon the wolves stopped looking like wolves. Many would have splotchy coats and some would have had even floppy ears or a curly tail.
Like the foxes they too accidentally became more skilled at responding to the behavior of humans
and a new relationship began. Â It's not always easy being an evolutionary biologist in this day and age.
But whenever I start feeling sorry for myself I think of Belyaev working undercover with death never far from his door.
 Hare's most recent Op-Ed was Dogs Show IQ TESTS Aren't So Smart.
#Do'Smarter'Dogs Really Suffer More than'Dumber'Mice?(Op-Ed) Marc Bekoff emeritus professor at the University of Colorado Boulder is one of the pioneering cognitive ethologists in the United states a Guggenheim Fellow and cofounder with Jane Goodall of Ethologists for the Ethical
Are dogs more intelligent than mice and do they suffer more? To begin in the past twenty years
So asking if a dog is smarter than a cat or a cat is smarter than a mouse doesn't result in answers that are very meaningful.
Likewise asking if dogs suffer more than mice ignores who those animals are and what they have to do to survive
and the dog who does not get to go for one more run by the river are both having desires thwarted to the same degree totally.
Thus I might know that my canid companion Jethro's pain might end in five seconds
For a complete list of references to research that informed this article see the original essay Do Smarter Dogs Really Suffer More than Dumber Mice?
More of the author's essays are available in Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed (New world Library 2013).
#Does a Dog's Breed Really Dictate Its Behavior?(Op-Ed) Vanessa Woods is a research scientist at Duke university
and the cofounder of Dognition a website that helps owners find the genius in their dogs.
She is also the co-author of the New york times bestseller The Genius of Dogs. She contributed this article to Livescience's Expert Voices:
           The smartest dog breed is the border collie.
A beagle will always find its way home. Golden retrievers are attached lovingly to their owners. There are many breed stereotypes
but are they based on more than intuition? With the Dognition citizen-science project it may soon be on the verge of finding out.
Dogs and wolves split from each other between 15000 and 40000 years ago and their DNA only differs by 0. 04 percent.
what a dog could do not what a dog looked like. So any dog that chased hares was a harrier any lapdog was a spaniel
and any large intimidating dog was a mastiff. Over time this could cause certain dogs to have a certain appearance.
For instance a barbaric practice in 18th-century England was bullbaiting in which butchers tied a bull to the stake
and unleashed dogs to kill it since this supposedly made the meat tender. Any dog who killed bulls was called a bulldog
but in general it helped for the dog to be low to the ground with strong jaws to lock onto the bull.
Wide flared nostrils and a protruding mandible helped the dog breathe. All these traits shaped the bulldog into
what we know today. But the upwardly mobile middle classes who were insecure about lineage and social standing did not just want any mutt on the end of their leash.
They wanted people to know at a glance that they had a first-rate dog that had cost a lot of money
and had impeccable bloodlines. The easiest way to broadcast this was by the dog's appearance.
A breed by any other name Today the emphasis on appearance is still stronger than how a dog thinks
or behaves and there are often more differences within a breed than between breeds. So a dog that doesn't retrieve is still a retriever
and a dog that doesn't herd sheep is still a shepherd. All this makes finding breed differences in qualities like intelligence and behavior all the more difficult.
That does not mean there are no breed differences or that researchers are not trying to find out what they are.
In fact as part of the Dognition citizen-science project we have begun chipping away at the iceberg.
Already thousands of people who have signed up are contributing to an ever-growing database that dog owners can use to compare their dogs to other breed groups.
Is their dog more logical than a herding dog? More bonded than a toy breed?
More impulsive than a sporting dog? Even if you have not done the tests you can explore the data to see
if such expectations are correct. is breed your stereotype correct? Explore the Dognition database here. Of dogs and data In an initial study of 433 dogs we found that purebreds were better at communication than mixed breeds
and mixed breeds had better memories than purebreds. To test a dog's communicative abilities owners pointed to food
and recorded if their dogs followed their pointing. The ability to follow a human point to find food
or retrieve is something owners usually take for granted but it is remarkable in the animal kingdom. Even humans'closest relatives chimpanzees do not follow human gestures as well as dogs do.
Both purebreds and mixed breeds followed their owners'gestures but purebreds were consistently more reliant on their owner's gestures.
To test memory dogs were given a series of games that tested working memory which is the ability to hold information in mind
and mentally manipulate that information. An example of working memory is remembering a phone number long enough to dial it.
In one game dogs saw their owners hide food under a cup but then point to the opposite cup.
In a slightly different version of the game dogs saw their owner hide the food
while the dog's eyes were covered. Again all dogs tended to rely on their memory but mixed breeds were significantly more likely than purebreds to use their memory to locate the food.
This does not mean that purebreds have bad memories. In fact when we tested only their memories they were just as successful as the mixed breeds.
when the emphasis was still on function over form many purebreds were bred to be depended working dogs that on reading human gestures.
Does Your Dog Love You? Yawn and Find out (Op-Ed) For example Labrador retrievers were bred originally to be hunting dogs
and German shepherds were bred originally to herd and guard sheep. Although all dogs are good at reading human gestures purebreds might have an extra edge because of their original jobs.
Conversely mixed breeds can read human gestures but perhaps hybrid vigor has given them more flexibility
so they can also rely on other cognitive strategies like their memories. As more people sign up to participate in Dognition we will soon be able to parse these differences down to the breed level.
Perhaps Chihuahuas will be the most empathic and puggles will have the best reasoning skills. With enough people we may soon have breed profiling down to a science
#Dog Treat Made from Bull Penis May Pose Health Risks When dog owners toss their canine companions a bully stick to chew on they might not be aware that the popular treat could be packed with calories
and contaminated with bacteria researchers say. And pet owners might not even know that the stick is made from an uncooked dried bull penis. In a small study researchers examined a sample of 26 bully sticks also known as pizzle sticks manufactured in the United states and Canada.
That means the average 6-inch bully stick potentially represents 9 percent of the recommended daily calorie count for a larger 50-pound (22-kilogram) dog
and 30 percent of the requirements for a smaller 10-pound (4. 5-kg) dog a significant source of calories pet owners might not be aware of.
With obesity in pets on the rise it is important for pet owners to factor in not only their dog's food
A 20-question online poll completed by 852 dog owners from 44 states and six countries showed that 44 percent of respondents could correctly identify the source of bully sticks as bull penises. Twenty-three percent said they fed their dogs the treats.)
And there was even some confusion among veterinarians an unimpressive majority of vets (62 percent) polled by the researchers knew where bully sticks came from.
because their primary predators such as lions and hyenas will consume them entirely leaving nothing behind.)
Scavengers like hyenas will consume all the rest of the carcass but they'll leave the heads behind
Hyenas at the Kill The team hypothesized that ancient human ancestors found the discarded heads in their landscape
For the animal welfare movement to put a fine point on its impact King's measure could easily repeal all the state laws against shark finning puppy mills extreme confinement of farm animals and the slaughter and sale of meat from horses dogs
Pacelle's most recent Op-Ed was Advocates Creating Safety Net for Dogs in Need.
A boy or girl raised by wolves or bears or apes is the original wild child often having little or no language ability or manners.
and Remus the twin brothers of Roman mythology rescued from certain death and raised by a wolf.
Rudyard Kipling made a hero of the feral child Mowgli an Indian boy raised by wolves in his classic
years old) in Bengal India who were raised by wolves. Singh claimed that the girls whom he named Amala
and would howl at the moon like a wolf. He tried with limited success to get them to speak
In the strange case of the Indian girls Amala and Kamala for example later research concluded that though the girls did exist they had not been raised by wolves
More recently there was a 1997 memoir of ayoung Jewish girl who escaped the German Holocaust by fleeing into the forest where she was raised by a pack of wolves.
Not really foxes. They're actually bats (and one of those animals with a pretty misleading name.
They are reddish-brown ever so-slightly resembling the color of true foxes. The largest species has a wingspan of up to 4. 5 feet (1. 4 meters)
In my new book Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed (New world Library 2013) I updated many of those essays more than 100 showcasing the fascinating cognitive abilities of other animals as well as their empathy compassion grief humor joy and love.
Dogs hump for a wide variety of reasons (see this essay) and bees get depressed just like people do.
combat dogs and other animals suffer from PTSD; many animals manufacture and use complex tools;
When leopards do make a kill they'll drag the carcass up a tree to keep it away from scavenging lions and hyenas.
Their only other predators are bears and wolves. Fortunately moose continue to be abundant despite fairly intense hunting pressures in parts of its range.
Occasionally a wolf may immobilize a moose by biting its nose the pain of which can paralyze the animal.
The animals are sized dog with a stocky and muscular build. They can reach 30 inches (76 centimeters) in length
and dingoes were spreading across the land starting around 3000 years ago. Today devils live all across Tasmania
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when I was interviewed about GMOS on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzerâ asâ they reported that Chipotle the fast-food restaurant chain
A study in the American Journal of Physiology showed that female rats ate more rat chow
Cubs and yearlings at a kill site are more likely to be killed by wolves or older bears than are cubs
Bekoff's latest book is Why Dogs Hump and Bees Get Depressed (New world Library 2013).
Wolves lions and bears are known to attack livestock and even pets. On rare occasions they have killed humans.
and cadaver dogs to sniff out buried bodies based on the compounds released during decomposition. The new geophysical methods are in the early stage of development.
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The Life of a Cheetah Over the course of 367 runs in 17 months the cheetahs recorded a blistering top speed of 58 mph (93 km h) far outpacing greyhounds racing horses
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In the summer they climb even higher up to 8500 feet (2590 m). Their climbing skills help them evade predators such as coyotes and bobcats.
and select for specific traits as a dog breeder might. Eventually the resulting offspring would appear very much like the passenger pigeon.
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and other beasts as long as they lasted we were glad to make shift with vermin as dogs cats rats
The monster is said to kill dogs chickens and other small animals as well as leave spooky cloven hoof prints in snow
and clearly shows they are extremely clever that they love to play and (like dogs)
And neither would most dogs. Bullying is bullying no matter who the victim is. The teacher who would stop a child from being picked on should extend the same compassion toward animals.
Bekoff's most recent Op-Ed was'The Dog's Telltale Tail. This article was adapted from Kiss a Pig Contests Cheap Laughs and Bullying in Psychology Today.
For example chocolate coyote tomato and avocado all originated in Nahuatl. Religions of Mexico Close to 90 percent of Mexicans identify themselves as Catholic
Officials found feral canines were the real culprits. Whatever killed the New mexico elk was apparently neither a chemical spill nor a flesh-eating fungus though the deaths remain a genuine mystery at least so far.
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Hazen's group also compared mice fed their normal chow which is basically a vegetarian diet with mice
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A few hours after his death back in England Carnarvon's beloved dog Susie let out a yelp
French merchant Jean Baptiste Tavernier according to legend stole a 115-carat blue diamond from the eye of a Hindu idol in India for this sacrilege Tavernier was mauled supposedly to death by dogs.
His wife and dog died not long after however and his home caught fire. Did Native american leader Tecumseh curse William Henry Harrison after Harrison's troops emerged victorious at the Battle of Tippecanoe?
Feral dogs hunt livestock as well but since the snow leopard is protected a species farmers blame snow leopards for attacking livestock
And though it wasn't intentional Watson even shared his species with his dog. Watson brought home some bioluminescent ctenophores (comb jellies) to show his wife then left them on the lawn.
His dog ate them. The most amazing barf I have seen ever said Watson a professor at the University of New hampshire.
and attracted by the opportunity to chow down on our study organisms said Nalini Nadkarni an ecologist at the University of Utah.
and Pavlov's dogs have something in common: Both can learn to associate two things they've never seen together before.
Learning to bee Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov became famous in the early 1900s for discovering that dogs could be conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell they associated with food.
He also found that he could get dogs to drool at a completely unrelated stimulus they'd never seen alongside food.
Very quickly dogs would start salivating at the sight of the black square which they associated with the metronome
#Understanding Your Dog's Training, One Treat at a time (Op-Ed) Mary Burch is certified a applied animal behaviorist receiving her Ph d. at Florida State university in 1982 s a board-certified behavior analyst
and is director of the American Kennel Club's (AKC) Canine Good Citizen program. She contributed this article to Livescience's Expert Voices:
In my experience as an animal behaviorist many dog owners have approached me with questions specifically relating to their pets'fears.
and better understanding of the historic theories of Pavlov otherwise known as classical conditioning can be the difference in comprehending your dog's behavior
 Understanding conditioning and your dog's behavior Modern theories of behavior began with the work of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov who was awarded the Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1904 for his work.
In the course of studying digestion in dogs Pavlov observed that dogs would salivate before he placed food in their mouths.
To test the theory that dogs were associating the sound of the door opening with getting food he introduced the sound of a metronome just before feeding the dogs.
Before long the sound of the metronome without food present caused the dogs to salivate. Salivation is a reflex
Pavlov's theories explain why your dog might drool on your clean kitchen floor as soon as his food dish is rattled
What does this have to do with my dog? Classical conditioning relates to your dog in two ways:
positive and negative events. On the negative side if your puppy experiences pain and associates the pain with a particular object your pup may develop a fear of that object.
Honey was a 6-month-old cocker spaniel puppy. Hoping that she would someday become a therapy dog Honey's owner took the dog to meet a person in a wheelchair.
Without warning the person quickly moved the chair unaware of how close Honey's paws were to the wheels.
How classical conditioning can benefit dog owners As an example of classical conditioning related to a positive experience
Pairing the dog's favorite treat with the object while it is still a neutral stimulus
and before the dog becomes afraid will result in a dog that has a positive reaction to the stimulus. Dog owners who understand both classical conditioning
and which situations and stimuli are likely to cause fear can use the method to benefit their dogs.
The basic-training series and test are open to all young dogs. By setting up experiences in training classes where puppies meet new people
and other dogs pups soon learn that meeting new friends human or animal is a good thing.
We designed the AKC's Canine Good Citizen program a training series that typically follows the completion of S. T. A r. to reward dogs that have good manners at home and in the community.
Here dogs are exposed to distractions such as loud noises and moving objects. Experienced Canine Good Citizen instructors found across the country can teach dog owners how to use classical conditioning to both address behavioral issues
and prevent them. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.
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