The Size of the Fight in the Dog

Chihuahuas Be Fearless

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Its not the size of the dog, but the size of the fight in the dog

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Family Gatherings Train the Dog in Advance

Coming up we have Canadian Thanksgiving, followed by Halloween, then US Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Eve. All these provide opportunities for family gathering and parties. These events are great fun for the people, but can be very stressful for dogs. Here are some tips to help keep both kids and dogs safe and happy during family gatherings

Holidays Are Stressful for Dogs

The holidays are especially stressful for dogs due to changes in routine and the comings and going of visitors. Many dog bites happen at this time of year.

When visiting a house with a dog, children should be taught not to approach the dog (even if the dog has been friendly on other occasions). If the dog comes to them they should stand still like a tree and let the dog sniff. Only if the the dog is wagging and panting and coming to them for attention, and parent and dog owners are supervising and have given permission, should a child touch the dog. Dog owners should gauge their dog’s reaction to visitors. If the dog is overly excited, barking or growling, cowering away, trying to hide or otherwise showing signs of anxiety or aggression, the dog should be kept separate from visiting children for the ENTIRE DURATION of the child’s visit. The dog should have its own place in a crate or another room with toys, a bone to chew on and its special bed or blanket so that it can be happy and comfortable and away from guests. Even dogs who seem happy with visitors should never be alone in the room with visiting children. No preschooler, toddler or baby should be allowed to be near your dog unless you personally also have your hands on the dog and can prevent face to face contact between child and dog and can prevent the child from hugging or otherwise bothering the dog.

Greeting People at the Door

Dogs should not be allowed to greet visitors at the door. This is for the safety of the dog and the visitors. Keep the dogs in separate room or crate until the visitors are settled and then allow the dog to say hello if appropriate. If you are not sure about your dog, then leave him confined or keep him on a leash. Make sure that the dog associates visitors with something good for the dog, such as special treats or a stuffed bone.

Not the Time to Train the Dog

If you do perceive a problem between your dog and visiting children - THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO WORK ON IT. It is not reasonable to use visiting children to help train your dog. Take preventative measures to ensure that your dog does not have the opportunity to bite and once the holiday season is over seek the help of a dog behavior specialist who uses positive reinforcement methods to solve the dogs problem.

Family Gatherings

Family gatherings at a relative’s house are the source of fond memories for many. The relative’s dog may not enjoy these events as much as the rest of the family. Noise, confusion and changes in routine are stressful for dogs. Even a normally calm and docile pet may become agitated enough to bite under the extreme circumstances of a boisterous family celebration. Supervision may be lax if each adult thinks that another is watching the children. Children are the most likely victims of dog bites in this situation. Doggone Safe offers the following tips:

• Put the dog in his crate with a bone or favorite chew toy, at least during the most hectic times – guests arriving and leaving as well as dinner preparation and serving.
• Assign one adult to be in charge of the dog, to watch for signs of stress and protect from unwanted attention from children.
• Signs of stress include: The dog yawns or licks his chops.The dog shows the white part of his eye in a half moon shape.
• If the dog shows any of these signs, then he is worried and wants to be left alone. Put the dog in his crate or in a room away from the guests with a favorite chew toy or bone. 
• If the dog licks his chops, yawns or shows the half moon eye when a child approaches or is petting him, intervene immediately and ensure that the child cannot access the dog. 
• Do not allow visiting children to hug the dog. Dogs don’t like hugs and kisses. Even if the dog tolerates this under normal circumstances he may not tolerate this from strangers or in a high stress situation with lots of noise and people. 
• Other signs that the dog does not welcome attention from children (or adult) guests include the following:

• The dog turns his head away, walks away or tries to hide under furniture.
• The dog freezes and becomes very still, with his mouth closed. He may be staring intensely at the person who is bothering him and may growl. This dog is a few seconds away from a bite.
• The dog growls or raises the fur along his back.

• Assign one adult to supervise each baby or toddler with no other tasks expected. 
• If you have multiple dogs, consider kenneling them, crating them or keeping them in another room during large gatherings. 
• Supervise at all times.

Download our handout with a summary of tips for parents and dog owners

Articles:

Visit our article library for some articles about keeping kids and dogs safe during the holidays. Scroll through the list looking for those articles marked with a candy cane. Download the Doggone Safe Holiday Press Release with more tips

Members:

Doggone Safe Members: Download the Doggone Safe Holiday Press Release that you can edit to send to local newspaper, radio and TV media to promote your business and disseminate our safety messages. Join Doggone Safe.

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Leashed Blood Tracking Dogs in Pennsylvania – Update

By Andy Bensing

The Senate Game and Fisheries Committee met on Wednesday 12/4/2013 and HB451, the leashed blood tracking dog Bill, was on the agenda.  I was pretty excited when I heard the week before that the Chairman had decided to put the bill on the agenda.  I and other Deer Recovery of PA members have been working for over 13 years to gain legalization in PA.  We have gotten 3 bills out of the House of Representatives during that time and into the Senate Game and Fisheries committee.  Our current bill under consideration in the committee, HB451, was unanimously passed by the House last May.  Well my excitement turned into another letdown when once again the bill was tabled for purposes of further discussion/clarification.  The committee members’ general consensus was that they needed more clarification as to how the dogs would be used and how the program would operate in the field.

This is quite frustrating to myself and other hard working members of DRP.  We have been working for years to educate the legislature.  We send them packets of information, offer unfettered access to us to answer questions and meet with them or their assistants to explain what we do and answer questions.  Just this past August and September one of our members personally met with 10 of the 11 committee members or their assistants in one on one meetings at the capital to explain what we do, why we do it and how it is done in other states.

With all this effort on our part our tracking dog bill has been brought up in the Senate Game and Fisheries 3 times in the last 18 months and always has ended up with the same result.  Tabled because they need more information.

The meeting did have one bright note in that the consensus was that the committee was not completely against the bill, they did table it instead of voting it down, but they wanted more specifics written into it as to how it would actually be run by the Game Commission once enacted.  Several members of the committee spoke with us after the meeting and asked us to assist with that.  Also, the Chairman did commit to holding an informational public hearing early next year to try and work out some of these issues.

So all in all the meeting did not live up to my early expectations but we did inch forward a little bit.  One thing about blood trackers that’s for sure, we don’t give up easily.

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Robo WOOF! Whats happening in dog human communication technology

(Source)

Hey Julie,

Thank you for the gorgeous congratulations for winning Im a Scientist, get me out of here! - what an amazing experience! So many students engaged in science and asking questions that made my head spin - fabulous, fabulous stuff! I learned so much!

One of the questions that came up a few times during the live chat sessions with student classes was about communication between dogs and people. I was asked "Do you think dogs will ever be able to talk to humans?" and "Why dont dogs talk? Why do they only bark?", as well as "Do dogs understand us? How?" and "Could we use technology to communicate with dogs?" - you see? They kept me on my toes!

My initial reactions were to say, "Dogs DO talk to us! They use their body language and their vocalisations extremely well, its just that people arent always fluent in listening to what theyre telling us!" I also told them all about Chaser and her 1,200+ words, about the fact dogs senses are different to ours (a much less visual, much more sniffy kind of a world).

Then one student said, "But what about this?":

 
Now Julie, I dont know about YOU, but somehow, I missed out on this BowLingual device when it was launched in the early noughties. Its a: 

"computer-based dog-to-human language translation device developed by Japanese toy company Takara and first sold in Japan in 2002. Versions for South Korea and the United States were launched in 2003. The device was named by Time Magazine as a "Best Invention of 2002." The inventors of BowLingual, Keita Satoh, Dr. Matsumi Suzuki and Dr. Norio Kogure were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for "promoting peace and harmony between the species.

The device is presented as a "translator" but has been called an "emotion analyzer". It is said to use technology to categorize dog barks into one of six standardized emotional categories. BowLingual also provides a phrase which is representative of that emotion. The product instructions clearly state that these phrases "are for entertainment purposes only" and are not meant to be accurate translations of each bark."

I totally endorse all those disclaimers, especially after reading this review by Dr Sophia Yin, but also cant help thinking if this toy device can register a dogs bark and then categorize the dogs mood as happy, sad, on guard, assertive, frustrated or needy - couldnt we just listen and do the same ourselves? I mean, you know that, right? You recently covered the latest scientific findings regarding what dogs barks are telling us, over at Scientific American and The Bark (ha!).  

So why cant we just listen? Learn? I certainly know the difference between my dogs barks as to whether theres someone strange approaching our front door versus a family member or if theyre just playing when Im down the other end of our house. Im teaching my daughter to tell the difference too. Shes learning and shes just turned three.  

So is it really that hard? Or are people just lazy?

On the definitely-not-a-toy side of things, a Google Glass researcher has teamed up with a Georgia Institute of Technology professor to create FIDO (Facilitating Interactions for Dogs with Occupations) as wearable technology for working dogs to enable better communication with handlers. 

FIDO works by giving a service or detection dog a special sensor that can attach to its collar of a vest. The dog can interact with the sensor by biting, tugging or touching it with their nose and the handler will receive a corresponding signal ("bomb ahead", "hurricane alarm sounding" or "you have pancreatic cancer" are all examples given for different working dog contexts) as an audio or display cue. You can read more about FIDO in an interview with the professor from Georgia Tech here. 

Then theres the ICPooch, thats currently seeking funding via Kickstarter. The brain child of an entrepreneurial 13 year old (yep, you read that correctly) from the UK, the ICPooch promises to let you video talk with your dog (and deliver a treat cookie!) from anywhere in the world. 

Like this:

What do you think? Gimmick or something that has the potential to actually reduce separation anxiety in dog when their owners are away? Think dogs could potentially be remote trained by professional dog trainers? I wonder how well the dogs can actually SEE the display and whether they would respond differently to different people who dial in. 

Very interested to hear your thoughts on this - hope youre well!

Mia

Further reading:

Tan D., Fitzpatrick G., Gutwin C., Begole B., Kellogg W.A., Paldanius M., Kärkkäinen T., Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila K., Juhlin O. & Häkkilä J. (2011) Communication technology for human-dog interaction: exploration of dog owners experiences and expectations, Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2641. DOI: 10.1145/1978942.1979329

Kerepesi A., Jonsson G.K., Miklósi Á., Topál J., Csányi V. & Magnusson M.S. (2005). Detection of temporal patterns in dog–human interaction, Behavioural Processes, 70 (1) 69-79. DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2005.04.006

© 2013 Mia Cobb | Do You Believe in Dog?

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Dogtober Canine science in October

What a BOOMING month for dogs and science October was! Weve captured the links to all the latest blogs, research and news that caught out attention throughout Dog-tober.

Thanks to Storify (click here if the you cant see the collection of links below) you can make sure you didnt miss out too.

Further reading:

Bradshaw J.W.S. & Nicola J. Rooney (2014). Why do adult dogs ‘play’?, Behavioural Processes, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2014.09.023

Bozkurt A., Barbara Sherman, Rita Brugarolas, Sean Mealin, John Majikes, Pu Yang & Robert Loftin (2014). Towards Cyber-Enhanced Working Dogs for Search and Rescue, IEEE Intelligent Systems, 1-1. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/mis.2014.77

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Facebook depression dogs Send me an Angel

Guest post by: Kirrilly Thompson, B.Soc Sci (Hons), PhD

A few years ago, my life changed. The impact of separating from my partner took me by surprise. For the first time in 12 years, I had to put on my ‘big girl pants’ and do things for myself and by myself.

I worked hard. I partied hard. I cried hard. Sometimes at the same time.

In the mornings, I would lay in bed waiting for a reason to get out of it. I had moved to the country to be closer to my horses, but I lost all motivation to ride.

I became obsessed with my appearance. Checking it, judging it, trying to improve it, searching for photographic proof that I was OK. I gained a reputation for being a ‘selfie queen’, but the photos were more like doomed ‘self-helpsies’. Each selfie posted to my Facebook page represented another 30 or so that I had discarded, too horrible for anyone to see, let alone myself. I hurriedly untagged myself from photos posted by friends without authorisation.

I was exhausted from being stuck in my own head, worrying about myself and why I was like this. My GP wrote a mental health plan and I saw a few different therapists. They introduced me to mindfulness techniques.

Like a curious scientist, I was encouraged to observe my feelings and thereby create some distance between them and myself. Instead of feeling sad, anxious, depressed, scared etc. and trying desperately to rid myself of those feelings, I was encouraged to ‘make space’ for them. This was done by examining them as if they were separate from me: what colour is my anxiety? Is sadness hot or cold... Instead of running from or fighting that emotion, I sat with it. Mindfulness.

I soon adapted mindfulness to suit my own visual preferences and affinity for animals. I turned my feelings into dogs. Even though I hadnt lived with a dog since my childhood, I would imagine which breed best represented my feelings and how I would treat it. If I was feeling scared, I would imagine a timid whippet sitting on my lap whilst I reassured it with pats. If I was feeling really angry, I would imagine a growling Doberman. I gave it space in the passenger seat.

A couple of Novembers ago, I was at a birthday celebration I had arranged for myself, all by my big self. Unbeknownst to me, a litter of Tenterfield Terriers were born on the same day. One of them was named ‘Angel Eyes’, but the breeders called her “Big Girl”.

I had no idea I would meet her a month or so later. That tiny four-legged scientist fell into my lap, sat down and stared at me. I chose her because she was mindful of me. We made space for one another. I brought Angel home on Christmas Eve. She became my therapist. I spent so much time wondering what was going on in her head that I got out of mine. I had a little thing that needed me to get out of bed each morning. She made me smile and laugh. If I slept in, it was to take photos of her sleeping on my bed. If my make-up-free face was in the photo, I didn’t care. Whilst I would never have made it through my ‘black dog’ patch without love and support from my colleagues, friends and family, we all agree that Angel changed my life forever. She also changed my Facebook page.

Kirrilly is a Senior Researcher at CQUnis Appleton Institute.
She is a trained anthropologists who uses ethnographic methods to research the cultural dimensions of risk-perception and safety. Kirrilly has particular interests in human-animal interactions, high risk interspecies activities and equestrianism. She has proposed the Pets as Protective Factor principle, based on a DECRA project identifying how animal attachment can be re-considered as a protective factor for human survival of natural disasters. She is also a co-investigator on a sister project: MAiD Managing Animals in Disasters with Dr Mel Taylor. This project aims to improve the interface of animal owners and first responders during all hazards. 

For a comprehensive publications list, see https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kirrilly_Thompson

Further information

On the human desire to connect:
            Baumeister, Roy F, and Mark R Leary. 1995. "The need to belong: desire for interpersonal
            attachments as a fundamental human motivation." Psychological bulletin no. 117 (3):497.

On dogs reducing depression:

Clark Cline, Krista Marie. 2010. "Psychological effects of dog ownership: Role strain, role enhancement, and depression." The Journal of social psychology no. 150 (2):117-131.

On unhealthy preoccupation with appearance:

Veale, David, and Susan Riley. 2001. "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the ugliest of them all? The psychopathology of mirror gazing in body dysmorphic disorder." Behaviour Research and Therapy no. 39 (12):1381-1393. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7967(00)00102-9.

On what is mindfulness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU7vKitN4Ro

http://www.thehappinesstrap.com/mmindfulness
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/is-mindfulness-actually-good-for-you/6462670

Multiple resources on mindfulness with guided meditations which particularly relate to anxiety and depression:

http://www.actmindfully.com.au/free_resources_audio

Lots of audio meditations using breath, sounds and body as objects of meditation

http://www.freemindfulness.org/download

Compassion meditation resources:

http://www.self-compassion.org/guided-self-compassion-meditations-mp3.html

http://www.tarabrach.com/new-to-meditation.html

http://wwwmindfulselfcompassion.org/meditations_downloads.php

On the benefits of mindfulness for treating depression:

Hofmann, Stefan G, Alice T Sawyer, Ashley A Witt, and Diana Oh. 2010. "The effect of mindfulness-based therapy on anxiety and depression: A meta-analytic review." Journal of consulting and clinical psychology no. 78 (2):169.

The idea of self-representation is not new in the social sciences. It is most notably associated with:

Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin Books.

Butler, Judith. 1999. "Performativitys Social Magic." In Bourdieu: A Critical Reader, edited by R Shusterman, 113 -128. Great Britain: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

But more recently, research has focussed on self-presentation in and through social media:

Siibak, Andra. 2009. "Constructing the self through the photo selection-visual impression management on social networking websites." Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace no. 3 (1):1. http://www.cyberpsychology.eu/view.php?cisloclanku=2009061501&article=1

Gonzales, Amy L, and Jeffrey T Hancock. 2011. "Mirror, mirror on my Facebook wall: Effects of exposure to Facebook on self-esteem." Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking no. 14 (1-2):79-83. http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2009.0411

The ‘selfie phenomenon’ is widely discussed in the popular and academic media, often in pejorative terms of narcissism or vanity.

Kiprin, Borislav. 2013. "Go Selfie Yourself!". http://borislavkiprin.com/2013/12/13/go-selfie-yourself/

Buchanan, Kent. 2014. "The wide-screen selfie: Emma Thomsons take your best shot." Photofile no. 94 (Autumn/Winter):17-24. http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=527807360465638;res=IELAPA

Franco, JAMES. 2013. "The Meanings of the Selfie." The New York Times no. 28.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/arts/the-meanings-of-the-selfie.html?ref=technology&_r=3&

Mehdizadeh, Soraya. 2010. "Self-presentation 2.0: Narcissism and self-esteem on Facebook." Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking no. 13 (4):357-364. http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2009.0257

Whilst there is little peer-review social science literature dedicated to the phenomenon, it does seem to be of interest to university students:

Montanez, Alexandria Marie. 2014. The Selfie Queen: Sexualisation, Representation, and Implications of Selfies on Women. Paper read at IUURC 20.

Vigliotti, Jeanette C. 2014. "The Double Sighted: Visibility, Identity, and Photographs on Facebook." http://digitalcommons.unf.edu/etd/506/

There is a clear need for research on the tension between, on one hand, the selfie as a liberating tool that provides women with control over their self-presentation and positions them as producers of their own image; eg.

Ehlin, Lisa. 2014. "The subversive selfie: Redefining the mediated subject." Clothing Cultures no. 2 (1):73-89. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/cc/2014/00000002/00000001/art00005

and on the other hand, a disciplining technology that obliges people to produce the best version of themselves against limitless and dynamic criteria. The latter is reinforced by a developing market for selfie enhancing tools.

Kanazir, Marija. 2014. "Sony Unveils the Perfect Tool for Fashionable Selfie Lovers." http://www.brandingmagazine.com/2014/08/30/sony-kw1-perfume-camera/

Van House, Nancy, Marc Davis, Morgan Ames, Megan Finn, and Vijay Viswanathan. 2005. The uses of personal networked digital imaging: an empirical study of cameraphone photos and sharing. Paper read at CHI05 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1057039

There is even research on the best selfie angle:

Yeh, Mei-Chen, and Hsiao-Wei Lin. 2014. Virtual portraitist: aesthetic evaluation of selfies based on angle. Paper read at Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Multimedia. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2656401

And a facebook group for selfie-science:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/664091916962292/

Even animals are getting in on the act:

Schlackman, Steve. 2013. "The Telegraph is Wrong about the Monkey Selfie." Newsletter. http://artlawjournal.com/telegraph-wrong-monkey-selfie/

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Stress Down with a dog! Day for Lifeline 2015

90% of Australians report they need to stress less. Thats an alarming statistic! Lifeline Australia set up Stress Down Day this July 24 to help people find ways to reduce the stress in their life.

Rudy and my friend Jenny, to all appearances, sharing a laugh

I have been helping share info about the benefits pets can offer our mental and physical health by speaking with some media ahead of Stress Down Day this week. 

See this piece on ninemsn

Or this one from the Daily Mail

Findings from a growing body of research show that when our animal companions fit our lifestyle, and meet our needs, we can enjoy:

• increased self esteem
• decreased loneliness
• increased happiness
• better able to cope with social rejection compared to non-pet owners
• more physically active

This meaningful social support we get from our animal companions can vary between animals and also between people (ie.I dont feel the way about your cat that I feel about my dog, and how I feel about my cat might be different again), but when things are optimal, the attachment and benefits to people can be as significant for us as a best friend or close family member. Thats AMAZING!

I decided to take Rudy for a special walk along the river this morning to actively take time out to stress down - partly because its Stress Down Day today and partly because I would have anyway. It was a quiet morning, we only saw one other person. We saw loads of birds, a small mob of kangaroos, and we stopped several times just to watch the river and share the moment. I spent a lot of the walk thinking about a family member who left us earlier this year, in the saddest of circumstances. I felt sad. 

Then, my 11 month old puppy would go full goose, zooming around the shallow waters and button grasses and despite the significance of the loss I feel, I laughed at him. 

It felt good. 

We both enjoyed the walk. I returned home feeling more relaxed. Rudys currently asleep next to me, so I reckon he did too.

I hope you find a way to stress less today too. Wed love to hear about how the animals in your life help - feel free to comment below. If youd like to share some of my walk - it went a bit like this:

If you know someone (maybe you!) thinking of getting an animal companion for the first time, be sure to encourage them to do their research properly. Find an animal that will fit their lifestyle and meet their needs, so they too can reap the benefits of a positive relationship. Once you know what youre looking for, consider offering a home to an animal currently in a pound, shelter or rescue group. PetRescue are a wonderful hub resource for Australians, listing animals from many shelters and rescue groups nationally.

If youd like to support the excellent work that Lifeline do, you can donate here

If you or someone you know is depressed, anxious, or may be at risk of suicide, you can get help and support.
Australia:  Lifeline 13 11 14  beyondblue 1300 22 46 36

USA: Contact USA       

Elsewhere

Take care of yourselves,
Mia

Further reading:

McConnell, AR, Brown, CM, Shoda, TM, Stayton, LE, Martin, CE. (2011) ‘Friends with benefits: on the positive consequences of pet ownership’, Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, vol.101, no.6, pp.1239-1252

Anderson, K. A., Lord, L. K., Hill, L. N., & McCune, S. (2015) Fostering the Human-Animal Bond for Older Adults: Challenges and Opportunities. Activities, Adaptation & Aging, 39(1), 32-42.

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What’s in a Dog’s Name

William Shakespeare may have posed the question “what’s in a name?”, but in my opinion, his answer doesn’t apply to everything. Some people think that how a dog behaves is completely dependent on their breed and their training. Even though breed and training do come into the mix, there are a few variables that are overlooked, perhaps the biggest one of the being what you decide to name you dog.

Some of the most common dog names seem to go with certain personality aspects that you can expect from your dog. From famous dogs on television, to dogs that I have met in real life, here is a list of ten common dog names and the personality traits I associate them with.

Lucky: Typically given to pound puppies or dogs that have suffered some injury and overcome it. Ironically a dog named Lucky is likely to have a rather unlucky life despite his consistently positive attitude and go-getter mentality.

Patch: A dog named patch is usually named so because of his coloring. What usually comes to most people’s minds when they think of a Patch, is a knee high white dog with black patches, one of them inevitably being over one of the eyes.  Patches are rather protective of the owners and can take some time to warm up to strangers. Despite being slightly stand offish, he will never fail to come through for his human when he is needed most

Lucy: Shy and docile, a dog named Lucy will always appreciate you. She won’t display her personality around you unless she feels extremely comfortable but once she does your stomach will ache from laughing so hard at her clumsy demeanor and goofy personality. 

Max: A Max is always confident and prefers to be the alpha male in any group. He needs an owner who will train him with a firm but loving hand. Given enough structure, Max will be a great guard dog but will still have plenty of love left over for you.

Bella: With no real personality of her own, a dog named Bella won’t ever contribute much to the atmosphere other than some piddle on the carpet when she gets over stimulated.

Lady: A dog named Lady will surely live up to her name. Poised and ever charming, Lady will rarely need behavior correction beyond her puppy stage.

Buddy: Buddy may be your buddy but because of his overwhelming amount of energy, you need to make sure that you correct his behavior when needed. While he would never intentionally do something wrong just to prove a point, his enthusiasm for the world around him often gets the better of him and he can’t hold off his instincts to pounce and play.

Lola: When named Lola, your dog will definitely become the show girl of your household. Always vying for you attention, she will be quite a handful but when given the amount of attention she requires, she will make a great family pet and companion.  

Duke: A typical man’s-man dog, all Duke wants to do is lay down on a giant pillow in front of the TV after an early morning of flushing geese. He is a stereotypical gentle giant and will never hesitate to give you a big sloppy doggy kiss across your face. Special care needs to be taken to make sure that Duke gets the amount of exercise that he needs because he is not likely to ask for it himself.

Roxy: Sass and personality rule the personality of the pup. Roxys are stubborn and opinionated, especially when it comes to strangers, but they are ever loyal to their human counterparts. She needs lots of interaction with strangers to keep her comfortable and to avoid her becoming aggressive towards those that she doesn’t know.

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Author Bio:
Ron Rutherford is a writer with a passion for nature and a soft spot for Thai food. He currently freelances for havahartwireless.com, which specializes in progressive and humane wireless dog fences.

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Cat and Dogs seeking solutions with sniffing canines and science

Hi Mia and Julie, 

First of all, I LOVE your blog! 

After meeting at SPARCS this past summer (summer for us in North America.. I take it summer is just beginning in Australia!), I’ve followed it closely. 

You do amazing things for the promotion of  canine science. Serious love.

A bit of background for the readers: I’m currently doing my PhD at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada, under the supervision of Dr. Simon Gadbois. 

Dr. Gadbois has an amazing amount of knowledge and experience in the science of sniffing (just check out Gadbois & Reeve, 2014 link below!). 

He’s trained sniffer dogs for the conservation of ribbon snakes and wood turtles, to track coyotes, and to detect invasive pests in lumber. He and I have taken on a different type of project and are studying the intricacies of biomedical detection dogs, specifically, the very interesting phenomenon of Diabetic Alert Dogs. 

Cat Reeve at #SPARCS2014 where she won the Best Emerging Researcher prize

I say interesting because there’s anecdotal evidence suggesting that some dogs alert their owners to hypoglycemic events (low blood sugar). In 2008, Deborah Wells published a series of case studies where dogs were reported as signalling (barking, licking, pawing etc. the individual) while their owners were awake, while they were sleeping, and even when their owners were in a different room with the door closed! And this is with no previous training! 

Isn’t this fantastic! Severe hypoglycemic events can be extremely dangerous for individuals with diabetes. If not treated, they can lead to seizures, comas, and even death. The fact that dogs may be able to alert an individual before a serious hypoglycemic event means less worry about hypoglycaemia unawareness, and blood sugar dropping over night when individuals are unconscious.

Given that dogs are signalling through closed doors, it is assumed that the dogs smell something that alerts them to a change in the physiology of their owner (as opposed to behavioural cues, as is believed to be the case with seizure alert dogs). There are many companies that have taken advantage of this supposed ability, and have trained Diabetic Alert Dogs (DADs) to sell to individuals with diabetes. 

In my own searches, I have found no company that publicly provides information as to how they train their dogs. However, according to recent studies (see Gonder-Frederick et al., 2013 and Rooney et al., 2011 below) these trained DADs dogs contribute greatly to the families of individuals’ with diabetes; they signal consistently and, consequently, significantly reduce the number of hypoglycemic events an individual experiences. 

Now, if it is in fact an olfactory cue that dogs use to identify a drop in blood sugar in their owners, one would expect that if you presented one of these trained DADs with the “scent” of hypoglycemia without the individual present (just like having the owner with diabetes on the other side of a door), the dog would still signal. 

Dehlinger and colleagues recently tested three DADs in a lab setting, presenting the dogs with human biological samples that were obtained identically to the way the samples used to train the dogs were obtained. In this study, none of the three dogs could pick out a hypoglycemic sample from a normoglycemic sample! DARN!

So what is it that these dogs smell? How is it that some DADs are accurate at signalling hypoglycaemia but evidently cannot signal in the lab? 

Enter ME! This is what I’m trying to figure out!

One possibility is that, at least in the study outlined above, the use of sweat samples was misguided. Maybe the volatiles are more strongly present in an individual’s breath. I am currently in the process of testing whether there is one channel more likely than others to expel the volatiles needed to detect a change in blood sugar, i.e. breath, sweat, or saliva. 

So far we’ve found that, after being trained to detect extremely low saliency scents, our dogs can detect and discriminate between human breath samples with incredible ease and accuracy (see the video of Koda discriminating between breath samples). 

Little Koda discriminating between breath samples. The jar that has the check mark on it is the target sample. The jar with the x+ is a different breath sample. When Koda first enters the room, he smells a jar that is the “sample” (it matches the target sample)... This is the smell we want him to find amongst the three jars that are closer to the camera. He chooses the right one!

Preliminary tests with patient samples suggest that our dogs can also tell the difference between breath samples taken from the same individual when their blood sugar was low, when it was normal, and when it was high (unpublished). 

Also, it’s possible that in the Dehlinger et al. (2013) study, the sample collection procedure was simply not sufficient enough to contain the volatiles produced during a hypoglycemic event. With the help of a fantastic chemist at Dalhousie (Dr. Peter Wentzell), we have perfected a procedure that coats cotton balls in silicone oil. This is believed to help contain the volatiles through the *magic of chemistry.  

*may actually be science, not magic - check with the chemists

Another potential is that these DADs are simply responding to a general stress response in the body. It’s possible that DADs (and untrained dogs who signal to their owners) are picking up on the physiological change associated with stress (changes in cortisol, adrenaline etc.). Kind of how people say animals can smell when you’re scared. 

If this is truly what’s happening, you would expect to see DADs giving a lot of false alarms. 

And in fact, personal communication with friends of friends who own DADs tell me that their DADs alert to not only hypoglycemic events, but to asthma attacks, anxiety attacks, etc. If you read carefully, few studies ask owners of DADs if their dog gives a lot of false alarm signals (dog signals to their owner and after the owner checks their blood sugar, they discover that they are not low). 

Isn’t this fascinating? 

The dogs I work with are incredible (shout out to the amazing owners that let me work with their dogs every week), and have incredible work ethic and sniffers. 

Our dogs are extremely motivated to work (because we make it super fun!). This is Nutella on her “break”. She doesn’t want a break. She wants to keep working! She’s whining and pawing at the door of the work room.

With the assistance of these amazing dogs, hopefully Dr. Gadbois and myself will be able to shed light on how exactly DADs do their job in the near future - Ill let you know how we go!


Cat Reeve
PhD Candidate
Dalhousie University
CANADA

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Further reading:

Brown S.W. & Strong V. (2001). The use of seizure-alert dogs, Seizure, 10 (1) 39-41. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1053/seiz.2000.0481 

Dehlinger, K., Tarnowski, K., House, J.L., Los, E., Hanavan, K., Bustamante, B., Ahmann, A.J., & Ward, W.K. (2013). Can trained dogs detect a hypoglycemic scent in patients with Type 1 Diabetes? Diabetes Care (Observations), 36, 98-99. 

Fier, B.M. (2004). Morbidity of hypoglycaemia in type 1 diabetes. Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice, 65, 47-52. 

Gadbois, S., & Reeve, C. (2014). Canine Olfaction: Scent, Sign and Situation. In A.  Horowitz (ed.). Domestic Dog Cognition and Behavior. New York: Springer. 

Gonder-Frederick L., D. Warren, K. Vajda & J. Shepard (2013). Diabetic Alert Dogs: A Preliminary Survey of Current Users, Diabetes Care, 36 (4) e47-e47. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2337/dc12-1998  

Rooney N.J., Morant, S. & Guest, C. (2013). Investigation into the Value of Trained Glycaemia Alert Dogs to Clients with Type I Diabetes, PLoS ONE, 8 (8) e69921. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069921

Matyka K.A. (2002). Sweet dreams? - nocturnal hypoglycemia in children with type 1 diabetes, Pediatric Diabetes, 3 (2) 74-81. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1034/j.1399-5448.2002.30203.x   

Wells D.L., Lawson S.W. & Siriwardena A.N. Canine responses to hypoglycemia in patients with type 1 diabetes., Journal of alternative and complementary medicine (New York, N.Y.), PMID: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19040375

© Cat Reeve | Do You Believe in Dog? 2014

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