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If your dog has had any illnesses or ailments, you can tell us about them at any time without having to complete the rest of the questionnaire. Simply login to your dog's profile by visiting www.dogslife.ac.uk and click on the link underneath your dog's graph.
Can dogs recognise human interactions?
Hernias
More Findings from the Dogslife study!
Thank you to our members!
Dogslife is looking for volunteers…
Can dogs recognise human interactions?
Scientists in Japan have studied dogs and their owners to find out if dogs can assess the behaviour of humans when they interact over an item. The study was set up so that dogs watched their owners attempting to get a roll of tape out of a closed see-through container, and turning to an actor and asking them for help.
The first situation involved the actor turning away from the owner and not helping them when they were asked. The second situation involved a helper who held the see-through container when the owner asked for assistance, so that the owner could open the container and take the tape out. A control situation was also set up where the actor was not asked for help but turned away and did not help. In each of the three situations, a neutral person sat on the other side of the owner and did not interact with anyone.
Without delay after the experiment took place, the neutral person and the various actors offered the dog some food. Dogs were likely to avoid the actor who did not help their owner, and instead took food from the actor that helped their owner, the control actor, or the neutral person who did not interact in the situation. Interestingly, dogs did not take food more frequently from the actor that helped their owner compared to the control actor or the neutral person.
The study found that dogs avoid people they have seen are unhelpful towards their owners, as most dogs in the study did not take food from someone who had ignored their owner. This suggests that dogs may be able to understand third party interactions - a concept known as “social eavesdropping”.
The study shows that dogs are sensitive to how others treat their owner, and can assess humans’ behaviours towards each other, and can react accordingly. This also re-enforces the strength of the bond that dogs and their owners have. To find out more about this study, please click here.
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Hernias
Hernias are openings in the wall of one of the body’s cavities such as the abdomen or chest, through which an organ can pass (for example intestine or liver). In dogs, hernias are typically found around the belly button (an “umbilical” hernia) or in the groin (an “inguinal” hernia). They can also sometimes be seen in the diaphragm which separates the abdomen and chest (a “peritoneal-pericardial diaphragmatic” hernia is shown in Figure 1). These openings can be normal, but it’s the excessively large size of the opening which permits the organs to move through; for example guts passing through an umbilical or inguinal hernia will pass under the skin around the belly button or groin respectively, causing a large swelling. When organs pass through the opening they may become strangulated which has two effects. Firstly, if intestine is passing through the hernia this might stop food flowing through, but it could also stop blood flowing to the herniated part of the organ, which if left long enough could cause the herniated part of the organ to die off. This has serious, life threatening consequences if not treated by a vet straight away.
In most dogs, the hernia will be noticed as a swelling which is not causing any problems. This is because they are either too small to permit an organ to pass through (in many cases a small piece of fat might protrude through causing a small swelling) or big enough that they do not cause strangulation. However, there are no guarantees that the hernia will not change shape and size over time, so it’s important to have your dog examined by a veterinarian if you identify a swelling which might be a hernia. In many cases hernias can just be monitored over time (if they are very small) or an elective surgical procedure may be recommended to close the defect in the body wall, which will permanently prevent the hernia recurring. Umbilical and peritoneal-pericardial diaphragmatic hernias are congenital (dogs are born with them), whereas inguinal hernias can occur early or late in the dog’s life. There appear to be breed predispositions for each type of hernia, so it is generally recommended not to breed from affected animals although the genetic bases for these conditions are presently unknown.
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More Findings from the Dogslife study!
Last month we discussed some new work we have published about the height, weight and lifestyle of Dogslife dogs up to four years of age. This month we will focus on what you’ve told us about neutering your dogs, their diet and where they sleep at night.
After the Dogslife dogs reached one year of age, 56% of females and 47% of males were reported to have been neutered. This increased to 64% and 52% for dogs over two years of age. The median* age of neutering was 282 days for males and 297 days for females – both lying between 9 and 10 months of age.
The types of food reported to Dogslife were dried only (80%), a mixture of dried and wet (13%), raw (1.9%), home prepared (1.1%), wet only (1.1%) and other (3.0%). The majority of dogs (72%) did not have varying diet types with 66% eating a consistent diet of dried food. The plot shows that daily feeding frequency decreased as the dogs aged and settled at twice daily for most dogs at between six and nine months.
Most of the Dogslife dogs slept indoors alone (55%) but large numbers also slept indoors with a person (and possibly another pet) (21%), or indoors with another pet only (19%). Just 4.3% slept outside, but they did not typically sleep outside all of the time. There were yearly peaks in dogs sleeping outside in August 2011 and 2012 and July 2013. Dogs that slept outside at least once were more likely to be from Northern Ireland than elsewhere in the UK and much more likely to be working dogs.
If you would like to read the full version of the paper containing our findings from the study so far, please visit http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167587715002329. Many thanks again to all our members for the valuable information provided to the Dogslife project on their Labrador Retrievers.
* Median is a type of average that looks at the middle of a distribution. In this case, half of the Dogslife dogs that were neutered were neutered before the median and half were neutered after.
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Thank you to our members!
Dogslife would like to thank owners who have emailed us photos of their yellow Labradors which have pale noses and foot pads, and no colour around the eyes or whiskers for our study of ‘Dudley’ dogs. We are very grateful for these images and for the DNA samples also provided. To view our previous article on ‘Dudley’ colourings, please click here.
If you think your dog is a ‘Dudley’ dog, it’s not too late to contact us! We would love to receive any pictures you have showing your dog’s skin and coat colour so please don’t hesitate to email them to us at info@dogslife.ac.uk. We will keep you posted on the study’s progress in our monthly newsletter. Thanks again to everyone who has been able to help!
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Dogslife is looking for volunteers…
The Dogslife website it currently being rebuilt to improve its functions, performance and its compatibility with mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets. Before our new website goes online, we need to test it to make sure it’s working correctly. Dogslife is therefore looking for members to help us with this testing. All we would be asking is for you to run through the online questionnaire and the functions you usually use on the website to check that there are no errors occurring. If you would be happy to test the new site, we would love to hear from you, so please email us at info@dogslife.ac.uk if you can help.
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Don't forget to come back to www.dogslife.ac.uk to update your dog's record!
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