i Still Love Dogs

Blind Beagle and His Seeing-Eye Sister Need Forever Home Together

DEC. 18, 2014 UPDATE: There’s very happy news for this sweet pair — Molly and Buster have been adopted by two women who saw the dogs on KOMO News! “If we had special ordered the perfect home, this would have been it!” NOAH Center posted today in an update on its Facebook page. “The ladies have owned multiple Beagles in their past & own a beautiful farm with acres of fenced yard. Buster and Molly now have a couple of Golden Retriever friends too! This really is the season for miracles!”

After being abandoned at a farm in Washington three months ago, an older male and female Beagle were taken in by the NOAH Center, an animal shelter in Stanwood, Wash.

The two dogs, whom the shelter named Buster and Molly, didn’t seem to pay much attention to the staff. At first the workers figured it was due to their age — they are both about 8 years old — and the stress from being in the shelter.

But then they noticed that Buster frequently walked into walls. Molly would often block him from doing so, and would nudge him through the doggie doors.

“Molly is a seeing-eye dog, so for her brother she helps to make sure he doesn’t get into situations that could be dangerous for him,” Lani Kurtz, the shelter’s adoption director, told KOMO News. She said she believes the dogs may be siblings since they are the same age.

According to the shelter’s website, Buster and Molly are “a couple of goofy and energetic Beagles that have so much love and appreciation for life; a pair of friends we could all learn a lesson from.”

Buster and Molly did get adopted out together after they were brought to the shelter, but unfortunately it didn’t work out. Their new pet parent’s home had an unfenced yard and no doggie doors — two important items this pair can’t go without.

So Buster and Molly are once again available, but only as a couple.

“They have to go together. Buster needs Molly,” Kurtz told KOMO News. “We will keep them until we find that perfect place for them.”

The adoption fee for both is $200. There is a $50 discount on Mondays, as well as discounts for seniors.

“They are no longer spring chickens, and don’t have a fondness for children, so a home without kids would be best,” notes the shelter’s website.

For more information, visit the NOAH Center website, call 360-629-7055 or email info@thenoahcenter.org.

Photo via the NOAH Center

New Cyber Harness Allows Two-Way Communication Between Dogs and Humans

For a long, long time, humans have been trying to figure out how to better communicate with our dogs. Thanks to technology, some gadgets have come along — like the questionable “No More Woof” translation device that has now received more than $22,000 in online funding (a sucker apparently is born every minute) — but none of them have proven to actually work. As far as understanding each other, if men are from Mars and women from Venus, then dogs continue to be from, well, Pluto.

But perhaps that could change with a prototype canine communication harness created by a research team at North Carolina State University.

“We’ve developed a platform for computer-mediated communication between humans and dogs that opens the door to new avenues for interpreting dogs’ behavioral signals and sending them clear and unambiguous cues in return,” Dr. David Roberts (in the photo), an assistant professor of computer science and co-lead author of the paper Towards Cyber-Enhanced Working Dogs for Search and Rescue, said in a press release.

“We have a fully functional prototype, but we’ll be refining the design as we explore more and more applications for the platform.”

The researchers developed the harness to create “a cyber-enabled computer-mediated communication platform to connect human and canine intelligence to achieve a new generation of cyber-enhanced working dog (CEWD),” according to the paper, which was published last month in IEEE Intelligent Systems.

The harness has sensors that determine the wearer’s posture and physical activity (or lack thereof), as well as sensors that keep track of the dog’s heart rate and body temperature. It includes a small computer (about the size of a deck of cards) through which signals from the sensors are wirelessly transmitted. It is also fitted with speakers and haptics that transforms voice commands from humans into physical sensations.

Additional sensors may be added to the harness.

“For example, for search and rescue, we’ve added environmental sensors that can detect hazards such as gas leaks, as well as a camera and microphone for collecting additional information,” said Dr. Alper Bozkurt, a co-author of the paper, in the press release.

According to the paper, “Using cyberphysical systems to supplement and augment the two-way information exchange between human handlers and dogs would amplify the remarkable sensory capacities of search-and-rescue dogs to let them save more lives.”

The device could help handlers better monitor all working dogs’ stress levels, which in turn could help prolong the dogs’ lives, said paper co-author Sean Mealin.

“It’s an important issue,” he said — especially for guide dogs, who “are bred and trained not to display signs of stress in their behavior.”

The research team has started the process of miniaturizing the technologies and improving the sensors so the harness can also be worn by pets in animal shelters and veterinary hospitals.

“This platform is an amazing tool, and we’re excited about using it to improve the bond between dogs and their humans,” said Dr. Barbara Sherman, a clinical professor of animal behavior and co-author of the paper.

Photo credit: North Carolina State University

‘Dangerous’ Pit Bulls Are Still Banned in Aurora (But Assault Rifles and Glocks Are Not)

Voters in Aurora, Colo., overwhelmingly decided yesterday not to repeal the city’s nine-year-old ban on Pit Bulls. As of 6 a.m. this morning, 66 percent of them had voted to keep the ban.

Yet you can still purchase assault rifles and Glock pistols in local sporting goods stores, as Aurora resident James Holmes did before shooting down moviegoers in July 2012, killing 12 and wounding 58 — however, Pit Bulls are “dangerous,” and continue to be banned from the city.

Breed-specific legislation (BSL) — laws that single out a particular breed instead of placing responsibility on dog owners — is opposed by every major animal welfare organization, including the ASPCA, AVMA, HSUS, etc., etc., as well as by the president of the United States, who called it a “bad idea.” It is expensive to enforce and has not proven to increase public safety.

So why did the majority of Aurora voters decide to keep the city’s Pit Bull ban?

“I personally think it’s an uphill battle to win a repeal via a public vote, generally because if a ban is in place, most of the residents have had very little personal interaction with the banned breeds and thus, are more apt to have to rely on the media coverage as the basis for their opinions,” wrote Brent Toellner, co-founder of KC Pet Project, the nation’s third-largest no-kill shelter, on the Huffington Post.

“To this point, the area media has not been terribly accurate in their reporting.”

As always, leading the support of the ban — and bans everywhere — was DogBites.org (start typing that in Google, and what automatically pops up is “DogBites.org bias,” “DogBites.org bullshit,” “DogBites.org scam” — you get the picture).

This lobbying organization that spews twisted statistics is run by one woman, Colleen Lynn, who was bitten by a Pit Bull. (I wish she could meet Donna Lawrence, who was also bitten by a chained Pit Bull. Instead of bitterly wanting to ban the entire breed, Lawrence rescued an abused Pit mix named Susie, and they both helped each other heal — and Susie, now a therapy dog, continues to help others heal. Susie is this year’s winner of the American Humane Association’s Hero Dog Award.)

Lynn is by no means a dog expert, yet the mainstream media continues to report the “facts” she provides, without bothering to dig a little deeper to uncover the truth.

As Lynn points out, Pit Bull bites have decreased since the Aurora ban went into effect — but animal control officers have been ignoring bites by other breeds, which have increased, according to Juliet Piccone, president of Coloradans for Breed Neutral Dog Laws Inc.

“If the goal is to prevent dog bites, it’s not working,” Piccone told the Denver Post. “If the goal is to prevent dog bites from restricted breeds, they can say, ‘Yes, that’s happening.’ ”

City officials told the Denver Post that Piccone was incorrect — but they did not provide the actual statistics.

For the majority of us who feel BSL is unfair and ineffective, the good news is that the trend across the country has been to repeal breed-specific legislation.

“While disappointment is part of the game, it does not signal the end,” wrote the advocacy group ColoRADogs on its Facebook page last night. “Twenty-three thousand people voted NO to hysteria, NO to social disapproval and NO to discrimination.”

Photo via Facebook

Researchers Hope Anti-Aging Drug Will Extend Dogs’ Lives

Could a chemical that prolongs the lives of fruit flies and mice have the same effect on dogs?

Daniel Promislow, an evolutionary geneticist and dog dad to an 11-year-old Weimaraner, is one of several researchers at the University of Washington who are about to launch a study of that chemical, rapamycin. They are hoping the answer is Yes.

“We’re trying to understand why some dogs age better than others, and help all dogs age in a better way,” Promislow told the Seattle Times.

In dozens of laboratory studies, rapamycin delayed the onset of some diseases and extended the lives of elderly animals by as much as 40 percent. (Rapamycin has also been used to prevent human patients from rejecting transplanted organs.)

“We’re not talking about doubling the healthy life spans of pets,” another of the researchers, molecular biologist Matthew Kaeberlein, told the Seattle Times. “But at a minimum I would predict that you would get a 10-to-15 percent increase in average life span, and I think bigger effects are possible.”

Rapamycin inactivates a protein that causes cells to grow, which in turn can slow down the growth of cancer. The chemical also has anti-inflammatory properties and improves heart health — which is the first potential benefit for dogs the researchers want to track, according to the Seattle Times.

Kaeberlein told Nature.com that pet dogs would provide realistic results of how rapamycin’s anti-aging properties may also work for humans, because the dogs have some of the same environmental influences and age-related diseases as their pet parents.

The participants in the first phase of the study will be 30 large, middle-aged pet dogs whose average breed life span is eight to 10 years. For three to six months, low doses of rapamycin will be given to half of them, while the rest get placebos. The researchers will look for improvements in the dogs’ heart function, as well as any side effects. The dogs will be monitored by veterinarians for the rest of their lives to see if the rapamycin had any effect on their longevity.

In the study’s second phase, the researchers plan to administer rapamycin to hundreds of pet dogs from around the country.

According to Nature.com, the study could wrap up in fewer than three years, “but researchers will know long before that — perhaps in months — whether rapamycin improves cardiac function or other aspects of health.”

The researchers are hoping to get the funds for the study’s second phase from private donations, foundations and/or dog-food companies, since typical underwriters, such as the National Institutes of Health, are more likely to fund studies for human diseases.

“I think it’s worth a go, not just from what it can teach us about humans, but for the sake of the animals themselves,” Steven Austad, chairman of the University of Alabama biology department and an expert in aging research, told the Seattle Times.

“It may not work in dogs, but if it did, boy, it’s going to be huge.”

More information about the study can be found at DogAgingProject.com.

Photo credit: psyberartist

Dachshund Thought to Be Killed in Mudslide Found Alive and Well

After a deluge of mud — due to a heavy rainstorm and clogged drainage canal — filled the Camarillo Springs, Calif., home of Henry and Mim Needham overnight Friday, the couple became stuck in the waist-deep muck.

They had to be rescued by firefighters, who cut through their front door with a chainsaw and pulled the couple to safety out of the house.

Left behind was their 5-year-old Dachshund, Tinkerbell.

“I wanted to go back in, but I couldn’t get them to let me,” Henry told ABC7. “They went looking and said, ‘We couldn’t find her. We didn’t see her.'”

The Needhams were heartbroken. Their beloved little dog had probably been buried alive.

More than 18 hours later, a miracle occurred on their street, as neighbor Hal Hyman told ABC7.

On their way out to breakfast, the Needhams’ grandson, Sean Pyles, and his dad stopped by to check on the damaged home. When Pyles walked up to the door, he heard a familiar bark. On the other side of the window, covered head to tail in mud, was Tinkerbell.

“Oh, I was tears of joy, crying,” Pyles told ABC7.

Those happy tears were contagious — Hyman said there wasn’t a dry eye among the Needhams’ neighbors.

“‘Ventura, the animal has been extricated.’ Cheers erupted this morning inside the Ventura County Fire Communications Center,” the Ventura County Fire Department (VCFD) wrote on its Facebook page today.

“VCFD responded and made the rescue. A short time later, Tinkerbell’s owner arrived by taxi for an emotional reunion.”

The Needhams told ABC7 that had their grandson not stopped by their house this morning, TInkerbell might not have been seen and rescued.

“Sean is my hero,” Mim said.

Photo via Facebook