Some dogs see the doughnut; others see the hole!

According to the Guardian scientists seem to have found that some dogs have a more gloomy outlook on life than others. This finding comes from a study by Bristol University researchers into how dogs behave when separated from their owners.

Dogs that were generally calm when left alone were also found to have a "dog bowl half full" attitude to life, while those that barked, relieved themselves and destroyed furniture appeared to be more pessimistic, the study concluded. The more anxiously a dog behaved on being parted from its owner, the more gloomy its outlook appeared to be

Michael Mendl, the head of animal welfare and behaviour at the university, and his team studied 24 animals at two dog homes in the UK varying in age and bred.

They began the study by going to a room with each dog in turn and playing for 20 minutes. They returned the next day, but this time left the dog alone for five minutes, during which the scientists recorded the animal's behaviour with a video camera. The footage was used to give each dog an anxiety score.

A day or two later, the dogs were trained to walk over to a food bowl that was full when placed at one end of a room, and empty when placed at the other. When the dogs had learned the difference, the scientists tested the animals' underlying mood by placing bowls in ambiguous positions – in the middle of the room, for example – and noting how quickly each dog went to the bowl.

The dogs that had been most anxious in the earlier test were slowest to approach food bowls placed in or near the middle of the room, suggesting they expected to find the bowl empty. The less anxious dogs ran to the food bowls

Well there you have it. Are there dogs that really think the world is crap, rather than a bowl of cherries? I don’t know. I know that cats do not have the same issues – they know that their servants will provide a full bowl (or else!) and they don’t give a damn about being left alone

A song for Snoopy Doggy Dog?

A Very Silent Night was a Christmas number one in New Zealand and raised nearly £9,000 for the country's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. However, none of the people who bought the record would hear a thing as the CD was recorded at a frequency inaudible to humans but audible to dogs

The makers hope it will be a worldwide hit.

Minutes of silence? Infinitely preferable to Britney Spears in my view...

What the over sexed dog in your life needs?

Randy dogs and legs were made for each other, just like nitro- and glycerine... ! have been fortunate never to have a dog ever seek to use my leg for sexual gratification. Others, of course, may well have suffered this indignity but help is at hand:

A French designer has come up what he describes as the Hotdoll, the first dog sex toy for dogs. The Hotdoll is a plastic playmate specifically shaped so the hips feel like a female dog. And covered with a 1cm-thick gel skin to keep them soft to the touch. They come in black, white, large and small.

Designer Clement Eloy said the Hotdolls are a 'natural way to control a dog's sexual impulses'. He said he came up with the idea after his friend's dog had to make use of a cushion and wondered why they didn't have dolls for dogs.

I had to check the date to see if April Fool’s day was three weeks too late this year! On the other hand I suppose for those dog owners who consider it somehow unacceptable for their dogs to scrabster* their legs then the Hotdoll is just the ticket I suppose....

Source: Metro

*Scrabster: either a town in northern Scotland or the expression used by Douglas Adams in the Meaning of Liff to describe such canine capers

Why a Chihuahua is yay high and a Great Dane is bigger?

Scientists have identified a genetic marker that could explain why dogs have the widest range of body sizes among mammals. Because of selective breeding by humans since they diverged from the wolf over, dogs exhibit a wide range of body types and behaviours. The origin of the genetic diversity between different breeds of dog had been unknown.

Portuguse Water doge (may not always have its arse shaved)

An international team led by researchers from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH),Researchers studied DNA sequences of more than 3,000 dogs from 143 breeds to pinpoint any gene variants that may help explain the size difference. In particular, they looked at Portuguese water dogs, which have the greatest variation in size of any individual breed.

They found that the smallest Portuguese water dogs had a particular piece of DNA sitting in their sequence, next to the gene that codes for the hormone insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1). The IGF1 gene plays an important role in body size for dogs. The "small dog" variant suppresses the activity of the gene, inhibiting growth.

The same sequence of DNA was found in other small breeds such as chihuahuas, toy fox terriers and pomeranians. It was not there in larger breeds such as Irish wolfhounds, St Bernards and great danes, or in wild members of the dog family including wolves and jackals. Researchers believe the mutation happened early in the domestication of wolves and the resulting smaller dogs were selectively bred by humans because they were easier to maintain in crowded villages and cities and easier to transport.

In the pure

Google “pure” and you will get 240 million hits, featuring the word in all of definitions. In the main these hits, I am sure, use the word pure in one of the following contexts: homogeneous; free from impurities; containing nothing extraneous; utter; faultless; chaste and so on and so forth

Far less common is the use of pure in one of its older meanings, one that seems to have fallen into disuse in the 20th Century: pure was used as a noun meaning dog dung. Dog dung was used in the tanning industry and apparently got its name for its cleansing properties.

19th Century social commentator Henry Mayhew had this to say pure and pure finders in his book “London Labour and the London Poor” (I found the online text here).


"The pure finders meet with a ready market for all the dogs'-dung they are able to collect, at the numerous tanyards in Bermondsey, where they sell it by the stable bucket full, and get from 8d. to 10d. per bucket, and sometimes from 1s. to 1s.2d. for it, according to its quality. The 'dry limy–looking sort' fetches the highest price at some yards as it is found to possess more of the alkaline or purifying properties; but others are found to prefer the dark moist quality. Strange as it may appear, the preference for a particular kind has suggested to the finders of Pure the idea of adulterating it to a very considerable extent; this is effected by means of mortar broken away from old walls, and mixed up with the whole mass, which it closely resembles……


...The pure collected is used by leather-dressers and tanners, and more especially by those engaged in the manufacture of morocco and kid leather from the skins of old and young goats…. In the manufacture of moroccos and roans the pure is rubbed by the hands of the workman into the skin he is dressing. This is done to 'purify' the leather, I was told by an intelligent leatherdresser, and from that term the word 'pure' has originated. The dung has astringent as well as highly alkaline, or, to use the expression of my informant, 'scouring,' qualities. When the pure has been rubbed into the flesh and grain of the skin (the 'flesh' being originally the interior, and the 'grain' the exterior part of the cuticle), and the skin, thus purified, has been hung up to be dried, the dung removes, as it were, all such moisture as, if allowed to remain, would tend to make the leather unsound or imperfectly dressed.

The number of pure-finders I heard estimated, by a man well acquainted with the tanning and other departments of the leather trade, at from 200 to 250. The finders, I was informed by the same person, collected about a pail-full a day, clearing 6s. a week in the summer -- 1s. and 1s. 2d. being the charge for a pail-full; in the short days of winter, however, and in bad weather, they could not collect five pail-fulls in a week."


A grim way to make a living in grim times… Still, it doesn’t stop the not wife and myself having a good laugh when we see businesses like Pure Tanning. I hope to God they have sunbeds!