Whether we are talking about zoo animals or our own pets, blood collection usually involves restraint. Forcible restraint is a stressful experience (for dog and handler), it can produce a fearful response which often results in defensive aggression. While the resulting behavior is what we see, there is also a complex biochemical cascade that accompanies…
This is an old study and it is not about dogs. What caught my attention though was the age of the subjects and the species it involved: Giant Aldabra tortoises. Weiss E., Wilson S.(2003) The Use of Classical and Operant Conditioning in Training Aldabra Tortoises (Geochelone gigantea) for Venipuncture and Other Husbandry Issues.Journal of Applied Animal…
“As children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold in terror…” – Lucretius, On the Nature of Things Viennese physician Franz-Joseph Gall (1758-1828) believed that organs on the surface of the brain…
One of the problems and joys of having a research-centric blog is that I am always trailing the latest findings. I was writing something else (you may have seen the draft published by mistake) and then I came across this new Finnish study from the journal Pediatrics. It’s more evidence on the potential beneficial effects…
The 112th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology was held last week in San Francisco, and among the many papers presented was one about dogs, microbiomes and asthma. By the late 90s it had become evident that the prevalence of allergic diseases and asthma was on the rise in urban populations of developed…
Science and Dogs 
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