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Dogs at work: Dementia Dogs
How does your dog’s brain respond to you?
Canine Pancreatitis
Combating inherited diseases in dogs
Dogs at work: Dementia Dogs
The Dementia Dog Project has been set up to provide services for people with dementia by working together with dogs. The project intends to show that dogs can help those with dementia by being trained to remind them to take medication, assist with waking, sleeping, and eating times, encouraging them to keep active and to engage with others. The dogs also provide reassurance, improve confidence and offer companionship.
The Dementia Dog Project began as a Glasgow School of Art service design project, funded by the Scottish Executive and the Design Council (through the Living Well with Dementia Challenge). The project works together with Alzheimer Scotland, Dogs for the Disabled, and Guide Dogs to combine the skills and knowledge of how to train assistance dogs and care for those with dementia.
Dementia Dog hopes to provide three different services: Assistance dogs, Intervention dogs, and Facility dogs. Assistance dogs are partnered with a person who is in the early phases of dementia and lives with a full time Carer. The dogs are trained to carry out at least three assistive tasks. These include help with their partner’s daily routine (for example, eating, going to the toilet, and getting exercise), reminders (such as when to drink fluids and take medication), and soft support issues (for example helping in social situations and providing companionship). Following a small pilot scheme at the Guide Dogs facility in Forfar, Angus, the Dementia Dog Project now has two qualified dementia assistance dogs at work. To find out more about how these dogs are helping their partners, please click here.
The Dementia Dog Project is currently developing specially trained Intervention dogs which would work with a client’s support team (for example, Care Workers or Occupational Therapists) to help the client with tasks they are not currently undertaking unassisted. These tasks could include accompanying clients to appointments, or setting an exercise regime, thereby providing emotional and physical support to the client. The concept of a Facility dog is also being piloted following demand from care homes and residential facilities. Facility dogs would provide residents with valuable companionship and recreation therefore enhancing their wellbeing.
To find out more about the Dementia Dog Project, please visit www.dementiadog.org.
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How does your dog’s brain respond to you?
A recent study using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner has been exploring how a dog’s brain responds to a human they know, compared to other dogs and humans they do not know. The fMRI scanner measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow in the brain. The area of the brain which responds to recognition is called the caudate. In previous studies, the caudate has been seen to become active in dogs when it is indicated that they will be given a treat, so this area of the brain is believed to be associated with rewards. In humans, the same area of the brain is activated when looking at a photo of a loved one.
The twelve dogs that took part in the study had already participated in fMRI studies (and were trained not to move when being presented with scent-impregnated swabs under the nose), so they were able to lie still whilst they were being scanned. The scents used in the research came from swabs taken from the armpit of a familiar human and an unfamiliar human, and from the perineal-genital area of a familiar dog (which lived in the same house) and an unfamiliar dog. The dog’s own scent was also used.
The findings of the study showed that the caudate area of the brain was more activated on smelling a familiar human, compared to the other smells (including the familiar dog). These results give us an idea of the importance a familiar human has in a dog’s life. The next time your dog smells you, the caudate area of their brain may well be activated!
For more information on this study, please click here.
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Canine Pancreatitis
The pancreas is a small, but vitally important organ in the gastrointestinal tract which produces digestive enzymes to help break down food after it has passed through the stomach. It is located near, and connected to, the stomach, and the duodenum, which is the first part of the intestines that lead from the stomach. As food passes out of the stomach into the duodenum, the pancreas releases digestive enzymes to help break down the fats, carbohydrates and proteins contained in the food so that they are small enough to be absorbed further down the digestive tract. The pancreas also produces insulin which is important for regulating the level of sugar in blood.
Pancreatitis is an inflammation of the pancreas and the disease can occur acutely or chronically. In people the major causes of pancreatitis are gallstones or excessive alcohol use. Fortunately, in dogs these risk factors are rare! In most canine cases the underlying cause of the inflammation is not known, although it is believed that pancreatitis can occur secondary to certain events, such as treatment with certain drugs, high fat diets or abdominal trauma. Labrador Retrievers are reported to have a reduced risk of developing pancreatitis compared to the general dog population, although we have had reports of Labrador Retrievers in Dogslife developing the disease.
The clinical signs of pancreatitis are widespread and variable. They include vomiting and/or diarrhoea, abdominal pain, anorexia and fever. The chronic form of the disease can sometimes develop without any associated clinical signs. Because the pancreas produces insulin, occasionally dogs can develop diabetes if the organ is severely damaged by the inflammation.
There is no specific treatment which can address the pancreatic inflammation itself, so affected dogs are usually treated for their symptoms (for example with nutritional and fluid support, and pain medications). In the longer term, preventative measures such as feeding low fat diets and the avoidance of drugs which may predispose to pancreatitis (such as sulfa-based antibiotics) are instigated to minimise the risk of the disease developing again, although pancreatic inflammation can be detected in a significant proportion of canine patients which have had the disease even after their clinical signs have resolved.
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Combating inherited diseases in dogs
Pedigree dog breeds have been created for desirable physical and behavioural characteristics, which often stem from breeding between closed familial lines over years. This approach means that inherited diseases can become more common in pedigree populations. For example around half of all King Charles Cavalier Spaniels are affected by an inherited heart murmur, that in some individuals can be life-threatening. Health screening dogs before selecting animals to breed from has already helped to reduce the prevalence of some diseases, such as patella luxation in the Kooiker dogs.
In a recent review of the various approaches that are being taken to minimise potential defects in pedigree animals, Dr Lindsay Farrell, a scientist at the University of Edinburgh has warned that breeding dogs on the basis of a single genetic test carries risks, and may not necessarily improve the health of pedigree lines as you might expect. Dr Farrell concluded that using a combined approach which makes use of DNA analysis, health screening schemes and pedigree information will be more likely to reduce the frequency of inherited diseases. This would also improve the genetic diversity within breeds.
DNA tests are now available to help identify dogs carrying gene mutations that are known to cause numerous different illnesses. Whilst it is hoped that these tests will help to eliminate disease-causing genes from pedigree lines, ruling out breeding dogs solely on the basis of a single failed DNA test result will reduce the gene pool of pedigree lines and make inbreeding more common. Furthermore they could also inadvertently increase the prevalence of other genetic diseases which have not been tested for.
Potential solutions to these problems include limiting the use of individual stud dogs to promote more diversity in pedigree lines. Cross-breeding into pedigrees will also introduce even greater genetic diversity. Breeding the offspring that result from cross-breeding with the original pedigree for ten generations can produce animals that share 99.9 per cent of their genetic material with purebred animals, but that lack the genetic abnormalities that cause disease. This approach has been successful in generating Dalmatians lacking a genetic defect that causes kidney stones, which is common in the breed. Ultimately when making breeding decisions, genetic testing needs to be considered alongside health screening and family history.
The full article is published in the journal Canine Genetics and Epidemiology, which you can read here: http://www.cgejournal.org/content/2/1/3.
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