Category: Dogs

Maggie the teaching dog.

Two views of teaching in the United Kingdom.

The title to today’s post may be a tad misleading, for it doesn’t offer a guide to both aspects of the post.

But first to what prompted the title.

Earlier yesterday, Neil Kelly, friend from my days when I was living in South Devon, sent me a link to a recent BBC News item. Here’s the story:

Maggie the dog made honorary primary school teacher

28 December 2015 Last updated at 04:31 GMT

A dog has become so successful in helping children to read, that she’ has become an honorary member of staff at a school in the West Midlands.

The idea of getting pupils to read to dogs in order to improve their literacy was first tried out in the UK five years ago, but Maggie, a 10-year-old Shih Tzu, has become so successful that she now has her own staff badge at Earls High school in Halesowen.

Phil Mackie went along to meet Maggie, and Grace, another Shih Tzu, who’ is training to take over when Maggie retires.

Teaching Assistant Toni Gregory spoke on behalf of the two literary pups.

Unfortunately, the short video of Toni Gregory speaking hasn’t yet made it to YouTube so I can’t include that in the post. But do go across to here and watch the short interview with Toni. Here’s a picture of Maggie.

_87347683_87347682Moving on!

It’s difficult not to see the connection between Maggie offering teaching services in a UK school and this recent essay from Richard Murphy of the Tax Research UK blog. It is republished in full with Richard’s very kind permission.

ooOOoo

The parents of primary school kids need to get very angry for their children

Posted on December 27 2015

Ninety three per cent of all children in the UK are taught in state schools. The parents of the other seven per cent may wish to pretend otherwise but the truth is that the prosperity, well being and future of the UK is dependent upon the ability of state schools to deliver the education our young people need. But, as the Guardian has reported, that is in jeopardy:

Britain’s leading expert on school recruitment has warned that a shortage of trainee teachers is reaching crisis levels in some of the most important subjects in the curriculum.

In evidence submitted to the parliamentary education select committee, TeachVac, an independent vacancy-matching and monitoring service for education professionals, said that it had identified a “woeful” lack of new teachers in several key secondary school subjects.

This is not a minor issue. As they note:

[TeachVac] has identified an 85% shortfall in the number of trainee teachers needed to fill vacancies in both business studies and social sciences. The number of new teachers for design and technology is also more than a third below what it needs to be and there is a 10% shortfall in the number of IT teachers required.

These are core subjects at the heart of the skill base the UK needs. And we may not be able to teach them.

There are three reasons for that. First, when the government portrays any job in the state sector as parasitical – and large parts of the media join in – any recruitment programme is going to be hard.

Second, student debt is crippling for those on what is thought to be middle pay, which is what many teachers can, at best, hope to earn.

And third, pay is just not good enough.

All of those are the direct result of policy. The first is ideological. The second is born of the desire to economically enslave people though debt which underpins neoliberalism. The third is the austerity mantra.

Put them together and this country will be crippled by denying an education to those who need and deserve it.

We need a new narrative.

The need to supply high quality education has to be at the core of that narrative.

I hope parents of those ten and younger realise what is going to happen to their children. It is not good, and they need to get angry, now.

ooOOoo

It strikes me that we need new narratives on so many issues ‘both sides of the pond’. Maybe, just maybe, 2016 kicks some of these new narratives into play.

Beagle puppies would like a loving New Year!

Please, please sign this petition to stop Beagle puppies being bred for slaughter!

Not going to add anything more than to republish in full a recent CARE2 Petition.

ooOOoo

471427-1438026925-wideStop the Beagle puppy animal testing breeding facility!

  • BY: Jen Johnson
  • TARGET: Greg Clark, Secretary of State for Communities and Local government

Unless we take action to stop it, a new puppy farm will open in the UK with the purpose of breeding beagles for animal testing experiments.

Click here to sign the petition demanding the government revoke its approval for this horrific facility.

According to the National Anti-Vivisection Society, dogs taking part in scientific experiments are made to inhale toxic substances through masks, force feed through tubes, and are strapped in harnesses while being injected with drugs.

The facility is owned by a US firm and would be Britain’s second facility for breeding beagles specifically to be cut open and experimented on while still alive.

The other facility breeds 3,000 beagles for animal testing each year.

Dozens of celebrities have spoken out against this farm. Join Ricky Gervais, Queen guitarist Dr Brian May and Downton Abbey’s Peter Egan: sign this petition to demand the government stop the construction of a new cruelty-laden dog breeding facility.

PLEASE SIGN NOW

ooOOoo

As at 09:30 PST yesterday, the target of 310,000 supporters of the petition was just short by 761 persons. Fingers and toes crossed that by the time this post is published the target will have been met. I know there are many caring readers of this blog who wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to sign the petition.

Thank you!

Let them grow up as happy beagles!
Let them grow up as happy beagles!

Community power!

Happy Boxing Day!

(the day after Christmas Day to those who are not familiar with the term!)

Sent to me by Julie Thomas-Smith.

IMG_0481.PNG

index.pngAlways something to learn from our canines!

Happy Holidays!

First puppies born through IVF.

There’s more to this than initially meets the eye.

I’m back to another ScienceAlert article although this story has been widely reported including by our local newspaper, the Grants Pass Daily Courier.  This is about in vitro fertilisation (IVF).

Now I am sure that I share with countless others a poor understanding of what IVF is. Here’s a Wikipedia extract:

In vitro fertilization or fertilisation (IVF) is a process by which an egg is fertilised by sperm outside the body: in vitro (“in glass”). The process involves monitoring and stimulating a woman’s ovulatory process, removing an ovum or ova (egg or eggs) from the woman’s ovaries and letting sperm fertilise them in a liquid in a laboratory. The fertilised egg (zygote) is cultured for 2–6 days in a growth medium and is then implanted in the same or another woman’s uterus, with the intention of establishing a successful pregnancy.

Obviously that applies to women.

A quick web search revealed that the IVF procedure is commonly used in livestock. Here’s a graphic example of that (literally):

IVFProcedure

All of which leads nicely in to the Science Alert story.

ooOOoo

ivf-dogs-1_1024

These are the world’s first puppies born through IVF

Cutest science ever.

PETER DOCKRILL 11 DEC 2015

The world’s first litter of puppies born through in vitro fertilisation (IVF) represents the culmination of decades of research and has resulted in seven adorable pups called Cannon, Red, Green, Cornelia, Buddy, Kiwi and Ivy le Fleur.

But the achievement goes beyond almost intolerable cuteness. The researchers say successfully breeding puppies via IVF opens the door for saving endangered canid species and using gene-editing techniques to eradicate heritable diseases in dogs.

“Since the mid–1970s, people have been trying to do this in a dog and have been unsuccessful,” said Alex Travis, a reproductive biologist from Cornell University.

To develop the litter of pups, the researchers had to fertilise eggs from donor mothers with sperm from donor fathers in the lab, before transferring the embryos to a host female. 19 embryos were transferred to the host female in total, who gave birth to seven healthy pups.

Credit: Cornell University
Credit: Cornell University

Two of the pups came from a beagle mother donor and a cocker spaniel father donor, and the other five came from two pairings of beagle mothers and fathers.

The team had to overcome a number of challenges to make the process work. Picking the right time to collect mature eggs from the female oviduct proved difficult, as dogs’ reproductive cycles occur only twice per year typically. The researchers found delaying the egg collection by one day resulted in greater fertilisation than previous attempts.

An additional barrier was preparing the sperm for fertilisation, which is normally performed by the female tract. But the researchers found they could simulate these conditions by adding magnesium to the cell culture. “We made those two changes, and now we achieve success in fertilisation rates at 80 to 90 percent,” said Travis.

The researchers’ IVF process, described in PLOS One, will enable conservationists to store the semen and eggs of endangered canids and also help protect rare dog breeds.

Credit: Cornell University
Credit: Cornell University

“We can freeze and bank sperm, and use it for artificial insemination,” said Travis. “We can also freeze oocytes, but in the absence of in vitro fertilisation, we couldn’t use them. Now we can use this technique to conserve the genetics of endangered species.”

The IVF process should also lead to better genome-editing techniques in the future. This issue is particularly pertinent in light of the way that humans have bred dogs over many centuries. With the paired selection of mates for desired traits leading to detrimental genetic baggage due to inbreeding, this gives researchers a chance to eliminate diseases that certain breeds are now predisposed to.

“With a combination of gene-editing techniques and IVF, we can potentially prevent genetic disease before it starts,” said Travis.

We don’t always hear a lot about endangered canid species, but here are five candidates that this research will helpfully be able to help sooner rather than later.

ooOOoo

If you are like me and rarely follow the links in online stories then let me alert you to the last one. It’s an article in Scientific American that opens, thus:

The 5 Most Endangered Canine Species
By John R. Platt on May 9, 2013

Domesticated dogs are some of the most popular animals on the planet, but their cousins in the wild aren’t always as beloved. For thousands of years humans have persecuted wolves, jackals, dingoes, foxes and other members of the family Canidae, pushing many species into or close to extinction. Here are five of the most endangered canine species and subspecies, three of which only continue to exist because a few people and organizations have taken extraordinary efforts to save them.

I don’t have copyright permission to offer more. So all I will do is to list the names of those five most endangered species:

  • The Ethiopian wolf
  • The Mexican gray wolf
  • The red wolf
  • Darwin’s fox
  • Island fox

Do go here and read the full article. And let’s not forget that our lovely dogs are not the full canine story.

And another dog food recall.

This one came in on the 12th December.

Stella and Chewy’s of Oak Creek, Wisconsisn, has announced it is voluntarily recalling select lots of its raw dog and cat food due to the possible presence of Listeria monoyctogenes bacteria.

To learn which products are affected, please visit the following link:
Stella and Chewy’s Dog and Cat Food Recall of December 2015

Please be sure to share the news of this alert with other pet owners.

Mike Sagman, Editor
The Dog Food Advisor

That link offers, in part:

December 11, 2015 — Stella and Chewy’s of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, has announced it is voluntarily recalling four of its products sold in the U.S. and Canada due to possible contamination with Listeria monocytogenes bacteria.
The recall affects a total of 990 cases — 964 cases in the U.S. and 26 cases in Canada.
What’s Recalled?
As a precautionary measure, Stella and Chewy’s is voluntarily recalling selected products from Lot # 165-15, which includes:

Please go here to read all the details if this is a concern for you.

The following is just one of the product images – view all of them here.

stella-chewys-1

Friendship between dogs.

A remarkable report about how dogs share.

Apologies for the short intro but my internet connection is still not 100% and I didn’t want to fuss around and lose the window in which to present this fascinating article on ScienceAlert sent to me by Dan Gomez.

ooOOoo

DSCN55181_1024

Dogs give food to their ‘friends’ in first-of-its-kind study

Treats for everybody! But more for pals.
PETER DOCKRILL 17 DEC 2015

Voluntary acts of kindness and positive outward gestures without thought of reward are two of the more redeeming aspects of human society, but to what extent do these prosocial behaviours exist in other animals?

A new study by researchers in Austria suggests that dogs are prosocial among their own kind too, with an experiment involving the voluntary offering of food between the animals showing that dogs also understand the concept of giving.

“Dogs and their nearest relatives, the wolves, exhibit social and cooperative behaviour, so there are grounds to assume that these animals also behave prosocially toward conspecifics,” said Friederike Range, an ethnologist at the Messerli Research Institute. “Additionally, over thousands of years of domestication, dogs were selected for special social skills.”

But measuring prosocial behaviour in dogs isn’t easy, says Range, because they’re so very social with humans. It can be difficult to tell between seemingly prosocial acts and behaviours that could actually just be the dog obediently reacting to cues and unintended communications from researchers.

So to take people out of the equation as much as possible, Range and his colleagues conducted an experiment where two dogs were set up by themselves in cages side by side. One of the dogs, called the donor dog, had the ability to extend one of two trays toward a receiver dog, using its mouth to pull on a string.

One of these trays contained a treat, while the other was empty. The dogs had been trained over weeks to understand how the tray-pulling system worked, and the donor dog in each instance knew that it would receive nothing itself if it gave the treat to its fellow canine (other than the pleasure perhaps of knowing it had done a kindness to its counterpart).

The researchers found that dogs, in the absence of any ulterior motive, do indeed exhibit prosocial behaviour, by voluntarily giving food to other dogs. But, having said that, they can be accused of preferential treatment.

“Dogs truly behave prosocially toward other dogs. That had never been experimentally demonstrated before,” said Range. “What we also found was that the degree of familiarity among the dogs further influenced this behaviour. Prosocial behaviour was exhibited less frequently toward unfamiliar dogs than toward familiar ones.”

In other words, dogs look out for their friends more than they do random strangers, but the same could be said of our own prosocial behaviour. Humans have the capacity for kindness, but we demonstrate it more frequently with those with which we are more familiar.

The findings are reported in Scientific Reports, but now that we know dogs are prosocial, that of course means there are other puzzles for the researchers to solve. Why do dogs act this way? Is it a result of domestication, their cognitive complexity, or has it been shaped by the species’ reliance on cooperative activities, such as foraging together? As dog lovers, we can’t wait to hear the answers.

ooOOoo

What amazing creatures they are!

My Dog, My Mentor

A guest post from Julia Penner-Zook.

Three days ago I was within just a few minutes of queuing this for a blog release when the internet went down. So now that things are back (to normal?) it gives me very great pleasure to publish this guest post.

ooOOoo

My Dog, My Mentor.

We humans share the planet with an enormous variety of life forms. In fact, there are so many organisms in our world that scientists cannot agree even on an estimate of how many exist. Anywhere between two and 100 million, we are told. Those numbers are staggering, leaving me feeling small alongside all those with whom I share terrestrial space.

Today my thoughts come to rest on one specific type of world inhabitant––just one out of the multiple millions: the canine! The one who allegedly is man’s (and woman’s) best friend! I have had close contact with dogs since I was a young child, so it’s hardly surprising that I have a great deal of love and respect for them.

No longer are dogs simply farm animals or household pets. They rescue the lost and wounded after natural disasters, serve in combat, their keen sensitivities are used to detect disease in its early stages, their presence brings comfort to the ill or elderly, they accompany their seeingimpaired human counterpart, detect illegal and harmful substances in public places. In short, they frequently provide expertise and skill that exceed that of humans.

People are hesitant to admit this, always desiring to be on top. To be the best and the most developed. Since we seem to have great difficulty simply living alongside one another, we tend to keep score: higher/ lower; bigger/ smaller; better/ worse; superior/ inferior. One result of this scoring system is that we consider ourselves vastly superior to our animal sisters and brothers–– superior in intelligence, capacity for reason, emotion, creativity and relationship.

Carl Safina, marine conservationist, professor and author, challenges this notion of superiority, stating humans are not necessarily unique (or superior), but simply the most extreme: capable of the most compassion and the worst violence; possessing the greatest capacity for creativity and at the same time most able and willing to inflict destruction on one another and on other inhabitants of this planet.

Yet, animals do not respond in kind. Certainly, they will protect and defend themselves and their own, but humans display vastly more aggression. At times, animals choose to exhibit unsurpassed magnanimity towards humans.

Focusing this phenomenon on the family dog, it may surprise us that not WE but THEY seem to provide the greatest benefit in the human / canine relationship. If we are observant, we will be humbled by the fact that characteristics, effortlessly displayed in our pets, are the very same qualities we strive for and often fall short in attaining. Take gratitude, for example. My darling Maltese––gone since September 11, 2015––waited hours for his human to return home to love on, walk with and feed him. When I walked in the door, he did not unleash venom or aggression for having been left alone while I was away working. His tail wagging knew no bounds––he simply adored the moment he was again joined by his human.

But me? My mind would play all kinds of games when similarly “neglected”: It’s been weeks since I heard from her, it’s about time she called. I didn’t do anything to deserve this silence!

And then there’s unconditional love. What about the times I would become impatient with my furry family member? At times he was distracted on walks, simply delighted by all the sounds, smells and sights of the outdoors. But, I had a goal and a time limit, giving rise to frustration at his digressions. However, my dog wasn’t frustrated. On the contrary, he not only endured my impatient scolding––calls to move on, to hurry––but reciprocated with lavish love the very next moment. How did he do that?

Why is my dog, (whether instinctively or cognitively is actually irrelevant) capable of exhibiting the very virtue I strive for, fail at, attempt repeatedly, become frustrated over failing yet again? The list of virtues seems endless:

  • kindness,
  • patience,
  • resiliency,
  • forgiveness,
  • encouragement,
  • empathy,
  • sensitivity,
  • contentment,
  • the innate ability to live in the moment.

My furry family member expressed––indeed he lived them all.

And what about me? I exhibit these qualities periodically. Sporadically. Brokenly. With enormous, conscious effort.

In his final months, my small Maltese slowed down, had increasing difficulty with mobility, became disoriented, nearly blind and partially deaf. In a word: dependent. Yet his trust, courage and peace were astounding. In his final days he became quiet, hardly uttering a sound, yet the pictures of those days bear witness to his alertness and awareness. He knew!

Could it be that he was quiet because he was at peace with what had been and what was to come? I believe that because he had given all he had to give, in the best way he had been able to give it, he was able to quietly await and accept his departure as well.

What will it be like for me to grow old? Limited? Increasingly dependent? I don’t know! Will I know that the value of my existence is not tied with activity or productivity? Will I learn to live in the moment––grateful, at peace, content?

How will I face the imminent transition from this life to the next? I don’t know! Will my last days be characterized with peace? Absorbing and bestowing love? Satisfied with small things? Inwardly at rest?

These reflections will accompany me for years.

There are questions that are equally relevant––and perhaps more immediate:

  • How can I have a more sane understanding of my place in this expansive and exquisite terrestrial community?
  • What will enhance a sense of respect and appreciation for the dizzying variety of species I live alongside?
  • What will it take for me to continue growing and learning as a human?

These seem profound questions in light of growing disregard for human and animal life. It is not unlikely, however, that sharing space with dogs will help me grow into a more gracious and balanced person.

Here’s to our canine mentors!

© Julia Penner-Zook, 2015

ooOOoo

Beautiful words and thoughts. So perfect for a blog named Learning from Dogs.

Julia Penner-Zook is the author of Behind Each Face Her book was Released: June 2015.
Please visit her website: https://juliapennerzook.wordpress.com

Nutro Dog Treats Recall

This was released on December 13th.

Dear Fellow Dog Lover,

MARS Petcare has issued a voluntary recall for select lots of Nutro Chewy dog treats due to possible mold.

To learn which products are affected, please visit the following link:
Nutro Dog Treats Recall of December 2015

Please be sure to share the news of this alert with other pet owners.

Mike Sagman, Editor
The Dog Food Advisor

That link further discloses:

December 12, 2015 — MARS Petcare has issued a voluntary recall of select lots of its Nutro dog treats due to potential mold.

nutro-chewy-apple-treats

What’s Recalled?
The following product is affected by this recall event:
Nutro CHEWY Treats with Real Apples
Size: 4OZ
UPC: 7910511344
Lot Codes beginning with the following numbers and regardless of the Best By date:
4 50
5 02
5 03
5 05

Nutro-Chewy-Treats-Recall-December-2015

What to Do?
Consumers are asked to stop feeding this product to your pet and to bring any remaining Nutro 4 ounce Nutro Apple Chewy Treats affected by this recall to your nearest PetSmart for a full refund.
If you have questions about this voluntary recall, customers are invited to call Nutro Customer Service at 800-833-5330.

Hold this close!

As seen by Doranne Long over on Facebook.

Tommy Chong

This is just an interim post while I get my act together today (it’s 08:07am).

For yesterday morning, around 7am, we lost our internet service and it was only restored a couple of hours ago.

There’s an announcement from me coming out before the end of the day about my book and a way for anyone interested in reading a section to be able to download a few chapters.

More later!

Thanks Doranne for sharing that wonderful reminder.

Picture parade one hundred and twenty-six

More appropriate images for the time of the year.

The previous set of images are here.

snow9

oooo

snow10

oooo

snow11

oooo

snow12

oooo

snow13

oooo

snow14

oooo

snow15

oooo

You all stay warm and dry!