{ Christopher Williams, 3 White (DG’s Mr. Postman) Fourth Race, Phoenix Greyhound Park, Phoenix, Arizona, August 22, 1994 }

If you’re looking for the latest in home exercise equipment, you may want to consider a dog.

Several studies now show that dogs can be powerful motivators to get people moving. Not only are dog owners more likely to take regular walks, but new research shows that dog walkers are more active over all than people who don’t have dogs.

One study even found that older people are more likely to take regular walks if the walking companion is canine rather than human.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

photo { Brandon Mitchell }

{ Our results show that dog and cat owners use these sites quite differently. While dog owners focus on their relationship with their pets and looking for advice, cat owners tend to use the site more to build community. Both results show that these pet social networks are already being used to help support the human–animal bond online. | First Monday | full story }

Shanghai is to extend the one-child policy to man’s best friend after tens of thousands of people complained of being bitten last year – and to prevent dog mess spoiling the country’s showcase business city.

The rule has already been imposed in several other Chinese cities, but Shanghai’s size – it has a population of more than 20 million – has made the presence of thousands of dogs more problematic. Dogs bigger than 3ft will be banned from the centre of the city and so-called “attack dogs”, including bulldogs, will be banned completely.

The ruling is the latest instance of uneasy relationships between man’s best friend and the Chinese authorities. During the Communist era of Mao Zedong, pets were frowned upon as a middle-class affectation and government opponents were condemned as capitalist running dogs. But China’s growing openness, combined with its rising affluence, means that pets are making a comeback, and there are around 100 million pet dogs in China. However, from May, a one-dog policy will be introduced in Shanghai and more than 600,000 unlicensed dogs will be declared illegal – and killed because of fears of rabies.

{ The Independent | Continue reading }

photo { Alvaro Sanchez-Montañes }

related { The special bond that often forms between people and both domesticated and wild animals may be, paradoxically, part of what makes us human. | Seed | full story }

{ Chaser, a border collie who lives in Spartanburg, S.C., has the largest vocabulary of any known dog. She knows 1,022 nouns, a record that displays unexpected depths of the canine mind and may help explain how children acquire language. | NY Times | full story }

{ Thobias Faldt }

{ Tony Stamolis }

{ John de Lima }

{ Me Company }

{ Our brief was to create an Annual Review that could also work as a promotional brochure }

{ Morad Bouchakour }

{ Physicists Discover Universal “Wet-Dog Shake” Rule | How fast should a wet dog rotate its body to dry its fur? Today we have an answer thanks to the pioneering work of physicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. But more than that, their work generates an interesting new conundrum about the nature of shaken fur dynamics. | The Physics arXiv Blog | full story }

{ Gilles Deleuze, Difference and repetition }

{ How Chinese owners turn their pets into exotic wildlife in new craze | more }

{ Ray Sawhill }

{ A dog that has been seen at nearly every demonstration in Athens over the last two years has turned up again during the recent protests against new austerity measures. He always seems to side with the protesters, whatever the dispute. | AFP/The Guardian | more l Thanks Willie }

Frank settled down in the Valley and he hung his wild years on a nail that he drove through his wife’s forehead. He sold used office furniture out there on San Fernando Road and assumed a 30,000 dollar loan at fifteen and a quarter percent put a down payment on a little two bedroom place. His wife was a spent piece of used jet trash. Made good Bloody Mary’s. Kept her mouth shut most of the time. Had a little Chihuahua named Carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind. They had a thoroughly modern kitchen. Self-cleaning oven, the whole bit. Frank drove a little sedan. They were so happy. One night Frank was on his way home from work. He stopped at the liquor store. Picked up a couple of Mickey’s Big Mouths. Drank ‘em in the car, and with a Shell station he got a gallon of gas in a can. Drove home, doused everything in the house. Torched it. Parked across the street laughing. Watching it burn. All Halloween orange and chimney red.
Then Frank put on a top forty station. Got on the Hollywood Freeway and headed North. Never could stand that dog.

{ Tom Waits, Frank’s Wild Years lyrics | Tom Waits on David Letterman Show, 1983 }

photo { nsw/d }

{ Amin Torres }

{ In 1999 ‘Prozac’ – the trade name of fluoxetine – was named on of the ‘Products of the century’ by Fortune magazine. In 2007 Eli Lilly began to market fluoxetine for dogs under the name Reconcile.  In this incarnation it’s chewable, tastes like beef and is intended to treat something called ‘canine separation anxiety’. | Frontier Psychiatrist | Continue reading }

It’s said that dogs sniff each other as a kind of canine equivalent to the human handshake; an otherwise meaningless “greeting ceremony” which reportedly started in medieval times as a way of checking the other guy for weapons.

But is it really just a social gesture? Does it have an adaptive purpose? (…)

We know that at least 33% of a dog’s brain is devoted to processing olfactory information whle in humans that figure is closer to about 5%.

Marc Bekoff wrote that “[a dog’s nose] can distinguish T-shirts worn by identical twins, follow odor trails, and are 10,000 times more sensitive than humans to certain odors.” (…) So if a dog’s nose can pick up information from yellow snow, from the fear that hangs in the air after another dog leaves an examination room, from scents left behind by the shoes of an escaped prisoner, or from lifting its nostrils to the wind, why would a dog need to stick his nose directly into another dog’s snout, genitals, and nether regions to garner social information? Couldn’t he do that at a “safer” distance? (…)

Dog trainer and natural philosopher Kevin Behan says it’s a way of grounding themselves. “Anytime there is … any change, any stimulus or stimulation, and especially when stressed, dogs need to smell something.”

{ PsychologyToday | Continue reading }

related { Answers about exploring New York with your dog. }