But on the 15th February Tony came up with a brilliant idea; read it for yourself:
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Dogs’ highly evolved noses can rapidly detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus
For some 15,000 years, dogs have been our hunting partners, workmates, helpers and companions. Could they also be our next allies in the fight against COVID-19? As a dog owner with a small poodle who could sniff out a chicken bone in the middle of a football field I was not surprised to learn this.
According to UC Santa Barbara professor emeritus Tommy Dickey and his collaborator, BioScent researcher Heather Junqueira, they can. And with a review paper published in the Journal of Osteopathic Medicine they have added to a small but growing consensus that trained medical scent dogs can effectively be used for screening individuals who may be infected with the COVID-19 virus.
I would volunteer my 15-year-old poodle, Gabi, for this study.
This follows a comprehensive survey of research devoted to the use of trained scent dogs for detecting COVID. “The most striking result is that studies have already demonstrated that dogs can identify people who are COVID-19 positive,” Dickey said of their findings. “Not only that,” he added, “they can do it non-intrusively, more rapidly and with comparable or possibly better accuracy than our conventional detection tests.”
Not surprisingly, the magic lies in canine sense of smell, which gives dogs the ability to detect molecules in tiny concentrations — “one part in a quadrillion compared with one part in one billion for humans,” according to the paper. Add to that other optimizations for smell, such as a large nasal area and the structure of their noses, which allows inflow through the nostrils and outflow through nasal folds. Further, with 125-300 million olfactory cells and a third of their brains devoted to interpreting odors, dogs are well equipped with the ability to sniff out the volatile organic compounds that indicate the presence of COVID.
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I must gently disagree with Tony’s opening statement. Dogs evolved from the grey wolf something like 23,000 years ago.
But what a great article and will we see the authorities take him up on the idea? I certainly hope so.
This was sent to me by Jules. Julie is the partner of my friend of too many years, Richard Maugham. Richard and I go back many, many years. Indeed we met on a flight in the Commodore PET Jet over 40 years ago. Prior to that Richard was working for Olivetti and me for IBM Office Products. We were then selling electric typewriters and the early forms of dedicated word-processing machines. As I said a long time ago!
This is what ‘Frosty Life’ has to say about the video:
My daughter has a German Shepherd puppy that is huge, but is only 7 months old. This German Shepherd has never experienced snow before. Watch as Rollo, the German Shepherd experiences snow for the first time and then he barks at the snow. This GSD has his hackles up as he growls and barks at the new fallen snow. It is amazing to watch her German Shepherd as he experiences snow for the first time and barks at it. He ate the snow and now he likes it.
But to be honest the answer is just as interesting for those a tad older than a kid!
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When dogs bark, are they using words to communicate?
By Clive Wynne
Professor of Psychology, Arizona State University
February 8th, 2021
When dogs bark, do they have words? – Sarah W., age 9, Clinton, New York
Does your dog bark a lot? Or is he one of those quiet pooches who barks only when things get really exciting? Most dogs bark at least a little.
Dog barks are not words. But although your dog will never tell you about his parents or the weather or the amazing bone he had yesterday, his barks still communicate important information.
Dog barks are much closer to the noises people make when they accidentally hit their thumb with a hammer – “Ow!” – or open a fantastic present – “Wow!” These sounds convey how someone feels, but not why they feel that way. When other people hear these kinds of sounds, they often come over to see what has happened: How did you hurt yourself? What is this wonderful gift you received?
Dog barking also brings groups together – but it’s not a beautiful sound. It is a much more urgent noise, just like the sounds you make when you are hurt or very pleased. Many smaller animals, like scrub jays, meerkats and California ground squirrels, make such noisy sounds. They do this when they feel frightened by something. In dogs, barking can bring a group together to defend against a danger that can’t be coped with alone.
Wolves don’t need to make sounds like this because they are big and fearsome and don’t often feel threatened. Dogs, on the other hand, are much smaller and weaker than their wolf ancestors – and often need to call the group together.
A call for assistance. Seregraff/iStock/Getty Images Plus
This is why dogs bark. They are calling their group to get help with something they are not confident they can handle on their own. This doesn’t mean a barking dog is always frightened. He may just be very excited. He badly needs the family to know that there is a stranger coming to the door, or another dog coming close to the house.
Your dog’s barks may not be words, but he probably barks a little differently depending on what kind of thing has got him excited. If you listen closely, you may find you can tell the difference between a bark directed at a package deliverer and one directed toward a friend at the door. The bark to a passing dog may be different than the bark at a passing car.
Your dog doesn’t understand much of what you say, but he listens hard to try to make sense of human language. If you return the compliment and listen hard to his sounds, you may find you can also understand him better, and the two of you will have a richer life together.
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This touches on something that I saw elsewhere; the business of dogs having emotions (which they really do!).
I will try and find the article and see if I have permission to republish it.
I was thinking yesterday morning that it was about time for me to publish a post.
Tuesday was a busy day with us in the morning going to collect the tractor from Runaway Tractors where it had been in for a service. Then in the afternoon I decided to go for a bike ride, something I try and do every other day. It was grand and I clocked up 18 miles.
The forecast for Wednesday was grim. And we awoke to a morning with much land covered in snow.
Looking to the North-East.
So my item that I wanted to republish from The Smithsonian Magazine seemed apt. It is about the history of dogs.
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How Dogs Migrated to America From Ice Age Siberia 15,000 Years Ago
Northern Siberians and ancestral native Americans may have traded pups at the time
All dogs with the genetic signature A2b descended from the same Siberian canines roughly 23,000 years ago (Jim Peaco; Photo has been cropped for article purposes by ZeWrestler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Dogs have been companions to humans for many millennia, but exactly when this relationship started is highly debated among scientists.
A study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that canine domestication may have first occurred in Siberia 23,000 years ago when humans and wolves were isolated together during the Last Glacial Maximum. After this initial domestication event, dogs most likely followed humans when they migrated across the Bering Land Bridge from East Asia to the Americas 15,000 years ago, reports Megan Marples for CNN.
“Wolves likely learned that scavenging from humans regularly was an easy free meal, while humans allowed this to happen so long as wolves were not aggressive or threatening,” Angela Perri, an archaeologist at Durham University and lead author of the study tells CNN.
The study was brought to fruition after Perri and her co-authors—David Meltzer, an archeologist at Southern Methodist University, and Gregor Larson, a scientist from Oxford University—were brainstorming how DNA evidence tells the story of migrating humans and dogs, reports James Gorman for the New York Times. After the authors scribbled down ideas on a whiteboard, they saw that both humans and canines had similar migration patterns and divergence that could explain how dogs and humans began their bond, reports the New York Times.
To see if the similarities between the timelines linked up with archeological evidence, Perri and her team analyzed the genome of 200 ancient dogs from around the world. They found that the canines had one genetic signature, A2b, in common. Once they reached the New World 15,000 years ago, they dispersed into four groups, reports David Grimm for Science.
The researchers found this dispersal matched a similar migration pattern of ancestral Native Americans that descended from Northern Siberia about 21,000 years ago. Connecting these timeline events between humans and dogs, the researchers concluded that humans must have brought dogs into the Americas somewhere around 15,000 years ago.
“Dogs are not going to go to the new world without people,” Meltzer tells the New York Times.
Further exploring the dogs’ genetic evidence, the team found all dogs with the genetic signature A2b descended from the same Siberian canines roughly 23,000 years ago, Science reports.
Looking back at human’s ancestral timeline and genetic evidence, the researchers found that ancient Northern Siberians intermingled with ancestral Native Americans before crossing the land bridge into the Americas. These meetings could have resulted in the two groups of people trading pups.
“People are exchanging information, they’re exchanging mates, they’re maybe exchanging their wolf pups,” Meltzer tells the New York Times.
While there is strong evidence that the initial domestication event occurred 23,000 years ago, the study relied only on mitochondrial DNA and could be missing the complete picture of domestication events, explains Pontus Skoglund, an ancient canine DNA expert from Crick Institute in London who was not involved in the study, to the New York Times. Likewise, Peter Savolainen, a geneticist at the Royal Institute of Technology, tells Science that the A2b signature has been found in other places in the world and is not unique to dogs in the Americas as the researchers suggested.
Still, the study reveals how the relationship between humans and dogs may have begun and how it may have dispersed across the globe. Perri and her team plan on looking at older dog fossils to gather more evidence.
“We have long known that the first Americans must have possessed well-honed hunting skills, the geological know-how to find stone and other necessary materials and been ready for new challenges,” Meltzer tells Peter Dockrill for Science Alert. “The dogs that accompanied them as they entered this completely new world may have been as much a part of their cultural repertoire as the stone tools they carried.”
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There is a huge number of dogs throughout the world. The exact figure is impossible to determine. Here’s an extract from WoofDog’s piece on the global population:
Determining the exact number of pups that inhabit our planet is a bit of a challenge. The fact that many of them live on their own, rather than side by side with people, presents the main obstacle to providing accurate figures.
According to 2012 data, there were around 525 million canines in the world. This figure has grown considerably until the present day, so today, it is estimated to be about 900 million pooches.
And from the same website, here is an estimate of the global population of owned dogs:
Statistics related to canine ownership vary across different countries. Nevertheless, the task of calculating the number of canines owned by people around the globe is far less complicated than it is the case with free-range ones.
The reason for this lies in the fact that many countries have introduced legal regulations on mandatory registration of household animals.
My analysis is that the USA is second in the league of owned dogs.
But wherever there are dogs they are a rich and bountiful addition to the ambitions of humans.
Deadly Dog and Cat Food Recall Expands: More Brands, Over 1000 Lots
Image Credit – Food Safety News.
Important: Illustrations not complete. Additional images will be added if or when they become available. Original report published January 11, 2021 and updatedJanuary 26, 2021
January 26, 2021 — The FDA is alerting consumers that Midwestern Pet Foods, Inc. is expanding its recent recall to include over 1000 lots of Sportmix and 2 other brands of dog and cat food because they contain potentially fatal levels of aflatoxin.
As of January 21, 2021, FDA is aware of more than 110 deaths and 210 illnesses in pets that have eaten the affected products.
This is an ongoing investigation. This count is approximate and may not reflect the total number of pets affected.
Sportmix Energy Plus, 50 lb. bag
Exp 03/02/22/05/L2
Exp 03/02/22/05/L3
Exp 03/03/22/05/L2
Sportmix Energy Plus, 44 lb. bag
Exp 03/02/22/05/L3
Sportmix Premium High Energy, 50 lb. bag
Exp 03/03/22/05/L3
Sportmix Premium High Energy, 44 lb. bag
Exp 03/03/22/05/L3
Sportmix Original Cat, 31 lb. bag
Exp 03/03/22/05/L3
Sportmix Original Cat, 15 lb. bag
Exp 03/03/22/05/L2
Exp 03/03/22/05/L3
On January 11, 2021, the company expanded its recall to include all pet food products containing corn that were made in the firm’s Oklahoma plant and that expire on or before July 9, 2022.
More than 1000 lot codes are affected, so they are not listed individually.
Lots of the following pet food products have been recalled if the date/lot code includes an expiration date on or before “07/09/22” and includes “05” in the date/lot code, which identifies products made in the Oklahoma plant:
Pro Pac Adult Mini Chunk, 40 lb. bag
Pro Pac Performance Puppy, 40 lb. bag
Splash Fat Cat 32%, 50 lb. bag
Nunn Better Maintenance, 50 lb. bag
Sportmix Original Cat, 15 lb. bag
Sportmix Original Cat, 31 lb. bag
Sportmix Maintenance, 44 lb. bag
Sportmix Maintenance, 50 lb. bag
Sportmix High Protein, 50 lb. bag
Sportmix Energy Plus, 44 lb. bag
Sportmix Energy Plus, 50 lb. bag
Sportmix Stamina, 44 lb. bag
Sportmix Stamina, 50 lb. bag
Sportmix Bite Size, 40 lb. bag
Sportmix Bite Size, 44 lb. bag
Sportmix High Energy, 44 lb. bag
Sportmix High Energy, 50 lb. bag
Sportmix Premium Puppy, 16.5 lb. bag
Sportmix Premium Puppy, 33 lb. bag
Lot code information may be found on the back of bag and will appear in a three-line code, with the top line in format “EXP 03/03/22/05/L#/B###/HH:MM”
Where Were the Products Distributed?
The affected products were distributed to online retailers and stores nationwide within the United States.
Midwestern Pet Foods, Inc. may have exported the recalled product to one consignee, respectively, in each of the following countries: Bahrain, Barbados, Chile, Costa Rica, Curacao, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Polynesia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Korea, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Singapore, Taiwan, Trinidad, Ukraine, UAE, Uruguay, and Vietnam.
About Aflatoxin
Aflatoxin is a toxin produced by the mold Aspergillus flavus and at high levels it can cause illness and death in pets.
The toxin can be present even if there is no visible mold.
Pets are highly susceptible to aflatoxin poisoning because, unlike people, who eat a varied diet, pets generally eat the same food continuously over extended periods of time.
If a pet’s food contains aflatoxin, the toxin could accumulate in the pet’s system as they continue to eat the same food.
Pets with aflatoxin poisoning may experience symptoms such as sluggishness, loss of appetite, vomiting, jaundice (yellowish tint to the eyes, gums or skin due to liver damage), and/or diarrhea.
In some cases, this toxicity can cause long-term liver issues and/or death.
Some pets suffer liver damage without showing any symptoms.
Pet owners whose pets have been eating the recalled products should contact their veterinarians, especially if they are showing signs of illness.
There is no evidence to suggest that pet owners who handle products containing aflatoxin are at risk of aflatoxin poisoning.
However, pet owners should always wash their hands after handling pet food.
What to Do?
Affected products may still be on store shelves, online, or in pet owners’ homes.
Pet owners should stop feeding their pets the recalled products listed above and consult their veterinarian, especially if the pet is showing signs of illness.
The pet owner should remove the food and make sure no other animals have access to the recalled product.
Contact Midwestern Pet Foods Consumer Affairs at 800-474-4163, ext. 455 from 7 am to 4 pm CT, Monday through Friday, or by email at info@midwesternpetfoods.com for additional information.
Further information regarding this recall can be found in the related FDA Bulletin.
U.S. citizens can report complaints about FDA-regulated pet food products by calling the consumer complaint coordinator in your area.
This is still a very serious issue and, please, make sure that all your friends and neighbours who have dogs and cats and who don’t read this blog are made aware of the situation.
When Shelly Blount saw a post online last week about a dog who was about to be put down in North Carolina, she called the shelter immediately. To her relief, they told her the dog had just been adopted, but it got her thinking about the other dogs who might be in danger. She asked if there were other dogs scheduled to be put down and they told her a dog named Caleb was next on the list — so Blount got in her car.
Accompanied by a friend, Blount drove four hours from Virginia to the shelter, determined to rescue Caleb. When she arrived, she realized two other dogs were about to be put down as well. Despite having three other rescue dogs already at home, Blount suddenly knew what she had to do.
Shelley Blount
“I asked the limit on how many you could adopt,” Blount told The Dodo. “They said there wasn’t one. So I decided to get all three.”
Blount had arrived at the shelter that day expecting to leave with just Caleb — and instead she left with Caleb, Charisma and Bella.
Shelley Blount
As they began the long drive home, all three dogs were so excited and couldn’t contain their happiness, and Blount knew she had absolutely done the right thing.
Shelley Blount
“Caleb was sooo excited — kept giving kisses from the back seat, and his tail was wagging so fast,” Blount said. “Bella was so content being held so she sat in my friend’s lap and literally didn’t move. Charisma, my sweet little angel, was literally hugging me and slept the entire ride.”
Shelley Blount
When Blount decided to adopt all three dogs, she hadn’t really had a plan. She knew she couldn’t leave them at the shelter to be put down, but she also didn’t have room for three more dogs at home — but luckily, within days, she’d already found the best new homes for both Caleb and Bella.
Shelley Blount
“Caleb is super happy in his new home with a friend of mine,” Blount said. “She has another Lab who he loves. Bella went to my boyfriend and let’s just say they are inseparable.”
Shelley Blount
Blount is likely going to keep Charisma, as the pair have bonded quite a bit in the days since the rescue. Either way, Charisma would need to stay with Blount for a while — because after a vet visit, she realized the sweet little dog was pregnant.
Shelley Blount
No one at the shelter had told Blount that Charisma was pregnant with five to six puppies, and later said they hadn’t known. Not only did Blount save Charisma that day, but she also saved the lives of her puppies, and for that Charisma is continuously grateful.
“My Charisma girl is very attached to me and we take lots of cat naps because she’s so sleepy,” Blount said.
Shelley Blount
Charisma is due to give birth within the next week, and her new family is so excited for her. In the meantime, she’s enjoying spending lots of time cuddling with her new mom and best friend, thanking her every day for saving her life.
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Shelley is a real star and, indeed, so are all the other people that rescue dogs.
At the risk of blowing our own trumpet, and I don’t intend to, here’s a photograph from home to finish today’s post.
Brandy, to the left, and Pedi. Two ex-rescue dogs that are now so happy.
Learning from Dogs 