Monthly Archives: February 2013

02/28/13

Little Blog Updates

I haven’t given an update of this blog for a while, and I thought it was important to let you guys know what’s happening.

As many of you would’ve noticed, our theme for our blog has changed to something a bit cleaner – but I am still not completely satisfied with the look. I’ve still got a lot of changes I want to make, so please excuse the site if it looks a bit messy over the coming weeks. I promise it’s for the best!

In keeping with blog-updating, I went through and updated hyperlinks in old blog posts so they’re a little bit more current. In particular, linking to relevant blog posts within this site. Now is as good a time as any to look through out blog archives!

You may have noticed that our last blog post included an audio reading. This was a new idea, and I’ve created this poll to gauge your interest in audio components of my blog posts. Please tick a box below and let me know if audio segments should be a permanent feature of Some Thoughts About Dogs.

 

And we also would like to share our excitement in being included in the ‘Top 100 Pet Blogs to Follow in 2013′ – let alone in the top half! I have so many blogs to visit and watch, and I encourage others to have a scout of these blogs, too. Continue reading →

02/26/13

Dogs Know That You Know

Recent research concludes: Dogs steal food in the dark.

But why is that significant?

Dogs steal food in the dark because people can’t see them do it.

But why is that significant?

That means that dogs know that human sight is inhibited by darkness. Or, in other words, dogs have an awareness of human perception.

 

Listen to audio:


Or read on:

When they look at you, do they know that you know?

When they look at you, do they know that you know?

Continue reading →

02/24/13

The Week in Tweets – 24th February 2013

This is our near-weekly segment where we list all the links we’ve shared on Twitter.  It’s always a big post! So grab a coffee and prepare yourself for some serious reading.

 

Tweet of the Week

DoggieBuddy shared a post featuring information and video of the first dog movie star!  It’s actually not a bad silent movie, considering it’s time period, and a nice little bit of history.  Head over to watch “Rescued by Rover” on the DoggieBuddy blog.

Continue reading →

02/22/13

Product Review: Maqnifiscent Grooming Products

When Clover was about 8 months old, we visited her breeder’s rural house interstate.  We were loading up the car early in the morning (it was still dark) and Clover was off lead.  When it came time to load Clover into the car, it was clear that she had found poo to roll in.  I didn’t have enough time to fix this problem before we left, so Clover was loaded into the car, smelling like poo.

Did I mention that this was on the way to a dog show? Once we got there, I took Clover into the bathroom and put her under the tap to attempt to wash the poo off her. I managed to get off the poo, but not the poo smell.

A friend at the dog show had some smell-pretty spray and this managed to cover the poo smell, for about 5 minutes, before it was back again. I ended up saturating Clover in the spray moments before she entered the show ring, in the hope that the poo smell would be masked for the moments that mattered.

The moral of this story? It would’ve been pretty good to have Dark Chocolate Scented Splash. Continue reading →

02/20/13

Golden Retrievers: Cancer If You Do, Cancer If You Don’t

You don’t need to be in the dog world for very long before you hear about desexing benefiting the health of dogs. These claims talk about reducing cancer (testicular, mammary, prostate, ovarian, uterine, cervix), reducing prostate disease (in boys), and preventing pyometra (in bitches).

What we don’t hear about is the undesirable side effects of desexing, and how desexing is linked to increased risks of some cancers, and an increased likelihood of joint disorders.

Torres de la Riva et al, in their research published just this month, decided to look into the health effects of desexing in golden retrievers; Neutering Dogs: Effects on Joint Disorders and Cancers in Golden Retrievers.

They, indeed, hit back at these spruced ‘health benefits’ in the introduction of their piece, saying:

“In contrast to the rather strong evidence for neutering males and/or females as a risk factor for osteosarcoma, hemangiosarcoma, lymphosarcoma, mast cell tumours and prostate cancer, evidence for neutering as protection against a dog acquiring one or more cancers is weak.”

Golden retriever, walking next to flowers and towards camera.

This research set out to investigate spay and neuter in Golden Retrievers from 1-8 years.  They chose goldens because they are commonly used as assistance animals, and so they hoped the implications of this study may have consequences for related assistance organisations (of course, dog science only happens when it helps people!). It makes sense: it’s ‘wasteful’ to invest in a dog becomes invalid for the work they were trained in, especially if that invalidity could’ve been prevented by more-appropriate timing of desexing.

While other research has pooled many breeds and health affects together, this is the first study to look at desexing in just one particular breed.  Prior-analysis determined several conditions to look at: hip dysplasia, cranial cruciate ligament tear, lymphosarcoma, hemangiosarcoma, mast cell tumours, osterosarcoma, and elbow dysplasia.

Dogs were included in the study if they were between 1-8 years of age.  They were put into categories of either ‘early neuter’ (before 1 year of age), ‘late neuter’ (after 1 year of age), and ‘intact’.  Data regarding their health was retrospective, gained from veterinary records.  Any dogs where a health diagnosis was ‘grey’ (non-conclusive), they were excluded from the study.

Continue reading →