tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51349938215455622052024-03-13T10:25:24.805-04:00The Dog ZombieDogs! Brains! Science!The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.comBlogger284125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-26220702880960205502020-08-09T15:28:00.001-04:002020-08-09T15:28:04.715-04:00What I've been up to, summer 2020 edition<p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Missed my Behavioral Probiotics webinar, and that made you sad? Check out my <a href="https://www.whole-dog-journal.com/health/behavioral-probiotics/">new story in the Whole Dog Journal</a> with most of the content from that webinar, and be happy!</li><li> My <a href="https://petprofessionalguild.com/event-3810033">Genetic Testing webinar </a>for PPG is available recorded - a good place to go to learn about direct to consumer genetic testing for dogs, how it works, and when to trust it.</li><li>I have a <a href="https://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/self-study/webinars">Genetics of Dog Personality webinar </a>coming up on August 20, 2020 for FDSA - you can sign up now!</li><li>I started a podcast. You all know about that already, right? It's called <a href="https://functionalbreeding.podbean.com/">Functional Breeding</a> and it's about how we breed dogs and how we could shake that up to do better at making good pets.</li><li>The podcast is part of my pandemic passion project, <a href="http://functionalbreeding.org">The Functional Dog Collaborative</a>. The FDC aims to support people who are breeding dogs in some less conventional (but still uber responsible) ways and who therefore don't have other support mechanisms in place. There's an associated <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/functionalbreeding/">Facebook group</a> where we talk about all this stuff. Come join us!</li></ul><p></p>The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-1764497241621735352020-04-01T15:26:00.003-04:002020-04-01T15:26:54.820-04:00Upcoming webinarsI have <i>two</i> webinars happening soon!<br />
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This Friday, I will be talking about genetic testing for the Pet Professional Guild. Should you do genetic testing on your dog? What will you learn? How much can you trust the results? If you want to know, <a href="https://www.petprofessionalguild.com/event-3668533">join me for this webinar</a> on Friday, April 3, at 1pm Eastern.<br />
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Then on Thursday, April 16, I'll be talking about <a href="https://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/self-study/webinars">probiotics for behavioral health</a> at FDSA. What? Gut bacteria can change your dog's behavior? They can - so what products are out there and which ones should you use? I read a lot of papers about this so you don't have to.<br />
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Come join me! Both of these webinars will be recorded if you can't make it live.<br />
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<br />The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-66484154382936473432019-11-25T11:52:00.003-05:002019-11-25T11:52:50.209-05:00New publication in AeonFriends! As many of you know, I have been posting less here, and more in places where I can reach a larger audience. I'm really proud of my recent publication in <i>Aeon </i>on how dogs learn and, more generally, <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/why-science-needs-to-catch-up-with-what-dog-trainers-know">whether scientists can learn from dog trainers about canine cognitive abilities</a> (spoiler: I think there is).<br />
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For those of you who arrived here from the Aeon story, check out <a href="http://www.dogzombie.com/">www.dogzombie.com</a> for links to other publications and webinars.The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-22138411410023639392018-08-07T19:12:00.000-04:002018-08-23T10:35:18.177-04:00Covering the coverage of the fox genome paperAh, the beloved <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_red_fox">Tame Fox Project</a>! I worked in a lab that focused on these foxes for four years, during my PhD in <a href="http://ansci.illinois.edu/labs/kukekova-lab">Kukekova Lab</a> at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. We worked on analyzing the fox genome for publication throughout those four years, and now at last the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0611-6">fox genome paper</a> is published. (You can see my name tucked neatly in the middle of the authors list.)<br />
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What does it mean to have the fox genome sequenced and published? There is a flurry of news reporting about it, and I have issues with a lot of that coverage. I'll be covering the coverage here, letting you know what is accurate and what is less so. I'll update this post as I cover more articles.<br />
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Feel free to comment with questions, or with news stories you think should be included here.<br />
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<li><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/fox-tame-gene-identified-russian-institute-of-cytology-and-genetics-a8480306.html">Fox ‘tameness gene’ identified in 60-year study</a> (Independent): the title of this story is irresponsible, implying that there is one gene controlling tameness in these foxes and that that gene was discovered. The story itself does a decent job of untangling the facts: that a large number of genes affect tameness, and that the gene that was discovered influences whether the fox wants to continue to interact with humans during a specific behavioral test. However, I wonder how many people just read the headline and took away a very different message.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2018/08/06/a-soviet-era-experiment-to-tame-foxes-may-help-reveal-genes-behind-social-behavior/?utm_term=.3d96b4735846">A Soviet-era experiment to tame foxes may help reveal genes behind social behavior</a> (Washington Post, Animalia): Great title, intriguing and also accurate. However, the story itself over-emphasizes the morphological difference in the foxes, stating that the Tame Fox Project "spawned an ongoing area of research into how domestication, based purely on behavioral traits, can result in other changes — like curlier tails and changes to fur color." We still don't know if the morphological changes in the tame foxes (which are much less frequent than most journalists suggest) are related to their behavioral changes, or if they're just a result of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founder_effect">founder effect</a>. (The lab that produced the current study is betting on founder effect.) The rest of this article is good, with an excellent description of the study's design.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180806152029.htm">Sequenced fox genome hints at genetic basis of behavior</a> (ScienceDaily): "today, with the first-ever publication of the fox genome, scientists will begin to understand the genetic basis of tame and aggressive behaviors" - I think this is overstating. The fox genome is an important tool for working with the genetics of tame foxes, and they are an important model for understanding the genetics of tame behavior. But this isn't the beginning of understanding the genetic basis of tame behavior - either we started that a long time ago, or we haven't really started yet, depending on how you look at it. As with other stories, this story also calls out the finding that there were some changes in aggressive foxes in a region similar to the one associated with Williams syndrome (hyperfriendliness, among other traits) in humans. Which is cool - but don't forget they also found changes in regions associated with autism and schizophrenia, which is also cool! (And which gives more perspective to the fact that a lot of changes were found in a lot of regions, and we don't know what any of them mean yet.) This story has a nice description of the behavioral trait associated with the <i>SorCS1</i> gene, the one gene that the paper focused on that has changes associated with behavioral differences in tame foxes.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/red-fox-dna-genome-domestication">The first detailed map of red foxes’ DNA may reveal domestication secret</a>s (ScienceNews): wow, I really like this one! Read this one! It does a great job summarizing the paper, it pulls out interesting stuff, and it doesn't ever go overboard in its interpretations.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/09/science/foxes-tame-genetics.html">Friendly Foxes’ Genes Offer Hints to How Dogs Became Domesticated</a> (New York Times): quite short, so other articles are better bets for you to learn more about the study. However, I want to give a shout-out to this one for 1) not saying anything misleading and 2) explaining that tame foxes aren't great pets - something that can be really valuable to include in stories like this one.</li>
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<br />The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-14309198347152752792018-03-17T12:11:00.000-04:002018-03-17T12:11:12.105-04:00Keeping afloat in the social media ocean: how to post great dog content on your media feed<div class="MsoNormal">
So you want your dog training school to have an active social media presence – a feed full of useful and informative posts, not a bunch of pictures of cute puppies (as much as we all love those). How do you find those meaty posts to share with your audience and give them food for thought? The internet is a big place these days, and finding that first doorway into the active world of dog science and behavior writing can be hard.<br />
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Maintaining a feed packed with shares about the most recent and interesting dog science is something I have done for fun as well as for pay, and I have a few suggestions to get you started in the right direction.<br />
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<li>To share a lot, you have to read a lot! There is no getting around this one absolute requirement: you must follow a long list of interesting people. This list must be dynamic, because bloggers come and go, so maintaining a healthy list of them involves continually adding new entries. Start with Zazie Todd’s excellent and slightly overwhelming <a href="https://www.companionanimalpsychology.com/2018/01/the-pet-people-to-follow-in-2018.html">list of the Pet People to Follow in 2018</a>. When someone on your new list shares something from someone you haven’t heard of, check them out. If you’re not sure, default to following them. You can always unfollow them later.</li>
<li>Check your feed frequently. When you're following a bunch of people, interesting links will rapidly scroll past and be lost in your timeline. When I was being paid to maintain content in a dog science laboratory’s Twitter feed, I checked Facebook and Twitter three times a day at least. (I will admit that with my smart phone I often did it more often than that, but three times was my minimum.)</li>
<li>There are, however, some tools out there to help you keep the fire hose of posts under control. Nuzzel is an app that curates your friends lists on Facebook and Twitter and generates the list of links that those friends shared today. It prioritizes links shared by multiple people as those most likely to interest you. This app has been invaluable to me during dry spots when I was having trouble finding good dog posts because everyone was posting about recent crazy happenings in American politics.</li>
<li>Another great app is Buffer (and there are others like it). This app lets you schedule your tweets so that you can browse and collect good content all at once, but parcel out sharing it over time. This keeps your audience from being overwhelmed by bursts of content and then losing interest during dry spells. (Although one morning I was catching up on sharing information out of my Twitter feed, and noticed one person responded to my sudden deluge of shares with the tweet “@dogzombieblog is on fire this morning!” That was a good thing. But not if you can’t maintain it!) This app is particularly nice because you can set a schedule and just pile your tweets on the stack for it to share out over hours or even days, without telling it when to share each one. Facebook lets you schedule individual posts, but you have to plan when each individual one will happen, rather than having a set “three times a day” schedule to fill up with posts.</li>
<li>I usually just share links without comment – this is much faster and can make the difference between my feeling I don’t have time to share a moderately-interesting post, and just doing it. On the other hand, if you do have time to comment, it can lead to more engagement with your audience, which is a good thing.</li>
<li>Always look at a post before sharing it; never share based on the title alone. If it’s from a new source who you don’t know well, you should read the entire post to make sure there isn’t something buried deep inside it that you don’t want to share. (I’ve often been surprised halfway through reading a post to encounter advice to use force on a dog.) If it’s someone I trust, though, I do sometimes share after just skimming, if it’s on a topic I already understand well.</li>
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Have fun! If you share stuff that you find really interesting and engaging, your audience will feel the same way. I share a lot of science, but I do share funny stories or cute animal photos from time to time. I try to make them unusual, though – for example, photos of canid puppies that aren’t dogs, like wolf, dingo, or hyena babies from <a href="http://www.zooborns.com/">ZooBorns</a>. Recently I mixed it up by sharing a post about plant behavior. (Plant! Behavior! It’s not dogs, but surely dog behavior folks must find it interesting!) Don’t take it all too seriously – it’s part of your business, but it’s also a way to meet new friends and learn some cool new stuff about dogs.<br />
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The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-39645423333463763902018-02-17T16:13:00.000-05:002018-03-17T12:11:36.571-04:00Veterinarians are Responsible for the Welfare of Flat-Faced Dogs<em>Note: this post was originally published on <a href="http://dog.international/veterinarians-are-responsible-for-the-welfare-of-flat-faced-dogs/">the Dog International Blog</a>.</em>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">What can we do about the welfare problem of flat-faced dogs?</span></h3>
The health problems associated with brachycephalic (flat-faced) dogs are no secret. Dogs bred to have ultra-shortened muzzles often have significant breathing problems, dental problems, bulging eyes prone to injury, and skin disease from deep facial wrinkles. The welfare problem of brachycephalic dogs has been covered before, including <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/magazine/can-the-bulldog-be-saved.html">here,</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/08/02/why-breeding-bulldogs-is-borderline-inhumane/">here,</a> <a href="http://pedigreedogsexposed.blogspot.com/2017/01/fighting-for-air-their-whole-lives.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/blog/brachycephaly-its-more-than-just-the-pretty-face">here.</a> The solution is simple: breed dogs with longer muzzles and wider nostrils. They can still have their distinct breed look, but with a real muzzle instead of a flat face. And yet the word isn’t getting out, and dogs with extremely flat faces are still popular with breeders and dog owners. Some of the most common brachycephalic breeds in question are the English bulldog, French bulldog, pug, Boston terrier, Pekingese, boxer, Shi Tzu and Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.<br />
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What can be done? What tools do those concerned with the welfare of breeding for extremely flat faces have to convince breeders to breed more moderate animals? What tools do we have to help the general public—the ones who don’t seek out news stories about the welfare of different dog breeds—to find breeders who produce more moderate dogs?
As a veterinarian, I really want my profession to be part of the solution to this problem. In veterinary school, I was taught that part of the veterinarian’s job is to be an advocate for the animal. The owner may be the one who pays the bills, but it’s the animal who is the patient, and a good vet should speak up for the animal even when what she has to say is not what the owner wants to hear. However, I also learned that veterinarians, at least in the U.S., are extremely averse to conflict. We may be told to advocate for the animal, but we are trained not to upset the client. This isn’t just about money. If you upset your client too much, they will take their animal away, and your chance to help the animal will be lost. It’s a fine line, but not one that veterinarians are trained to balance. In my experience, much of our training plays lip service to the idea of standing up for the animal while demonstrating a strict policy of non-interference in a client’s decisions about what kind of dog to acquire.<br />
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A new policy about brachycephalics from the British Veterinary Association</h3>
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<a href="http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/french-bulldog-flat-face.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #337ab7; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="French bulldog – 2014 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show" class="size-full wp-image-1486" height="134" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" src="https://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/french-bulldog-flat-face.jpg" srcset="http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/french-bulldog-flat-face.jpg 1200w, http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/french-bulldog-flat-face-300x201.jpg 300w, http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/french-bulldog-flat-face-768x515.jpg 768w, http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/french-bulldog-flat-face-1024x686.jpg 1024w, http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/french-bulldog-flat-face-940x630.jpg 940w, http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/french-bulldog-flat-face-620x415.jpg 620w, http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/french-bulldog-flat-face-195x131.jpg 195w" style="border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="200" /></a><br />
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French bulldog – 2014 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.<br />
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">By Pets Adviser from Brooklyn, USA (2014 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show) [<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #337ab7; text-decoration: none;">CC BY 2.0 </a>], via Wikimedia Commons</em></div>
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Things are a little different on the far side of the pond from the U.S., however. In the U.K., the British Veterinary Association (BVA) recently published a <a href="https://www.bva.co.uk/news-campaigns-and-policy/policy/companion-animals/brachycephalic-dogs/">new policy statement about brachycephalic dogs.</a> It is a quite forward-thinking document, taking a multi-pronged approach to the problem.<br />
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The document begins with CT scans of a brachycephalic and a normal dog, showing the dramatic difference in skull shape. Even their brains are differently shaped! It continues with a policy position, which contains a list of goals beginning with “ensuring healthier future generations of dogs.” It describes an action plan, including campaigning in the media and a ten-point plan for veterinary practices to address engagement with owners of brachycephalic dogs. It concludes with a list of resources for those who want to know or do more.<br />
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This is not a document that will shake the foundations of British veterinary medicine. Its description of the health problems with brachycephalic dogs is based on solid evidence, and is not phrased in inflammatory fashion. Its goals are all positive, focused on education and research. Importantly, however, it provides veterinarians with guidance and resources on how to engage with prospective pet owners on the health problems with brachycephalic dogs. And it takes a strong stance: extremely flat faces in dogs aren’t healthy, and we should be moving away from them.<br />
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A weak policy from the American Veterinary Medical Association</h3>
Contrast the BVA’s policy to the approach taken by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), which recently passed a <a href="https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/Pages/170301c.aspx">three-sentence position statement</a> related to inherited disorders that does not even go so far as to mention brachycephalic dogs specifically. The AVMA’s animal welfare committee had initially proposed a slightly stronger policy that did specifically mention brachycephalics, along with other conditions, but this phrasing was seen as overly controversial. It was particularly opposed by the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club, the Bulldog Club of America, and the American Kennel Club. The final policy phrasing names no specific disorders, targeting only “genetic and inherited disorders” generally.<br />
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In failing to call out specific problems, the AVMA missed a chance to make the point that extreme brachycephaly <i>is</i> a disorder. The general public often perceives extremely flat-faced animals as normal, and as a result continue to purchase them without recognizing the numerous health problems these dogs face. Simply framing extreme brachycephaly as a disorder is a powerful tool to changing this perception.<br />
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The AVMA policy also fails to provide specific guidance to veterinarians. The policy encourages veterinarians to educate themselves, breeders, and owners “on the responsibilities involved with breeding and selecting companion animals.” <a href="https://www.bva.co.uk/news-campaigns-and-policy/policy/companion-animals/brachycephalic-dogs/#action">Compare this to the BVA’s ten-point plan for veterinarians,</a> with guidance on how to interact with owners during pre-purchase examinations, to breeders considering breeding an affected dog, recommendations of specific tests for assessing the health of dogs from brachycephalic breeds, and the provision of resources for veterinarians, such as health surveillance programs for gathering data on the health of brachycephalic animals, a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=86PP6MxrGuE">#BreedToBreathe video,</a> and <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishvets/sets/72157691097413414">infographics for social media.</a> U.S. veterinarians receive little guidance in veterinary school about how to communicate with clients over difficult topics such as these. Providing resources to help them grapple with the problem in practice is key.
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Who are veterinarians afraid of?</h3>
The AVMA’s approach to the brachycephalic welfare problem falls far short of the BVA’s. Why didn’t the AVMA at least pass a stronger policy statement, even if providing real guidance to U.S. veterinarians was not on the table? Who are they afraid of?<br />
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Note that, according to the <a href="https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/Pages/170301c.aspx">news release about the policy statement in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association,</a> complaints about the original proposed policy that identified brachycephaly as a disorder came from clubs of breeders of brachycephalic dogs (the Bulldog Club of America and the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club) and the umbrella club for many U.S. breed-specific clubs, the American Kennel Club (AKC).<br />
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I can’t speak for these clubs, but my understanding is that their concerns are two-fold: first, that if dogs such as bulldogs are bred to have more defined muzzles, the unique character of the bulldog breed will be lost; and second, that if public opinion turns against brachycephalic breeds, these breeds may actually be banned. The second fear is not as far-fetched as you may think, given the existence of a <a href="https://www.thepetitionsite.com/934/065/454/restrict-the-breeding-of-quotbrachycephalicquot-dog-breeds-e.g.-pugs-bulldogs-and-shih-tzus/">petition to ban bulldogs and pugs in the U.K.</a> The U.K. government does have a history of banning dog breeds that it considers “dangerous” and ear cropping and tail docking are banned in England and Wales for welfare reasons. I can’t predict if this current petition might have teeth, but history suggests it might. For what it’s worth, I believe entirely banning flat-faced breeds goes too far.<br />
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However, in no way do I believe that breeding bulldogs, pugs, and other brachycephalic breeds to have a more defined muzzle goes too far! The extreme flatness of these dogs’ faces is a recent phenomenon—look at pictures of French bulldogs from fifty or a hundred years ago and you’ll see <a href="http://pedigreedogsexposed.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-frenchies-that-win-by-nose.html">a dog with a muzzle who still looks uniquely Frenchie</a>. I wager it is in the show ring that a truly flat face—the kind where the muzzle is flat beneath the eyes, almost as flat as a human’s—is prized. The pet owner is much less likely to find dogs with a bit more muzzle unattractive or to feel that they don’t resemble the breed to which they belong.<br />
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The AVMA should take a stronger stance on brachycephalic dogs</h3>
Finding the right wording in position statements like these is difficult, and alienating the very people you want to convince is an ever present danger. However, I believe the AVMA’s stance is unnecessarily watered down. Surely veterinarians can take the position that health problems due to breeding for extreme body shapes are something to work against. It must be possible to spread the word that ultra-flat faces are harmful to dogs, and that moderation in muzzle length won’t destroy the unique characteristics of a beloved breed. But we do have to try harder to get that message out there, and U.S. veterinarians are lacking strong leadership bringing us forward. How can we help to fix these breeds? One step is a new policy from the AVMA, providing real guidance to the veterinarians on the front lines about how to talk to the owners and breeders of brachycephalic dogs. The Veterinarian’s Oath includes a promise to work for the protection of animal health and welfare, and prevention and relief of animal suffering. Extreme flat faces cause life-long suffering in animals who need a longer muzzle in order to breathe properly, and veterinarians have a responsibility to take action to prevent that suffering.<br />
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<a data-slb-active="1" data-slb-asset="606410892" data-slb-internal="0" href="http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/pug-brachycephalic-dog.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #337ab7; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Extreme flat faces cause lifelong suffering. It’s time for the AVMA to take a stronger stance on breeding for flat faces." class="size-full wp-image-1485" height="853" sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" src="https://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/pug-brachycephalic-dog.jpg" srcset="http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/pug-brachycephalic-dog.jpg 1280w, http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/pug-brachycephalic-dog-300x200.jpg 300w, http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/pug-brachycephalic-dog-768x512.jpg 768w, http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/pug-brachycephalic-dog-1024x682.jpg 1024w, http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/pug-brachycephalic-dog-940x626.jpg 940w, http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/pug-brachycephalic-dog-620x413.jpg 620w, http://dog.international/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/pug-brachycephalic-dog-195x130.jpg 195w" style="border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; width: auto;" width="1280" /></a><br />
<div class="wp-caption-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.9rem; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 10px 5px; text-align: center;">
Extreme flat faces cause lifelong suffering. It’s time for the AVMA to take a stronger stance on breeding for flat faces.</div>
</div>
<hr style="background-color: white; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; color: #666666; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 20px; orphans: 2; widows: 2;" />
<h3>
Resources</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/magazine/can-the-bulldog-be-saved.html">Can the Bulldog Be Saved?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/08/02/why-breeding-bulldogs-is-borderline-inhumane/">Why breeding bulldogs is borderline inhumane</a></li>
<li><a href="http://pedigreedogsexposed.blogspot.com/2017/01/fighting-for-air-their-whole-lives.html">Fighting for air their whole lives</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/blog/brachycephaly-its-more-than-just-the-pretty-face">Brachycephaly: it’s more than just the pretty face</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.bva.co.uk/news-campaigns-and-policy/bva-community/bva-blog/stop-normalising-suffering--vets-speaking-out-about-brachys/">Stop normalising suffering: vets speaking out about brachys</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.bva.co.uk/news-campaigns-and-policy/bva-community/bva-blog/i-really-like-your-beans-but%E2%80%A6/">I really like your beans but…</a> (Brachycephalics in advertising)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.vet.cam.ac.uk/boas">The Cambridge BOAS research group</a></li>
</ul>
<br />
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The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-16253066394361104412017-05-26T14:06:00.000-04:002018-03-17T12:12:14.338-04:00On showing dogs in conformation shows<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_9">
I’ve
been cogitating recently on the statement I’ve seen in a few places
that “it makes sense to show a dog in conformation shows before breeding
it to make sure a judge has a chance to say that the dog has good or
bad conformation.” I just posted this to a breed-specific mailing list
in response to that statement, and am curious what y’all think of it:<br />
<br />
<i>
I think the real question is whether a judge selects a dog based on
healthy structure or based on something else. I suspect it varies by
judge, but the concern is that, given a ring of dogs all with good
structure, the dog with some other flashy attribute will win (thick
coat, particular head or ear shape). Then people start breeding for that
attribute in order to win. Then that attribute gets valued over good
structure. I think the fear that this will happen in any given breed is
valid, given what we've seen in other breeds - take the show German
Shepherd with its very sloping backline or the tastefully plump show
Labrador.</i><br />
<br />
<i>What it comes down to for me is, what is the best way
to evaluate healthy structure in a dog before breeding? I don’t think
conformation shows are that way. I suggest a) making sure the dog is
able to work well and without pain b) giving the dog time to mature to
see if it has any structural unsoundness and c) having the dog examined
by a veterinary orthopedic specialist. There are plenty of structural
issues that are just not going to show up on physical exam (whether
performed by vet or by judge), which is why (a) and (b) are so
important.</i><br />
<br />
Thoughts from the blogosphere?<br />
<i> </i><br />
Bonus dog photo because every post needs a photo (of a purebred dog out of parents who were never shown in coformation shows, and a mixed breed whose parents were probably not selected with any sort of care at all):<br />
<br />
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The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-53617294619661893812017-04-16T11:24:00.002-04:002017-04-16T11:24:52.804-04:00The vegetables of geneticsToday I’m working on revisions for my <a href="http://iaabc.org/courses/dna-basic-blueprint">DNA class at IAABC</a>, which starts Monday, April 24. This will be the second time I’ve offered this class; it’s the first in a series of four classes (which you can take in any order, so this one isn’t required for later classes). And the auditor’s price is still super low to encourage people to take it just for fun.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2oGFzDEJ4_M/WPOMLU1ThnI/AAAAAAAAAhw/9E6O-eeqJS4Ev6zv1eXXDIK_dc0mTITQwCLcB/s1600/dna-1889086_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2oGFzDEJ4_M/WPOMLU1ThnI/AAAAAAAAAhw/9E6O-eeqJS4Ev6zv1eXXDIK_dc0mTITQwCLcB/s200/dna-1889086_640.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I’m never sure how to promote this class. Will it offer you direct insights into how to modify behavior? It won’t, of course. It will tell you what DNA is and what genes are and how at a low level DNA differences affect traits. For how to apply this stuff to behavior consulting, you should refer to the fourth class in the series, which is about behavioral genetics.<br />
<br />
But while the fourth class has that stuff we all want to know in it, to really understand how all that stuff works you really want to take this first class. Sometimes I think of this one as the vegetables class: you have to eat your veggies before you can have your dessert. But I hope it’s not just because I’m a genetics geek that I do think this class has some fascinating material in its own right. It’s not overcooked frozen peas, it’s heirloom tomatoes from the farmer's market. In later classes I’ll talk about the weird ways our DNA can affect our personalities, and in order to deeply understand what I mean, you want to know how DNA is put together and how the body reads the genetic code and how things can go wrong.<br />
<br />
And by the way, I make sure all of my classes have something in them for everyone, so if you are a genetics geek too, come take the class for the optional resources, which have loads of articles with new research findings in which we (surprise!) realize DNA is more complicated than we at first thought, and getting more complicated the closer we look at it.<br />
<br />
And if anyone can help me explain how to market this funny little class and explain to people that this really is stuff it’s good to know (for behavior consulting but also just for life in the middle of the Genomics Revolution) then please tell me!<br />
<br />The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-40026834009776363612017-03-26T13:22:00.001-04:002017-03-26T13:22:37.277-04:00Puppies and Pointing<br />
<article>Why are some dogs better at paying attention to humans,
particularly human gestures like pointing, than others? We know genetics
has something to do with it, because some breeds (like border collies)
are a lot better at responding to human signals than others like <a href="http://deargddog.com/2016/11/pre-the-holidays/">beagles</a>. To better understand the biology driving differences in ability to respond to human signals, researchers at the <a href="https://familydogproject.elte.hu/">Family Dog Project</a>
compared dogs and wolves as they grew up. They knew that wolves can
respond to human signals, but that they are better at this when they
have been extensively socialized, whereas dogs can understand human
signals with much less socialization. But at what age do these
differences manifest?<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Family Dog Project" height="153" src="https://familydogproject.elte.hu/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/IMG_7706-e1462199716936-960x460.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from the Family Dog Project</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The researchers used a pointing test to measure ability to respond to
human signals. This test has been used on dogs before: if a dog is
given a choice of two bowls, only one of which contains food, and he
can't see where the food is, will he follow a person's pointing gesture
to pick the right bowl? (The bowl with no food in it is rubbed with food
so the dogs can't use their noses to get the right answer.) This test
has been done in the past with dogs versus human children (<a href="https://phys.org/news/2017-02-dogs-toddlers-similarities-social-intelligence.html">dogs do about the same as two year old kids</a>
on this task), dogs versus wolves (dogs generally outperform wolves,
unless the wolves have a whole lot of experience with humans), and dogs
versus chimpanzees, our closest primate relatives (dogs outperform
chimps!).<br />
<br />
For this study, the researchers compared hand-reared (i.e., well
socialized) 8-week old dog and wolf puppies; 4 month old dog and wolf
puppies; and adult dogs and wolves. They tested the animals' abilities
both with "proximal" pointing (putting their finger right up to the
bowl) and "distal" pointing (standing farther away and indicating the
bowl) - except that, since very young puppies and wolves don't see well,
they didn't test the distal pointing in the 8 week old babies. What
they found:<br />
<ul>
<li>
The 8 week old puppies (dogs and wolves) had similar ability to
follow the proximal pointing gesture with the researcher's finger right
next to the bowl. However, 6 of the 13 wolf puppies tested had to be
removed from the trial because they couldn't be held on the start line
or didn't go choose a bowl. Of the 9 puppies, only one was removed for
similar reasons.<br />
</li>
<li>
4 month old dogs did better at distal pointing (with the researcher
standing away from the bowl and indicating it) than 4 month old wolves
did. In fact, the 4 month old wolves seemed to do no better than chance.<br />
</li>
<li>
Adult dogs and wolves did equally well with both proximal and distal pointing.<br />
</li>
<li>At all three ages, wolves needed more time to establish eye contact with the pointing human than dogs did.</li>
</ul>
So all the animals at all ages were able to understand a pointing
gesture when the human put their hand right up to the bowl. But pointing
from farther away was harder, as you'd expect. Very young puppies (dog
and wolf) were not tested on that task. At four months, wolves hadn't
figured it out yet, but dogs had. As adults, the wolves had caught up.
These were highly socialized adult wolves with a great deal of
experience with humans.<br />
<br />
It's interesting that dogs seem to develop the ability to understand a
more difficult human pointing gesture at a younger age than wolves -
and particularly interesting that this may have to do with the fact that
wolves are not as eager to look us in the eye as dogs are. (If you
don't look at someone, it's hard to follow their pointing gesture!)<br />
<br />
So what does this mean for differences in different dog breeds? Do
different dog breeds have differences in the timing of their cognitive
development? Does this affect how much attention they pay to us, and
perhaps how easy they are to train? We don't know, but I think this is one direction dog research needs to go.<br />
<br />
(By the way, check out the original paper - it's open access, and has some great videos of dog and wolf puppies at the end!)<br />
<br />
Gácsi, Márta, et al. "<a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0006584">Explaining dog wolf differences in utilizing human pointing gestures</a>: selection for synergistic shifts in the development of some social skills." PLoS One 4.8 (2009): e6584.<br />
<br />
<i>This post was originally published with slight modifications at <a href="https://darwinsdogs.org/?pg=blog&id=12">Darwin's Dogs</a>.</i> </article>The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-74966623980672902332017-02-14T14:06:00.000-05:002017-02-14T14:10:10.424-05:00Puppies and dog breedsThanks to Julie Wurth for a <a href="http://www.news-gazette.com/blogs/there-yet/2017-02/what-expect-when-youre-expecting-new-puppy.html">great interview</a> with me and <a href="https://thesciencedog.wordpress.com/">Linda Case of The Science Dog</a> in our local paper, the News-Gazette.<br />
<br />
Since the article was about getting a new puppy and provided pointers to this blog I figured it was a good idea to suggest some old posts to any new readers. As always, for a constant stream of interesting dog science articles <i>not </i>written by me, follow me on <a href="http://twitter.com/dogzombieblog">Twitter</a> or like <a href="http://facebook.com/dogzombieblog/">my page on Facebook</a>!<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://dogzombie.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-replacement-dog-how-veterinarian.html">The Replacement Dog: how a veterinarian / dog rescuer / geneticist searched for the right puppy</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://dogzombie.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-history-of-dog-breeds-victorians.html">The history of dog breeds: Victorians, genetics, and the importance of diversity</a></li>
</ul>
<br />
And an update on Dash - he is turning into a fine young man. Here he is from a few days ago.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UV1IY3KNJfk/WKNU6hjp2LI/AAAAAAAAAhQ/gHbaw-73ho0qVSOtzCEz9OIKFmaEUwhsgCLcB/s1600/DashSixMonths-170210.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UV1IY3KNJfk/WKNU6hjp2LI/AAAAAAAAAhQ/gHbaw-73ho0qVSOtzCEz9OIKFmaEUwhsgCLcB/s320/DashSixMonths-170210.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dashiell, aged six months</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-90458873788157411292016-11-11T16:09:00.002-05:002016-11-11T16:09:52.988-05:00Training the dog in front of meIt's been hard to train two dogs at once. My old dog, Jack, never minded when I trained my young dog, Jenny. He was happy to chill out on the couch. But Jenny is different now that she's the old dog and Dash is the young dog: she wants to be part of whatever I'm doing, especially if it involves food. If I baby-gate her in another room while I train the puppy (and puppies take a lot of training) then she will sit right up against the gate and obsess. (Up side: gates have become much less scary to her recently, even though they are just as likely as they always were to fall down and go boom.) When I try to put her upstairs, she goes reluctantly and is ramped up and anxious when I let her out.<br />
<br />
I read "<a href="http://eileenanddogs.com/2013/04/11/training-two-dogs/">A Secret to Training Two Dogs</a>" by Eileen And Dogs, and determined that I would use mat training. I'd been told time and again that I should be mat training Jenny anyways: take the mat to the scary new place, and you have a safe haven for your shy dog. (Jenny is still extremely shy, though hugely improved from when I got her.)<br />
<br />
I got a <a href="https://www.cleanrun.com/index.cfm/product/1638/mutt-mats.htm">Mutt Matt</a> for Dash and pulled a tiny old area rug out of storage for Jenny. Dash picked up the mat concept quickly: you lie down on it and get treats. In fact I now have trouble prying him off of it to put it away.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SWXYorKdH7E/WCYmqTb_fkI/AAAAAAAAAgM/iOlmPg8Q7oIh7HlVRDMrJuXby8daR56WQCLcB/s1600/dash-mat-161110.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SWXYorKdH7E/WCYmqTb_fkI/AAAAAAAAAgM/iOlmPg8Q7oIh7HlVRDMrJuXby8daR56WQCLcB/s320/dash-mat-161110.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dash on his mat.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
But Jenny couldn't seem to do it. She eventually learned to lie down on her mat, but didn't like to stay on it. I tried asking them both to stay on their mats while I walked around them: Dash was glued to his, but Jenny would come off of hers and wander away.<br />
<br />
This morning I unrolled Dash's mat and asked him to go to it, and Jenny went and hopped on the couch. The light bulb went off: this is my dog who refused to touch foot to ground unless absolutely necessary for the first months I had her. She lived on couches. I had to train her to get off of them. I used target practice with a yogurt lid that I moved farther and farther from the couch; she came up with the solution of picking the lid up and putting it back on the couch so she could keep getting rewarded without having to leave her safe space. The first time I saw her sleeping on the floor, <i>four years</i> after coming to live with me, I almost cried from joy. She even already has a "go to your couch" command which is quite strong.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZfmkB8wAcPA/WCYyQbHHC-I/AAAAAAAAAgk/YibmaOiqOX0BgJrQaW2EpR4In95VopuNQCLcB/s1600/wherestheclicker-trimmed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZfmkB8wAcPA/WCYyQbHHC-I/AAAAAAAAAgk/YibmaOiqOX0BgJrQaW2EpR4In95VopuNQCLcB/s320/wherestheclicker-trimmed.jpg" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jenny training on her couch, shortly after she came to live with me.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
So I trained Dash while she was on her couch, and then trained her while Dash was on his mat, and it was lovely. Both dogs were stuck in place until I asked them to get off. I was able to train something fun (a tunnel) working one dog at a time (with frequent treats thrown to the other).<br />
<br />
The moral, as Denise Fenzi tells us in her excellent blog post, is to <a href="https://denisefenzi.com/2016/01/21/train-the-dog-in-front-of-you/">Train the Dog in Front of You</a>. See what works for her, not what you think should work for all dogs.<br />
<br />
Which leaves me to figure out how I will take a couch with me to the next strange place I need to bring Jenny...<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LTbpWFBferk/WCYygyNFmnI/AAAAAAAAAgo/V6wHvFD-XK8TOu0WYespwomL02RUS-BqgCLcB/s1600/jenny140120.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LTbpWFBferk/WCYygyNFmnI/AAAAAAAAAgo/V6wHvFD-XK8TOu0WYespwomL02RUS-BqgCLcB/s320/jenny140120.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jenny on her couch two years ago.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-87994362583892614422016-10-13T15:58:00.000-04:002016-10-13T15:58:17.963-04:00The Replacement Dog: how a veterinarian / dog rescuer / geneticist searched for the right puppyThe death of my fifteen year old golden retriever Jack wasn’t just about my loss. It was about finding someone else to do his job, which for the last five years had been serving as a security blanket for Jenny, my shy collie mix. Jenny depended on him to tell her when people did not intend to eat her, to run interference with well-meaning strangers, and to demonstrate calm at the veterinary clinic. We could not remain a single dog household for long.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dGLsst2GpMY/V_rmt2MQxgI/AAAAAAAAAfM/3A0BLF3lZ78g_FkDLfKaHApe-u5rUkIRwCLcB/s1600/jackandjennyheads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dGLsst2GpMY/V_rmt2MQxgI/AAAAAAAAAfM/3A0BLF3lZ78g_FkDLfKaHApe-u5rUkIRwCLcB/s320/jackandjennyheads.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jack and Jenny</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I adopted Jenny at age 13 months. She had never been off the farm where she was born until her surrender to a shelter, and the world proved much larger than she expected. Jenny has excellent dog skills but a crippling anxiety upon encountering new people or environments. I adopted her knowing about her idiosyncrasies because I wanted to study anxiety in dogs, and wanted to experience it first hand. And so I have; living with Jenny has informed my understanding of anxiety in a way that reading about it never could have.<br />
<br />
In my research, studying the way genetics and environment interact to affect the risk of anxiety has brought me back time and again to the importance of early environment: <i>in utero</i> environment, early maternal care, and puppy socialization. How the brain changes during and after the socialization period turns out to be a huge part of my research interests, and to learn from the source as I had done with Jenny, I would need a puppy, and a very young one at that. I’ve only adopted adult dogs in the past, but now is an excellent time for me to raise a puppy, as I work from home many days. <br />
<br />
A puppy who would grow up to fit in well with Jenny had to fit a specific mold: confident around people and other dogs, but not so pushy as to annoy her. Someone she could play with. Someone male, because I didn’t want to deal with girl dog politics for the next ten years.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A9sUrGUsA9E/V__kViEeP-I/AAAAAAAAAfk/VzR7pVWLtdoj7nRtNQUuT8O_HqQQ6yYcgCLcB/s1600/jennyonbed2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A9sUrGUsA9E/V__kViEeP-I/AAAAAAAAAfk/VzR7pVWLtdoj7nRtNQUuT8O_HqQQ6yYcgCLcB/s320/jennyonbed2015.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jenny</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Now, I have counseled others that adopting a very young mixed breed puppy from a shelter or rescue group means you really have no idea at all who you have just brought home, and that there is no shame in purchasing a dog from a responsible breeder. However, in practice, I balked at purchasing a dog. I completed an intense shelter medicine internship at the University of Florida several years ago, and I still feel part of that community. As the distance between the present day and that experience increases, I find myself holding tighter to those connections and looking for new ways to remain a part of sheltering. Purchasing a dog who was not going to be in want of a home felt a bit like eating humanely raised meat: I tell myself it’s okay for others to do it, but when I actually try to do it myself, some part of me rebels.<br />
<br />
Yet as I looked at puppies from local rescue groups, in short order I found myself in a panic: could I really adopt a puppy whose genetics were completely unknown, whose parents I most likely couldn’t meet, and who had almost certainly had some early life trauma before ending up in foster care? Genetics and early experience are both critical in shaping the adult personality, and while I hope I could handle dealing with another shy dog, Jenny needed someone dependable, not another neurotic failing to keep it together when the mailman drove past.<br />
<br />
When I started to seriously consider purchasing a dog, I had to decide on a breed. I love retriever-collie mixes: ideally the best of both worlds, retriever-social and collie-smart. But finding a responsible breeder of retriever-collie mixes seemed a tall order. Border collies are too intense for me. Australian shepherds have their tails docked so short. And I wanted to find a breed that is not recognized by the AKC, that is absolutely not bred for looks, that possibly even has open stud books to keep the genetics pool large and diverse.<br />
<br />
I found the <a href="http://www.scotchcollie.org/">Scotch Collie</a> and the <a href="http://www.englishshepherd.org/">English Shepherd</a>. The Scotch Collie club had an open stud book policy going for it (good for them!). The English Shepherd club had a closed stud book policy (open it up, guys!) but it had been open relatively recently, the breed isn’t recognized by the AKC, and the dogs can’t be shown in conformation classes. The breed is a versatile working breed. Both breeds have lovely breed standards that accept a wide range of phenotypes (for example, 30-80 lbs in adult weight - a wide range!), which in itself tells the story of breeding for temperament and not looks. <br />
<br />
In the end, I chose the English Shepherd based on the fact that there are more of them around, so it was easier to find a litter promptly. Waiting a few months would mean potty training a puppy in January in the Midwest, an experience I’ll leave to others.<br />
<br />
The English Shepherd club maintained a <a href="http://www.englishshepherd.org/puppies-for-sale.html">list of breeders who had available puppies</a>, with lots of information about the parents. It’s a well designed resource, and I link to it not to encourage others to run out and get an ES puppy (they are smart and high energy and not for everyone) but to provide an example of what kinds of information should be provided about available litters.<br />
<br />
I screened the descriptions of parents: I discarded those who weighed more than 70 lbs, as managing Jack in his dotage had been hard on my back. I discarded those who were described as <span class="_Tgc">“</span>protective<span class="_Tgc">”</span> or <span class="_Tgc">“</span>taking some time to warm up to people.<span class="_Tgc">”</span> I checked that the parents had passed the relevant genetic tests (for this breed, tests for several eye diseases and hip dysplasia). Then I looked at the remaining breeders’ websites.<br />
<br />
The breeders I liked talked about how they raised the puppies: giving them lots of positive experiences. They talked about what they did with the puppies’ parents - agility, nosework, herding. They often had long applications for potential owners to fill out, which asked all the questions they should: How will you exercise this dog? Do you have a fenced yard? What will you do if he is destructive?<br />
<br />
I found a litter in Virginia with a male who sounded perfect: confident, social, and by the way athletic. My husband and I stuffed Jenny into the car and drove 9.5 hours to pick up our boy. He cost, by the way, probably more than twice what a rescue puppy would have cost, but I have paid for knowing that he is clear of some genetic diseases for which he might have been at risk, and for knowing that he was in the uterus of a calm, happy mother; raised with a litter who had plenty of high quality food and safe places; and had extensive early socialization (including the Early Neurological Stimulation and Early Scent Stimulation programs). He has proven, in his first week and a half with us, to be social and sweet, willing to settle down when asked so long as he is given plenty of exercise and mental stimulation, and terrifyingly smart. He and Jenny are already wrestling for hours daily, laying the foundation for what I trust will be a long friendship.<br />
<br />
That is the story of how we found Dashiell.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-csZLKDRAFMI/V__ln5bJTbI/AAAAAAAAAfs/4sJM0jwvfogz26GtRrg0cBJVx3kxqds-ACLcB/s1600/20161005_073302.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-csZLKDRAFMI/V__ln5bJTbI/AAAAAAAAAfs/4sJM0jwvfogz26GtRrg0cBJVx3kxqds-ACLcB/s320/20161005_073302.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dashiell</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-34325309840451615092016-09-17T13:49:00.000-04:002016-09-17T13:49:34.492-04:00Corrigendum on a recent tame fox article<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_h">
I came across a new article on the Russian tame foxes today, <a href="http://phys.org/news/2016-09-russian-geneticist-dog-domestication-foxes.html">Russian geneticist repeats dog domestication with foxes in just fifty years</a>. It's a nice summary of the Farm Fox Experiment, although I’m not sure why I've seen two stories covering the tame foxes this week — there’s nothing new going on with them! Why two stories in such a short time period?<br />
</div>
<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_h">
This article does have a few mistakes in it:</div>
<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_h">
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_h">
[Belyaev] and his intern, Lyudmila Trut, wandered around Russia searching for foxes to start their experiment. Foxes were chosen based on their behavior in the presence of humans. Those that showed slightly more tolerance of humans were brought back to their Novosibirsk lab to serve as the start group. </div>
</blockquote>
<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_h">
<div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
and his intern,
Lyudmila Trut, wandered around Russia searching for foxes to start their
experiment. Foxes were chosen based on their behavior in the presence
of humans. Those that showed slightly more tolerance of humans were
brought back to their Novosibirsk lab to serve as the start group.<br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2016-09-russian-geneticist-dog-domestication-foxes.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2016-09-russian-geneticist-dog-domestication-foxes.html#jCp</a><div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
and his intern,
Lyudmila Trut, wandered around Russia searching for foxes to start their
experiment. Foxes were chosen based on their behavior in the presence
of humans. Those that showed slightly more tolerance of humans were
brought back to their Novosibirsk lab to serve as the start group.<br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2016-09-russian-geneticist-dog-domestication-foxes.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2016-09-russian-geneticist-dog-domestication-foxes.html#j</a></div>
</div>
<div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
and his intern,
Lyudmila Trut, wandered around Russia searching for foxes to start their
experiment. Foxes were chosen based on their behavior in the presence
of humans. Those that showed slightly more tolerance of humans were
brought back to their Novosibirsk lab to serve as the start group.<br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2016-09-russian-geneticist-dog-domestication-foxes.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2016-09-russian-geneticist-dog-domestication-foxes.html#jCp</a></div>
</div>
<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_h">
</div>
<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_h">
The original foxes were imported
from Canadian fox farms, not chosen from around Russia as this article says. Also, the very first foxes selected for the founding population of the study
were not chosen based on their behavior. A control group was
kept, so the researchers (of which there are more than two) didn’t want
that first set to be more friendly than the average farm fox.</div>
<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_h">
</div>
<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_h">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[The changes were] not all on the outside—their adrenal glands became more active, resulting in higher levels of serotonin in their brains, which is known to mute aggressive behavior.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_h">
The tame foxes’ adrenal glands became <i>less</i> active, and secreted less <i>cortisol,</i> a hormone which is associated with stress. Additionally, they have been shown to have higher levels of serotonin in their brains (not secreted by their adrenals, however), which is associated with less aggressive behavior, though I think saying that serotonin “mutes” aggressive behavior might be going a bit far. We don’t fully understand the link between serotonin and aggression.</div>
<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_h">
<br /></div>
<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_h">
I do like seeing the Farm Fox Experiment covered in the popular press, though. It’s such a great way of explaining how selection works and such a fascinating demonstration of how quickly selection can have an effect!</div>
<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_h">
<br /></div>
<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_h">
<br />
<div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
And it was not all on
the outside—their adrenal glands became more active, resulting in higher
levels of serotonin in their brains, which is known to mute aggressive
behavior.<br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2016-09-russian-geneticist-dog-domestication-foxes.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2016-09-russian-geneticist-dog-domestication-foxes.html#jCp</a>More importantly, the adrenals don’t control serotonin levels in the
brain. They release cortisol into the blood stream. Tame foxes show
reduced levels of both cortisol and serotonin compared to control foxes,
but those are two different things.</div>
<br />
</div>
The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-14568574621420267322016-09-09T12:22:00.002-04:002016-09-09T12:30:51.757-04:00Where did dogs come from?<style type="text/css">h2 { margin-top: 0.17in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }h2.western { font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; }h2.cjk { font-family: "DejaVu Sans"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; }h2.ctl { font-family: "Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 14pt; font-style: italic; }h1 { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }h1.western { font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; }h1.cjk { font-family: "DejaVu Sans"; font-size: 16pt; }h1.ctl { font-family: "Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 16pt; }p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }p.western { font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }p.cjk { font-family: "DejaVu Sans"; font-size: 12pt; }p.ctl { font-family: "Lohit Hindi"; font-size: 12pt; }a:link { }</style>
<br />
<b>What we know and what we don’t know about dog
domestication</b><br />
<br />
<i>Want to learn more about dog domestication? It's not too late to sign up for my online class, <a href="http://iaabc.org/courses/population-genetics">From Domestication to Inbreeding</a>!</i><br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Dogs evolved from
wolves. We’ve been certain of that for several decades by now. But
there remain a lot of questions: exactly when did dogs first appear?
Did they join their fate with humans when we were hunter-gatherers,
or were they attracted to us after the Agricultural Revolution,
because we had begun to farm? Which group of ancient wolves did they
come from? Knowing more about where dogs began will help us
understand modern dogs and their behavior better. Academics are
currently conducting a very polite debate about these questions in
journals, waged over the course of years.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Gray_Wolf_Maya.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Gray_Wolf_Maya.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grey Wolf</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Why is the problem such
a hard one? Until recently, the tools that we were using to get
information about ancient canids were very limited. Our first tool
was archaeology: digging up the remains of ancient canids, trying to
figure out if the animal was more dog-like or more wolf-like, and
then estimating the age of the find. It’s not entirely
straightforward to tell an ancient dog from an ancient wolf using
only bones, especially when many archaeological finds are incomplete.
The important parts of the skeleton for this work are the teeth and
skull: dog muzzles are shorter than wolf muzzles, so that their teeth
are more crowded into the available space, and the last premolar and
first molar are smaller in dogs than in wolves. Some interesting
finds have suggested that dog-like canids first appeared between
15,000-30,0000 years ago — that’s just before agriculture was
first developed.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
A well publicized 1997
paper from Vilà et al. popularized a new tool for dating dog
domestication: analysis of mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA. Mitochondrial
DNA is the DNA inside the mitochochondria in our cells. Mitochondria
used to be free-living organisms; they began to live symbiotically in
the cells of multi-cellular organisms billions of years ago, but
still have their own separate DNA. Mitochondrial DNA gains new
mutations at a regular rate, and this can be used as a molecular
clock: compare the mtDNA of two different species, and by counting
the differences, you can estimate how many years ago the ancestral
species split into the two new species.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The problem is that
this molecular clock isn’t very reliable or very precise: we don’t
really know exactly how fast mtDNA mutates, which makes the clock
hard to calibrate. The 1997 findings suggested that dogs and wolves
separated about 130,000 years ago — an order of magnitude more than
the archaeological estimates suggested! Other mtDNA studies have been
conducted since then, with a variety of results, none of them
conclusive. It turns out that dog and wolf mtDNA divergence is
particularly difficult to analyze because dogs and wolves can and do
still interbreed. My golden retriever may not have a wolf in his
immediate ancestry, but I suspect you don’t have to go back all
that many thousands of years to find one — certainly not all the
way back to the domestication split. And there are quite a few
populations of dogs in the world with much more recent wolf ancestry
than that. This interbreeding really screws up the molecular clock.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In the last few years,
though, the revolution in genomic tools — cheap and efficient
sequencing of complete genomes — has gotten to the point where it’s
affordable to completely sequence the genomes of a number of dogs and
wolves for a study. This is significantly changing the kinds of
things we can learn about how dogs and wolves genetically differ.
Instead of guessing at changes in mtDNA, we can look at the actual
genes that differ between the two species. These new studies have set
the date of dog domestication at 11,000-32,000 years ago, a date
which is similar enough to the archaeological findings to make a lot
of sense.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
We’ve learned a lot
of interesting things from these new sequencing studies beyond just a
more precise date of domestication. A little more than a year ago,
Axelsson et al. found that dogs make more of an enzyme for digesting
starch than wolves do. The enzyme is called amylase, and dogs have
multiple copies of the gene, whereas wolves have only one. These
researchers wondered if this improved ability to digest starch meant
that dogs were domesticated after the appearance of agriculture —
if starch digestion was part of the domestication process. However, a
study published in January 2014 by Freedman et al. dug deeper into
the amylase question and discovered that in fact, not all dogs have
extra amylase genes. Some ancient breeds, like the husky, do not.
Neither does the dingo. These very recent findings suggest that dogs
were in fact domesticated before the Agricultural Revolution, and
that some breeds later developed an improved ability to eat what we
eat, adapting to their new post-domestication diet. You might imagine
that such a change would have been less important to the husky,
living in the cold north as it did, where meat was on offer much more
often than plants.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Freedman et al. also
suggested that dogs didn’t actually evolve from wolves. <i>Wait,
what?</i> It's possible that both dogs and wolves evolved from a
different ancient canid which doesn’t exist any more. Freedman came
to this conclusion using a somewhat complicated genomic analysis
which doesn’t tell us anything about what such a canid would have
been like, but it’s an idea which resonates with reservations I’ve
always had about the “dogs came from wolves” theory. Wolves are
so shy, so hesitant to come near humans, and so focused on making
their living by hunting. The ancestors of dogs seem more likely to
have been scavengers, willing to live close to humans. Maybe some
ancient canid did give rise to both species — the one moving closer
to human civilization and becoming dogs, the other farther away and
becoming wolves. With several studies coming out every year about dog
domestication, we may learn more very soon.</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>For more
information, check out “<a href="http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1004093">How Much Is That in Dog Years? The Adventof Canine Population Genomics</a>,”a recent open-access review article that provided much of the
information in this story.</i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>Note: this story was originally published in the summer 2014 issue of </i>The APDT Chronicle of the Dog.<i> </i></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
Image by Isster17 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0</a>)], via Wikimedia Commons<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>References</b></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Axelsson,
Erik, et al. “The genomic signature of dog domestication reveals
adaptation to a starch-rich diet.” </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Nature</span></i><span style="font-weight: normal;">
495.7441 (2013): 360-364.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Freedman,
Adam H., et al. “Genome sequencing highlights the dynamic early
history of dogs.” </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">PLoS
genetics</span></i><span style="font-weight: normal;"> 10.1 (2014):
e1004016.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Larson,
Greger, and Daniel G. Bradley. “How Much Is That in Dog Years? The
Advent of Canine Population Genomics.” </span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">PLoS
genetics</span></i><span style="font-weight: normal;"> 10.1 (2014):
e1004093.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Vilà,
Carles, et al. “Multiple and ancient origins of the domestic dog.”
</span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Science</span></i><span style="font-weight: normal;">
276.5319 (1997): 1687-1689.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-58825581654388160782016-07-23T16:49:00.000-04:002016-07-23T16:49:09.363-04:00Ruminations of a dog scientist on a 96-well plateI've been doing a lot of bench work in the laboratory lately. This involves filling the tiny little wells on a plate with my ingredients (sample, reagents, primers) and then inserting the plate into a reader. The machine takes the plate up with whirring sounds that always fascinate me. I know there are little robot arms in there moving the plate into place, and I wish I could watch the process. But as I listen to the robot work, I sometimes think: is this the closest I get to living, moving animals now? How did I get here, so separated from fur and behaviors and emotions?<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A96_well_PCR_plate-06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FSrcQeunE0g/V5PU_J0co6I/AAAAAAAAAeU/sLopO0y74nIqtgexN8NHlnoCZ8wYLB78gCLcB/s320/96_well_PCR_plate-06.jpg" title="By Lilly_M [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">96 well PCR plate</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
My long term research goal is to understand the differences in how brains work in dogs who suffer from fear issues compared to resilient dogs who take life's arrows a bit more in stride. I'm doing this by studying gene expression in the brains of foxes who have been bred to be fearless (“tame”) or fearful (and aggressive — those who study them just refer to this line as “aggressive,” though).<br />
<br />
My approach is, at the moment at least, deeply reductionist: what are the differences in gene expression in a few brain regions in these two lines of foxes? In other words, does one group make more of a certain kind of gene than the other? My hope is that I’ll be able to make some conclusions about the differences in function in these brain regions between the two lines of foxes, and that what I find will be relevant to fearful dogs. But I find myself burrowing deeper and deeper into learning about very small parts of the brain, and then very specific functions of those parts to the exclusion of other parts. Currently I’m learning about the pituitary gland — no, wait, just a particular cell type in the pituitary gland, the corticotroph — no, wait, just a particular set of processes of the corticotroph, how it releases one particular hormone into the bloodstream.<br />
<br />
So in my daily work, I do things like take some tissue and extract all the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA">RNA</a> from it (throwing out DNA, proteins, cell structure, all sorts of interesting information — that's not what I'm working on or able to assess at the moment). I use <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction">PCR</a> to extract a tiny piece of RNA from the complete transcriptome (all the RNA from that tissue), throwing out even more information. And then assess the expression level of that RNA, resulting in just one number. One number out of all that information after a day’s work.<br />
<br />
Behavior can’t really be fully understood using this reductionist approach. If I do find a few important gene expression differences in a few small brain regions, they won’t explain the whole story of why an animal has a fearful personality. They’ll be a tiny, tiny piece of a complicated network of interactions involving genetics and life experience. But in order to get at that tapestry we have to first be able to visualize the threads that make it up. So here I am, in the trenches, doing that.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PvPgKS-d1e4/V5PWkZlOP-I/AAAAAAAAAeg/nVBpwh1esG4-DmwDUJWsZHg033bAAUF7gCLcB/s1600/squirrel-slayer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PvPgKS-d1e4/V5PWkZlOP-I/AAAAAAAAAeg/nVBpwh1esG4-DmwDUJWsZHg033bAAUF7gCLcB/s320/squirrel-slayer.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A recovering shy dog.</td></tr>
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<br />The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-88907079533098832012016-05-08T19:39:00.001-04:002016-05-08T19:39:11.188-04:00Geek version of the fat mutant labs FAQIn the face of overwhelming demand (three people thought it sounded like a good idea), here is the geek version of the <a href="http://dogzombie.blogspot.com/2016/05/fat-mutant-labradors-faq.html">fat mutant labs FAQ</a>, the nitty gritty about the study findings.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What gene is mutated and what does it do?</h3>
The gene itself is one of these weird ones that actually codes for multiple proteins. (Basic genetics usually assumes that one gene codes for one protein, of which there may be a few different but similar versions.) The gene in this study is <i>POMC,</i> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proopiomelanocortin">proopiomelanocortin</a>. The “pro” means that it codes for a protein which doesn't itself do anything until it gets cut up some more. The rest of the long name describes the things it gets cut into:<br />
<ul>
<li><i>opio:</i> short for opioid. Opiods are potent pain relievers; the classic opioid is morphine. If you or your pet has had surgery, you’ve probably used an opioid for pain relief during or after it. (There is currently a big <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/10/1/9433099/opioid-painkiller-heroin-epidemic">scandal about drug companies and opioids</a> in the news.) In this case, two of the products snipped out of <i>POMC</i> are endogenous (made by the body) opiods, <a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%92-endorphin" title="Β-endorphin">β-endorphin</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Met-enkephalin" title="Met-enkephalin">enkephalin</a>. They are feel-good substances.</li>
<li><i>melano:</i> refers to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanocyte-stimulating_hormone" title="Melanocyte-stimulating hormone">melanocyte stimulating hormone</a> (MSH). MSH has a bunch of different effects in different tissues, but most importantly has been associated in humans with effects in “controlling appetite,” our authors tell us.</li>
<li><i>cortin: </i>the coolest thing this gene makes is ACTH, which is released into the bloodstream to tell the adrenals (down by the kidneys) to release the “stress hormone,” cortisol. This is the system I study! But it is, it turns out, not really relevant to this particular study. </li>
</ul>
<h3>
What was the mutation?</h3>
It was a 14 base pair deletion. The gene itself is thousands of base pairs long; in the dogs with the obesity-associated allele, they were missing just 14 base pairs. But remember, DNA bases (nucleotides) are translated into proteins in sets of 3. (Three nucleotides codes for one amino acid; a string of amino acids makes up a protein.) If you remove a chunk of bases that is not a number divisible by 3, suddenly the translation machinery that reads the DNA and produces proteins gets completely off track. It is just reading in sets of three. Now it’s off by one or two and suddenly it's creating entirely different amino acids, so the resulting protein is completely different after this point. This is called a “missense” mutation, because a protein is still generated, it's just made with different amino acids.<br />
<br />
For example, the sentence “mad man sat” becomes gibberish if you mess up the spaces and make “adm ans at” after removing just one letter. <br />
<br />
So that’s what happened here: the first chunk of the POMC protein in these dogs with this allele is fine, but the second chunk is gibberish from the body’s point of view. Since the POMC protein gets cut up into smaller proteins with actual functions, this means that some of its products were fine, and some were not. The article has a lovely illustration of the situation, highlighting in red the products that are affected by the mutation.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MOUpUvR4z3A/Vy_LsAG11vI/AAAAAAAAAd4/IM29dAc2Tbgcu5qJh1crLuc69H1O_mW0gCLcB/s1600/pomc-deletion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MOUpUvR4z3A/Vy_LsAG11vI/AAAAAAAAAd4/IM29dAc2Tbgcu5qJh1crLuc69H1O_mW0gCLcB/s320/pomc-deletion.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from Raffan et al., 2016</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br />
The products that are broken in dogs with this allele are β-MSH and β-endorphin. The first, you will remember, has been associated with control of appetite in humans. (And it’s apparently somewhat different in rodents, so it’s hard to test its function in laboratory mice, so it was exciting to find it in dogs so we can learn more about obesity!) The second is one of the endogenous opioids, a feel good substance.<br />
<br />
<h3>
How do these broken proteins cause obesity?</h3>
We don’t know. The authors write:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
The mechanism by which reduced β-MSH and β-endorphin due to the mutation
causes behavioral and weight phenotypes remains to be precisely
elucidated... However, studies of humans with POMC mutations resulting in aberrant
forms of β-MSH ... have suggested that β-MSH is important in controlling appetite and
obesity development in man, with hyperphagia notable in patients with
both mutations... The role of β-endorphin in regulating appetite, satiety, and energy
balance is less well understood, but it has been proposed to underlie
oro-sensory reward in high-need states or when the stimulus is
especially valuable<span id="bbib17"></span>.
However, mice selectively lacking β-endorphin are hyperphagic and
obese, suggesting that the loss of both neuropeptides could contribute,
in combination, to the phenotype seen in dogs carrying this frameshift <em>POMC</em> mutation.</blockquote>
So, we don’t know, but we know MSH problems make people more likely to eat a lot, and β-endorphin may have to do with the feeling of reward after eating.<br />
<br />
<h3>
How did they find the gene?</h3>
They guessed! They had a small number of genes that they thought might have to do with obesity, and they checked them out in some labs. They looked for different versions of the genes in different dogs, and then looked for alleles (versions) which were more common in fat labs than not fat labs. They found one hit — this particular allele of <i>POMC</i>.<br />
<br />
This is known as a “candidate gene” approach: when you pick a gene that you think might have an effect in a particular phenotype and test it out specifically. It has historically been less productive than “hypothesis free” approaches in which you basically ask about all the genes you possibly can if they have something to do with the phenotype. This is because our guesses about which genes affect which phenotypes turn out to be wrong so often. So these authors got lucky to get a result!<br />
<br />
<h3>
Was their sample size big enough?</h3>
I hadn’t considered getting into the statistics (I hate statistics) but some people actually asked about them. Yeah, I like their numbers for a candidate gene approach. To get reliable results using some other methods they would have needed more dogs, but when you’re just asking questions about a few genes, it’s fine to have a smaller number (in this case, 310).<br />
<br />
I’d be more concerned about where their dogs came from. They tell us:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Labrador retriever samples were collected from dogs from a large
assistance dog breeding colony (n = 81) or that were pet dogs from the
UK (n = 310). Pet dogs were recruited either after their owners
volunteered in response to an email from the UK Kennel Club sent to over
15,000 Labrador retriever owners, or via participating veterinary
practices.</blockquote>
This sounds reasonable enough. But if I wanted to play devil’s advocate, I’d suggest that they were biasing themselves to a particular kind of owner, the kind of owner who responds to UK Kennel Club email. These owners may be more likely to breed and/or show labs, and therefore these labs may have a slightly different genetic background than some other group of labs. For example, perhaps some famous show lab sire who sired thousands of puppies happened to have this mutation. And then perhaps labs that are shown are more likely to be fat than labs who are not (because UK judges actually reward obesity in show labs — don’t get me started on that). If that happened, it would throw off the statistics and you might see a spurious correlation between the mutation and obesity.<br />
<br />
That’s just me spinning tales. I think their methods are pretty standard; it’s hard to recruit pet dogs to these kinds of studies and they did it the usual way. It's quite interesting that they found a mutation which is so clear in its loss of function of the protein. If the correlation is indeed spurious, subsequent studies using different populations of labs should show us.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Any more questions?</h3>
What else do you guys want to know? I tend to focus on stuff in studies that <i>I</i> find interesting. What do <i>you</i> find interesting?<br />
<br />
<h3>
Learn more genetics</h3>
As before, I will shamelessly take the opportunity to plug my <a href="http://iaabc.org/courses/heredity">upcoming genetics class</a>. It is not too late to sign up; it starts Monday, May 9, but you can sign up several days late.<br />
<br />
Raffan, Eleanor, et al. "<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413116301632">A Deletion in the Canine POMC Gene Is Associated with Weight and Appetite in Obesity-Prone Labrador Retriever Dogs</a>." <i>Cell Metabolism</i> (2016).<br />
The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-37930824077689728992016-05-07T15:56:00.000-04:002016-05-07T19:23:15.242-04:00Fat mutant labradors FAQThe study about a mutation associated with obesity in labrador retrievers has received massive news coverage for a dog genetics article (and you can see how happy the researchers are about it at <a href="https://twitter.com/GOdogsProject">@GODogsProject</a>). So what does it mean for your dog?<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vhqhcq6o0jo/Vy5HICWyAnI/AAAAAAAAAdk/DdXQ0ZS6KuMmIxFNSajsZNUbUb4MD3T2wCLcB/s1600/1-s2.0-S1550413116301632-fx1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vhqhcq6o0jo/Vy5HICWyAnI/AAAAAAAAAdk/DdXQ0ZS6KuMmIxFNSajsZNUbUb4MD3T2wCLcB/s320/1-s2.0-S1550413116301632-fx1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: Raffan et al., 2016</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Do all labs have this mutation?</b> No. They tested 383 UK labs and found that of 383 Labrador retrievers from the UK, 78% of them didn't have this mutation at all; 20% had one copy of the mutation (were heterozygous); and 2% had two copies (the maximum number you can have; they were homozygous). They tested some US labs as well and found similar frequencies.</li>
<li><b>Do any other breeds have this mutation? </b>Yes, it was also found in flat-coated retrievers, a breed closely related to the lab. The researchers tested 38 other breeds, testing 8-55 dogs per breed. (The <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/MiamiMultiMediaURL/1-s2.0-S1550413116301632/1-s2.0-S1550413116301632-mmc1.pdf/273298/html/S1550413116301632/6a84089fb3c5f8759f56d76c38d7eb29/mmc1.pdf">list of breeds they tested</a> is provided.) They tested 55 golden retrievers, another closely related breed to the lab, without finding this mutation. That doesn’t mean it’s not out there, but it does suggest that if it is present in other breeds, it’s much less common in them than in labs.</li>
<li><b>If my dog has this mutation, does it mean my dog is doomed to be fat?</b> No. They did show an association between the mutation and weight: dogs who have one copy of the mutation are, on average, 1.90 kg (4.18 lbs) heavier than dogs who have no copies. Dogs who have two copies are on average 3.8 kg heavier than dogs who have no copies. (This is in labs, but the numbers in flatties are very similar.) But that’s an average. It’s not all about genetics. Some dogs who have this mutation won’t put on that much extra weight, and some dogs who have it will put on more. The gene they studied will interact with other genes to affect your dog’s eating habits and metabolism, and of course in weight gain as in behavior, the environment (food type, food amount, exercise) is a huge factor.</li>
<li><b>If my dog is fat, does it mean my dog probably has this mutation?</b> Not necessarily. There are lots of reasons to get fat.</li>
<li><b>Is this “the gene” for weight gain?</b> In dogs as in humans, multiple genes control weight. This is just one, albeit one with a pretty impressive effect in this breed. And again, remember the importance of environmental factors!</li>
<li><b>How does this mutation cause weight gain?</b> It may have to do with causing dogs to want to eat more (certainly a trait we’ve all seen in labs!). It may also change their metabolism directly, affecting how they turn calories into energy.</li>
<li><b>Where did the mutation come from?</b> Both labs and flat-coats are descended from the St. John’s water dog, a breed which is no longer around. The researchers have reason to believe that the mutation dates back to that breed.</li>
<li><b>Does this mutation make labs easier to train?</b> Possibly. The researchers tested a population of labs who are used as breeding stock for assistance dogs, and found that many more of them carried the mutation than in the general population: 23% had zero copies, 64% had one copy, and 12% had two copies. Additional genetic analysis suggested that these dogs are being actively selected for this mutation (unbeknownst to the people who are selecting them!). This suggests that something about this mutation makes dogs better at assistance work — perhaps making them more food motivated and easier to train.</li>
<li><b>Does this mutation make flat-coats fat, too?</b> It does, and yet flatties aren’t known for obesity the way labs are. It’s a bit of a head scratcher.</li>
<li><b>What's the big deal? Didn’t we already know that labs are food-obsessed mutants?</b> I know, right?</li>
</ul>
Raffan, Eleanor, et al. "<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413116301632">A Deletion in the Canine POMC Gene Is Associated with Weight and Appetite in Obesity-Prone Labrador Retriever Dogs.</a>" <i>Cell Metabolism</i> (2016). It’s open access and, as modern genetics papers go, not that hard a read. Check it out!<br />
<br />
Want to know more about dogs and genetics? <a href="http://iaabc.org/courses/heredity">I have a class on it starting Monday, May 9</a>! We will learn concepts like homozygosity and heterozygosity, and I will be happy to discuss this study in more depth.The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-78195285512999869522016-05-05T13:40:00.000-04:002016-05-05T13:40:40.447-04:00Dogs and hugs FAQ<div dir="ltr">
Stanley Coren, well known and respected author on dog cognition, recently published a blog post about <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201604/the-data-says-dont-hug-the-dog">dogs not enjoying hugs</a>. Now that I have been asked to weigh in on his post by my father ("that can't be true!"), my lab mate ("Jessica will have some useful insights about this!"), and multiple dog park friends, I feel compelled to spread my wisdom across the internet for the benefit of all, whether they want it or not.</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/styles/image-article_inline_full/public/field_blog_entry_images/Hug%20scoring%202%20Humane%20Society%20of%20Greater%20Rochester.jpg?itok=_AxyDIZD" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://cdn.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/styles/image-article_inline_full/public/field_blog_entry_images/Hug%20scoring%202%20Humane%20Society%20of%20Greater%20Rochester.jpg?itok=_AxyDIZD" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: The Data Says "Don't Hug the Dog!", Stanley Coren, Psychology Today </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr">
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<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<ol>
<li>Does your dog enjoy being petted by you? Almost certainly.</li>
<li>Does your dog enjoy being grabbed and squeezed? Probably not.</li>
<li>Do any dogs enjoy being grabbed and squeezed? I am sure there are some. I know some dogs who enjoy all interactions with humans up to and including getting whacked up side the head (I live with one). But as a species generalization, I believe they mostly don't.</li>
<li>Should you hug random dogs when you meet them? Absolutely not. But you knew that already, right?</li>
<li>Should you hug your own dog? Sure. I do it to my dogs sometimes. Just be aware that you are doing it for your own enjoyment, not theirs. My dogs tolerate the occasional squoze. I tolerate being punched in the butt when I get home from work.</li>
<li><i>How can it be</i> that dogs, who love us so much, don't enjoy hugs, which we enjoy so much? Well, note that primates really love pressing our tummies against each other, but canids don't (except when they are initiating sex or displaying poor manners). They display affection other ways: licking you in the face, sitting next to you, leaning on you. With someone who moves at the same pace they do, you sometimes see them walking or running shoulder to shoulder. I would love to hear from people about what they think their dogs do instead of hugging.</li>
<li>Was Coren's study a good study? It wasn't actually a study, and Coren didn't say it was; in his blog post, he refers to it as data. This data set was pretty interesting and it was nice of him to share it with us. It would be even nicer if someone did a study using similar approaches, but with a control group, maybe having the person scoring the dog body language blinded to the group the dog is in (editing out the human so you can't see the hug?), and published it in a peer reviewed journal. Oh, and while I'm asking, make it an open access journal, please.</li>
<li>Where can I learn more about dogs and hugs? In my mind the best resource is Dr. Patricia McConnell's coverage in her classic book, <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/119723.The_Other_End_of_the_Leash">The Other End of the Leash</a>. </i>Which is a must-read for oh so many reasons. </li>
</ol>
The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-75585170198285027952016-04-23T14:22:00.000-04:002016-04-23T14:25:43.942-04:00From the genetics of dog breeds to stress and reproductionThe other morning I was talking to my husband in bed in an attempt to help him wake up.<br />
<br />
Me: So I ran into our friend who walks those three goldens separately yesterday and we had a nice conversation. She said she’d read my blog and had a dog genetics question for me.<br />
<br />
Him: mmmppphh
<br />
<br />
Me: She said she’d heard that 1% of dog genes account for all the differences between breeds and asked me if it was true. I pointed out that 1% of 20,000 is still a lot of genes, and also explained that it's really hard to use statistics like that to describe genomic differences, because you can measure those differences in so many different ways.
<br />
<br />
Him: Did you tell her that humans and chips are 98% similar genetically?
<br />
<br />
Me: Yes I did.
<br />
<br />
Him: But I’ve been seeing that for at least 10, maybe 20 years. Is it still true?
<br />
<br />
I consulted the internet on my phone.
<br />
<br />
Me: Let's see... The <a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics">Smithsonian Institute says we're 1.2% different</a> from them. I think I'll skip this link to the Institute for Creation Research -- is that really the second hit on “human chimp genetic similarity”?! Ah, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolutionary_genetics">Wikipedia gives more information</a>: “The alignable sequences within genomes of humans and chimpanzees differ
by about 35 million single-nucleotide substitutions. Additionally about
3% of the complete genomes differ by deletions, insertions and
duplications. Since mutation rate is relatively constant, roughly one half of these changes occurred in the human lineage.” Well, that’s not true.<br />
<br />
Him: What?<br />
<br />
Me: Mutation rate isn’t constant.<br />
<br />
Him: It’s not?<br />
<br />
Me: Well it is closer to constant in specific areas, like parts of the mitochondrial DNA, which we like to use as clocks. But over the whole genome, which is what they're talking about here, no. Different areas evolve at different rates. There are hotspots that go faster. And then the whole species might change faster when its environment suddenly changes. Like if you're in a lovely sunny valley and you're well adapted to it and then suddenly an Ice Age starts and your valley fills with ice and you suddenly have intense selection pressure to change your coat length and thickness and your diet and things like that. The stress itself can change your mutation rate.<br />
<br />
Him: Stress can’t change your mutation rate! How would that even work? If a female is stressed, it’s too late, her eggs are already made.<br />
<br />
Me: Her grandkids then? Or only sperm have more mutations? Hmm, that’s good point.<br />
<br />
I consult the internet again. I find and discard an article about yeast evolving more quickly under stressful conditions. Yeast don't make eggs or sperm as part of their reproductive process.<br />
<br />
Me: Here you go. Flies. Close enough to mammals for you? <a href="http://genetics.thetech.org/original_news/news78">Stress does cause flies to have offspring with more mutations</a>. It makes sense because if you’re stressed, it means you're probably not well adapted to your environment, so you should do the random shuffle with your kids’ genetics in the hopes that something, anything, different will give them a better shot. Mostly they’ll be <i>worse</i> off, but at that point it’s worth if it a few are better off and can pass on those genes.<br />
<br />
Him: But how does it work with female flies having already made their eggs before they’re stressed?<br />
<br />
Me: I dunno... Hang on... Here we are. OK, so the researchers mutated the males, their sperm.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The reason the researchers mutated the males has to do with how DNA
is fixed in male and female fruit flies. There is almost no DNA repair
in sperm. But the egg can repair DNA in any sperm that fertilizes it.<br />
<br />
So the researchers were basically asking how much of the mutated DNA
from the male could slip through the repair processes in the egg. The
answer was that eggs from stressed females let a lot more mutations
through.<br />
<br />
Why would stressed female eggs not fix DNA as well? Probably because
fixing DNA perfectly costs lots of energy. And these stressed females
may not have had enough energy to spare.<br />
<br />
There are two different kinds of DNA repair out there. The one that
fixes the DNA perfectly costs a lot of energy. The other kind gets rid
of any gross problems but leaves errors behind. This costs less energy
but leads to more mutations.<br />
<br />
The idea is that stressed females can't afford to use the perfect DNA
repair system. So they use the other one. Their kids survive but they
have more mutations.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://genetics.thetech.org/original_news/news78">—Stanford at the Tech, Understanding Genetics</a></blockquote>
Me: Oh crap now I’m late to take Jack to physical therapy.<br />
<br />
...Kind of makes you wonder about puppies conceived in puppy mills or animals conceived in hoarding situations, doesn’t it? Might they have more mutations than animals conceived in less stressful environments? The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-14010072263677142152016-03-27T16:01:00.001-04:002016-03-27T16:01:53.459-04:00Science liveblogging: vasopressin in the stress response<div class="storify"><iframe src="//storify.com/dogzombieblog/getting-started/embed?border=false" width="100%" height="750" frameborder="no" allowtransparency="true"></iframe><script src="//storify.com/dogzombieblog/getting-started.js?border=false"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/dogzombieblog/getting-started" target="_blank">View the story "Science liveblogging: vasopressin in the stress response" on Storify</a>]</noscript></div>
The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-18987137793258388052016-03-19T19:12:00.000-04:002016-03-19T19:12:19.762-04:00Why are puppy vaccination schedules so crazy?Next week I'm giving on a webinar about puppy vaccine schedules. I'm aiming the webinar at people who have to explain to puppy owners why the crazy schedule, why they can't go to the dog park even though they have all the vaccines they need at this point, why they should socialize <i>but</i> be cautious... We will start with a whirlwind tour of the immune system to give you
guys a good grounding to understand why puppy vaccines have to be given
every 3-4 weeks. There will be scary parvo stories and photos of cute puppies and cute immune cells and fun biology facts and suggestions on what to do about that vet who thinks socialization isn't all that important. It will be a blast, you should come and ask me lots of questions!<br />
<br />
When: Wednesday, March 23, 8-9pm ET<br />
Where: <a href="http://petprofessionalguild.com/event-2186316">sign up with the Pet Professional Guild</a><br />
CEUs: Yes, 1!<br />
<br />
Questions about whether this webinar will be helpful for you? Ask me here or on Twitter (@dogzombieblog).<br />
<table align="center">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vYd7FDBSPcg/Vu3bQxPKPZI/AAAAAAAAAcM/uyxuMA9YUWcIxv73Ow-uE2XeKb4Zj3xrQ/s1600/puppy-1149426_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vYd7FDBSPcg/Vu3bQxPKPZI/AAAAAAAAAcM/uyxuMA9YUWcIxv73Ow-uE2XeKb4Zj3xrQ/s200/puppy-1149426_640.jpg" width="200" /></a></td>
<td><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C0GBTnadLwE/Vu3bidj2ibI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/y9Bl4-JtKqgBHg8kddYSlH0XQglQFygsQ/s1600/SEM_Lymphocyte.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C0GBTnadLwE/Vu3bidj2ibI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/y9Bl4-JtKqgBHg8kddYSlH0XQglQFygsQ/s200/SEM_Lymphocyte.jpg" width="200" /></a></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-65994065750852727312016-02-07T14:39:00.000-05:002016-02-07T14:39:45.666-05:00Being the one who remembers: humane housing in shelters<div dir="ltr">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P-LKUzkbKr0/VrdrekZfEXI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/f5_A3YKyj-M/s1600/domestic-cat-726989_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P-LKUzkbKr0/VrdrekZfEXI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/f5_A3YKyj-M/s320/domestic-cat-726989_640.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A cat who is clearly <i>not</i> in a shelter.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Last night I wrote the first draft of a document on appropriate housing for shelter animals for IAABC’s new shelter division. Before getting into the nitty gritty details, I wrote as part of the general overview:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div dir="ltr">
Housing for any
shelter animal should be clean and safe: easy to sanitize; no sharp
edges that could injure the animal; no gaps or broken latches that
could allow the animal to escape. Animals should not be housed in
temporary enclosures like airplane crates for more than a few hours
while longer term housing is located.
</div>
</blockquote>
<div dir="ltr">
I wondered: <i>Is this too basic to even cover? Will readers stop reading the document at this point, thinking it’s worthless?</i> <br />
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
But then I remembered the story of a cat I encountered at a shelter during my internship. I was working in the kitten house, a small house dedicated to raising kittens during The Season. The cages were mostly roomy enough for moms with their litters; smaller cages were reserved for litters of orphan kittens. But one small cage had an elderly adult cat in it.
</div>
<div dir="ltr"><br />This cage was just too small for this cat. Now, some shelters keep all their cats in cages like this. But the thing was, this was a really excellent shelter. They did a great job of providing their cats with roomy housing. And their vet knew the importance of good housing and advocated for it, and moreover had enough authority to make it happen (sadly, a bit of a rarity in many shelters). So what was going on here? </div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br />
I asked. Turns out, the cat had been adopted by a staff member but had proven to have behavoral issues that made it difficult for her to live in a home. So she had come back to the shelter. She also had a disease or two which made her expensive to keep and difficult to adopt. But the shelter wasn’t willing to euthanize her, so they put her in a spare cage in the kitten house and planned to figure out the situation later. And hadn’t figured it out yet, because in a shelter, there’s always some more pressing problem that has to be figured out <i>today</i>.<br />
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
What it took for this cat to get good housing was for someone to notice and make her a priority. We moved her into the bathroom for a few days so she could have more legroom, and she hung out with me in the guest bedroom at night. I found a roomy wire crate intended for litters of kittens and we set that up for her for her evenings long term, and during the days she got to hang out on the desk of the kitten house manager.<br />
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br />And that is often the job of the person at a shelter who works on animal behavior and welfare. Not training. Not making plans for Kong programs. Not fighting to change whole banks of cat cages out for something better. But noticing one single animal who got forgotten in an airline crate in a corner. Being the advocate for the little things. Being the one who remembers. </div>
The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-39814083145925115272016-01-24T21:49:00.000-05:002016-01-24T21:49:52.832-05:00Dog parks: tools to be used for good or evilDog parks can be valuable ways to exercise and socialize your dog. They can also be dangerous places where dogs can get hurt. And so we ask ourselves: are dog parks a good thing or a bad thing? I argue that they are neither. Like retractable leashes, they are just a tool that can be used well or badly.<br />
<h3>
Park design</h3>
The design of a dog park can have a lot to do with how well it functions. I think the size of the park is incredibly important. At my local park, we have a <i>lot </i>of space. And I use this space with my dogs. If there is a group of dogs that my dogs aren’t getting along well with, and I see trouble brewing, I move on to a different part of the park. In a small park, this wouldn't be possible.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K3VifL0DbAA/VqVnu7QeaZI/AAAAAAAAAa8/JhZ5v_WLcaQ/s1600/20160123_124030.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K3VifL0DbAA/VqVnu7QeaZI/AAAAAAAAAa8/JhZ5v_WLcaQ/s400/20160123_124030.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jenny at my fabulous local park</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
My local park also has a smaller area, separately fenced. It’s a great place to take a smaller dog when the park is full of big dogs, or to take a dog who needs a cooling down period after he's been acting like a bully. I don’t use this space much with my dogs, but it’s extremely helpful for a friend of mine who’s trying to teach her six month old to restrain his enthusiasm around other dogs by giving him time outs when he fails to control himself appropriately.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Park timing</h3>
I don’t go to the park when it’s crowded. Of course, it’s crowded at the times that are the most convenient for the most people: late afternoon, weekends, when the weather is lovely. I go in the mornings during the week. I lead a lifestyle which makes that possible (though I have to push back at work to protect that time). If you can only go to the park when it’s crowded, it might not be worth going at all. Tempers run high when dogs are packed in together with no real room to get away.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Dog management</h3>
This is the important one for me: I am always alert and managing my dogs. I keep an eye on them. One of them can have a short temper with other dogs, and I keep her moving, away from groups. If I see her meeting another dog, I am watching closely for her to get tense, and if I don't think it's going well, I call her away <i>before </i>something goes wrong.<br />
<br />
This kind of management is hard for a lot of owners who don’t understand dog body language well. For this reason, I’ve founded a group at my local park with the goal of (among other things) providing educational material at the park to help owners understand how to identify and avoid problems before they start. Not everyone will be interested in this material, and that’s why it’s also important to me to attend a large park during low occupancy times.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Stuff happens</h3>
My dogs have been attacked at the park. One of my dogs has also been attacked while I was walking him on leash on a sidewalk. And once he got away from me and was almost hit by a car. That’s life. Is it more dangerous at the park than on a leash on the sidewalk? Possibly, though I’d love to see evidence one way or the other. Is it more dangerous to a young dog to fail to get his crazies out on leash, and then be at risk of being surrendered by a frustrated owner? Again, I can’t say, but there are risks to any choices about how we manage our dogs.<br />
<br />
At the park, there are no cars, no cats, no children, no bicycles, no terrifying joggers just begging to be bitten. One of my park friends walked her dog on leash until he bit a roller blader who passed too close. Without the park, she would be unable to exercise her dog safely. My shy dog Jenny has made canine and human friends at the park that she is unable to make in situations in which she's restrained. She has made incredible gains in confidence. That has come at a risk, but to me, with a lot of careful management of the dog park environment, at the right park, with these dogs, it’s worth it.<br />
<br />The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-37311631352932462682016-01-14T21:52:00.003-05:002016-01-16T14:18:48.816-05:00Too many pairs: DNA, chromatin, and chromosomesSome facts:<br />
<ul>
<li>Molecules of DNA are double-stranded, each strand a perfect complementary copy of the other.</li>
<li>Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes.</li>
<li>Chromosomes are made of DNA.</li>
<li>We have two copies of each gene.</li>
</ul>
Where do these two copies of each gene come from — the complementary DNA? Or the pairs of chromosomes? In fact, what is the relationship between DNA and chromosomes? These questions have proven thorny for students in the past, so I'll try here to describe the two different ways in which genetic information is duplicated in a cell.<br />
<br />
<h3>
1. Complementary copies of DNA strands</h3>
Molecules of DNA duplicate the information they carry. Each base in a DNA strand is bonded to its complement on the opposite strand: A bonds to T, C bonds to G. It’s like a backup mechanism: if something happens to one part of the strand, the other half is there with the complement of the information. So that’s the first way in which genetic information is paired. And the important part about this pairing is that the pairs are exact complements of each other, like mirror images: the information is duplicated precisely and does not vary.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hCvZ-SAqWHk/VphUDmS4fzI/AAAAAAAAAZk/La1g7I8HSEs/s1600/dnacartoon.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="95" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hCvZ-SAqWHk/VphUDmS4fzI/AAAAAAAAAZk/La1g7I8HSEs/s320/dnacartoon.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Part of a DNA strand, demonstrating complementary bases in matching colors</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This double-stranded molecule of DNA, then, is wrapped up tightly around proteins called histones, and this set of spools of DNA and histones all together is a material called chromatin.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8UfelKM5ydI/VphU8ytMUkI/AAAAAAAAAZs/9r99smzDXcU/s1600/chromatin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="201" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8UfelKM5ydI/VphU8ytMUkI/AAAAAAAAAZs/9r99smzDXcU/s320/chromatin.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chromatin: light blue/green strands of DNA wrapped around bright blue histones.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
2. Two copies of each chromosome </h3>
Chromosomes are made out of chromatin. In a lot of the pictures of chromosomes in which you can see the chromatin that makes it up, the chromatin looks sort of like yarn woven into a sweater. That’s a reasonable way to think of chromosomes: big structures (big enough that we can see them with a not-too-powerful microscope) made from this yarn-like chromatin.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-J4a38oxCrUc/VphWJRhovyI/AAAAAAAAAZ0/ljDWrCS-k4s/s1600/Chromosome-upright.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-J4a38oxCrUc/VphWJRhovyI/AAAAAAAAAZ0/ljDWrCS-k4s/s1600/Chromosome-upright.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cartoon of chromosome made of yarn-like chromatin. (Image by Magnus Manske at Wikipedia.)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A particular gene is always on a particular chromosome in a given
species. For example, the gene for oxytocin, OXT, is always on chromosome 24 in
dogs and chromosome 20 in humans. So your chromosomes are very orderly, each one containing a specific set of genes.<br />
<br />
Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Dogs have 39 pairs. In fact, Wikipedia has a whole page devoted to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organisms_by_chromosome_count">number of pairs of chromosomes</a> in different species. We think of chromosomes as looking like big X. The X is actually the two separate chromosomes in a pair, stuck together during the process of cell division. Usually those two arms of the X are separate in the cell.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_IB-PxCmKME/VphXrAmzkAI/AAAAAAAAAaA/NxnyUxZNDMo/s1600/Single_and_double_chromosomes.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_IB-PxCmKME/VphXrAmzkAI/AAAAAAAAAaA/NxnyUxZNDMo/s1600/Single_and_double_chromosomes.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by JWSchmidt at Wikipedia</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
In a pair of chromosomes, one chromosome is made of chromatin from one (double) strand of DNA and proteins, which you got from your mother; and the other chromosome is made of chromatin from another (double) strand of DNA and proteins, which you got from your father. So you have, for example, two copies of chromosome 20, one from your mother and one from your father.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-81MTvzs_7vA/VphYwy4N1pI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/1rx-pONC2nU/s1600/220px-Spectralkaryotype98-300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-81MTvzs_7vA/VphYwy4N1pI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/1rx-pONC2nU/s1600/220px-Spectralkaryotype98-300.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Human chromosomes: 23 pairs.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
These pairs of chromosomes are the second way in which your genetic information is paired. But this is very different from the exact copy pairing of strands of DNA. Your version of the OXT gene on the chromosome you got from your mother may be slightly different from your version of the OXT gene on the chromosome you got from your father. Where her version had a G-C, his version may have an A-T. (Or it may be just the same.)<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pLd8lgbBKlk/Vpk611hhYOI/AAAAAAAAAao/wTTFa1DMmbw/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-01-15%2Bat%2B12.30.10%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="103" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pLd8lgbBKlk/Vpk611hhYOI/AAAAAAAAAao/wTTFa1DMmbw/s400/Screen%2BShot%2B2016-01-15%2Bat%2B12.30.10%2BPM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">DNA differences on two different copies of the same chromosome (see the difference highlighted in blue).</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So we have two versions of each gene, one on each chromosome in a matched pair. For a particular gene, we may have two identical copies (in which case we are “homozygous” for that gene) or we may have two different versions (in which case we are “heterozygous” for that gene).<br />
<br />
So, yes, we essentially have <i>four</i> instances of each gene in each cell. That’s four instances, but a maximum of <i>two</i> versions of the gene (the doubled instances on a double strand of DNA are always identical complements; it’s only when you compare instances between chromosomes that you may see differences).<br />
<br />
In the minds of geneticists, it’s the two versions in the pair of chromosomes which really count. That’s the pair that could differ, after all. And that’s why you'll hear that we have “two” copies of each gene, even though the gene is paired both in the DNA and again between chromosomes.The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5134993821545562205.post-67988888732755153572016-01-13T20:36:00.000-05:002016-01-13T20:36:47.126-05:00Science for the people<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hdgCswqDHAg/Vpb6atX0S7I/AAAAAAAAAZQ/uvFjVNYlBD8/s1600/science-1018806_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="113" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hdgCswqDHAg/Vpb6atX0S7I/AAAAAAAAAZQ/uvFjVNYlBD8/s400/science-1018806_640.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
One of my students in the online genetics class I’m teaching commented to me that it was a little sad that we were marketing the class as “not too difficult.” Science is only as hard as you make it, she said. It shouldn’t be something scary.<br />
<br />
It shouldn’t be, but for a lot of people it is. As a freshman in college I figured I should take college level biology as an elective so that I had a solid groundwork in how life works. (I was a medieval studies major.) But talking to my pre-med friends convinced me otherwise. Science classes were for people who were all in: they were only for scientists, not dabblers. They were hard work. <i>Lots</i> of hard work.<br />
<br />
When I decided to go back to school to become a veterinarian, I took that introductory biology course, and a lot of other science courses. I learned a lot of information I’d never use again (and have since forgotten), particularly in chemistry and physics. I wasn’t eligible to learn the things I wanted to learn until I’d jumped through these hoops.<br />
<br />
I hope that these days, with online classes, the tide is starting to turn. I don’t think people should have to take a year of basic biology in order to learn a little about genetics. I don’t think people should have to learn about photosynthesis and the difference between monocots and dicots (those are groups of plants, by the way) in order to learn neurobiology. It is perfectly possible to design science courses for people who are not pre-med or pre-vet undergraduates. But sometimes, when I’m telling people about this great new genetics course I'm teaching and they look slightly alarmed, I'm saddened by the history of how we've traditionally taught science courses.<br />
<br />
More than thirty people signed up for <a href="http://iaabc.org/courses/dna-basic-blueprint">the genetics course</a>. I hope I’ve designed something that’s worth their while.<br />
<br />The Dog Zombiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00242246213147009685noreply@blogger.com0