Contrary to popular belief, it was Victorian Era dog breeders who developed most of the “Designer Dogs” we have today. Almost every dog breed we know today was a “Crossbred”, but Breed Associations attitudes were different in those days.

A recent article from Emeritus Professor Michael Worboys traces the origins of most modern breeds.
Modern Irish Wolfhounds are actually Scottish Deerhounds crossed with Great Danes, given that the real Irish Wolfhounds were extinct. The result was then crossed with Tibetan Mastiffs and Boxers to give the “mongrel” that is now recognised as the “purebred” dog we know today.Golden Retrievers are actually an inbreeding of the original mix of yellow coloured Retriever with a Tweed Water Spaniel.

Why is this so possible? Research suggests that creating such massive changes in dog body shape in
such a short time may be a result of the fact that dogs have a relatively small number of genes

compared to some other species – around 19,000 protein coding genes compared with around
47,000 in humans (and cats have around 20,000). That, plus a small generation interval, means that dogs can undergo selective breeding rapidly to produce new body shapes and temperaments.

With the number of dog breeds rising from 27 in 1877, to 80 breeds in 1900, and 339 breeds today, perhaps it’s only a matter of time before Cavoodles become a breed? If so, the Pet Industry had better be ready to provide what their doggy clients need! (more…)

Science have been studying whether dogs can be trained to detect seizures for some time and the results are more surprising than anyone thought.

The results were very clear: All the dogs in the study detected a unique seizure odour and associated it with a response.

The dogs were so accurate, that the scientific measures of sensitivity and specificity were amongst the highest shown to this time for discrimination of diseases.

This constitutes a first proof that, despite the variety of seizures and individual odours, seizures are associated with a unique odour. These results open a large field of research on the odour signature
of seizures. Further studies will aim to look at potential applications in terms of anticipation of seizures and the potential to train Assistance Dogs so the pet industry to help epileptics all over the
world.

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With 3500 unfair dismissal claims between Jan and March 2019, (more…)

From 1 July 2019, if you are selling or giving (more…)

Image from https://www.ato.gov.au/

The ATO is warning businesses in the (more…)