Life in dog years: More pets living longer
When Denice Shaughnessy’s wirehaired dachshund Chanel died last month at the age of 21, she was heralded as the world’s oldest dog, according to Guinness World Records.
Now another old dog, one still living, is vying for that title. Max, a terrier mix, is 26 years old, according to his owner, Janelle Derouen of New Iberia, La., although Guinness has yet to certify his status.
And dogs aren’t the only pets living longer. A Sphynx cat, Granpa Rexs Allen of Austin, Texas, was 34 years old when he finally died in 1998.
Dogs like Chanel and Max and cats like Granpa Rexs Allen are outside the norm, but they may be trailing indicators of an increasingly long pet lifespan. Veterinarians say it’s not unusual for some dogs and cats to reach 15 years or more, and they’re seeing more and more pets do so.
“Just as the average life expectancy for people keeps reaching closer to the century mark, we’ll continue to see the same parallels in our pet population,” says Martha Smith, director of veterinary services at Boston’s Animal Rescue League.
The choices we make for our pets can go a long way in affecting their lifespans, say veterinarians. And so can the pet you pick.
Size matters
If you want your dog to live a long time, choose a small or medium-size breed. Longevity directly correlates to breed size. Large dogs have shorter lifespans than small or medium-size dogs, and toy breeds tend to have the longest lives of all. As for giant breeds such as Newfoundlands, Saint Bernards, Great Danes and Irish wolfhounds? Well, they don’t have a giant-size lifespan.
“The most short-lived breeds are giant breeds. They tend to live to be 6 or 8 years old,” says John Berg, a veterinarian and professor in the department of clinical sciences at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in Grafton, Mass. “Large breeds like shepherds, Labs, goldens probably live 10 to 13 years and the medium and small breeds 12 to 14 years. Mixed breeds in general tend to live a little bit longer than pure breeds.”
It used to be commonly thought that to calculate a dog’s age in human years, you simply multiplied by seven. But you can’t apply that formula to any single dog breed because of the variability in aging between breeds. You can make a pretty good guess, though, many vets say, by figuring that a one-year-old dog is equivalent to a 12-year-old person and a two-year-old dog is equivalent to a 24-year-old person. For every year after that, add four years.
“That formula is probably the most accurate because it does take into account the maturation that happens in the beginning of the dog’s life and then the slowing of the aging in subsequent years,” Smith says.
Cats live a long time, too. It’s not unusual for veterinarians at Tufts to see cats that are 20, Berg says. Breeds such as Siamese and Abyssinians seem to have an edge when it comes to really stretching out that ninth life, but any well-cared-for cat that lives indoors is likely to reach the upper teens and maybe even into the early 20s.
Select for longevity
Pat Santi, who breeds Cardigan Welsh Corgis in Coatesville, Pa., and currently has 32 of the short-legged herding dogs, says her dogs often live to be 18 or 19 years old. The average lifespan for the breed is 12 to 14 years.
Does Santi simply have the magic touch? Not necessarily. She attributes her dogs’ longevity to good genes and good nutrition.
Genetics is undoubtedly a part of the equation.
“To a significant degree, how long an individual dog or cat is likely to live is pre-programmed, just like it no doubt is for people,” Berg says.
With that in mind, some dog breeders are selecting for longevity. The Doberman Pinscher Club of America instituted a longevity program in 1997 to identify and track dogs that reach the age of 10 or more or whose parents reach that age.
“When I started practice a lot of years ago, if I saw a Doberman come in and it was 6 to 9 years old, I might think ‘Well, it won’t be here next year,’ ” says Johnny Hoskins, a veterinarian, internal medicine consultant and pet aging expert in Choudrant, La. “I’m seeing now 14-, 15-, 16-year-old Dobermans.”
If you’re buying a purebred puppy of any size, ask the breeder how long her dogs usually live.
Even some giant breeds are living longer.
“If they don’t have heart problems, it’s possible for the giant breeds to get up to 10, 12, 14 years of age,” Hoskins says.
Don’t super-size me
That’s because breeders and veterinarians now know that large- and giant-breed puppies should be slow to grow. Instead of high-protein puppy food and calcium and phosphorus supplements for bone growth, they advise new owners to start puppies on foods made for growing big dogs or adult dogs, both of which contain lower amounts of protein and mineral supplements than traditional puppy diets. Keeping pups slightly thin and giving them a full two to three years to reach their mature size puts less stress on the skeleton and organs such as the heart.
Studies have shown that slightly underweight dogs live an average of two years longer than overweight dogs.
“These dogs were basically underfed a little bit their whole lives,” Smith says. “They had a lifespan that was considerably longer. I think on average it was two years longer than their heavier counterparts, so staying lean, staying fit, is obviously very important in longevity.”
Pet gerontology expert and veterinarian Richard T. Goldston, in St. Petersburg, Fla., says the improvement is a combination of more responsible pet ownership, a stronger human-animal bond and better veterinary care and pet nutrition.
“If we take 100 dogs, we’re getting a whole lot more of that 100 up into the higher age groups,” he says. “Forty years ago, maybe 30 percent of 60-pound dogs would reach 11 years of age. Now, 60-pound dogs, at least 50 percent are going to live 11 years or a little bit longer.”
Goldston doesn’t see a lot of dogs reach 18 years, but quite a few reach 15, 16 and 17 years. Hoskins, who co-authored “Geriatrics and Gerontology of the Dog and Cat” with Goldston, says we probably are seeing animals live equivalently as long as humans.
“I saw in the AARP magazine that in humans now there are over 100,000 centenarians,” he says. “If we did the same type of numbers, if one could get those, I think we would have about the same percentage of animals that are up there toward 20.”
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33076736/ns/health-pet_health/
350 Dogs Seized in Biggest Dogfighting Raid in U.S. History
350 dogs seized in dogfighting raids in 5 states
ST. LOUIS - As many as 350 dogs were seized and about 30 people arrested during raids in five states Wednesday that animal welfare groups are calling the largest simultaneous raid of dogfighting operations in the U.S.
U.S. attorneys in four of the states announced related indictments accusing 26 people of cruelties ranging from denying animals medical treatment to shooting dogs in the head when they didn't fight well, then throwing their carcasses into a river or burning them in a barrel.
Task forces of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies conducted the raids and made arrests in Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Texas and Oklahoma following a more than year-long investigation prompted by information gathered by the Humane Society of Missouri. It wasn't clear whether or to what extent the operations were related.
Kathy Warnick, president of the Humane Society of Missouri, said tips had come in from "multiple sources" about dogfighting, and anticruelty workers worked with federal authorities for 18 months.
"This heinous, heinous bloodsport is not going to be tolerated," she said.
The national Humane Society said there also were arrests in Arkansas associated with dogfighting, but no dogs were seized.
Dogfighting is banned throughout the United States and is a felony in 50 states. A law enacted two years ago increased penalties for activities that promote or encourage animal fighting after a long campaign by animal-welfare groups.
Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive officer of the Humane Society of the United States, said dogfighting operations typically are not small acts of animal cruelty, but part of organized criminal networks.
"This was quite an operation and marks the latest in a series of actions that are driving dogfighting, we hope, off the cliff," Pacelle said.
The Humane Society of Missouri is sheltering more than 300 dogs , believed to be mostly pit bull terriers , seized in Missouri and Illinois raids and their conditions are being assessed. The dogs will be housed, cared for and evaluated at an undisclosed emergency shelter in St. Louis.
HSUS spokeswoman Jordan Crump, a spokesman with the Humane Society of the United States, said each dog seized in all the raids will be evaluated by behaviorial experts in hopes of placing as many as possible in adoptive homes. The same happened for the dogs seized from Michael Vick's Bad Newz Kennels in the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback's dogfighting case. Animal welfare groups said most were able to be placed in homes or sent to an animal sanctuary.
"The Vick case taught us to see dogs in these cases as victims," said Donna Reynolds, with the Oakland, Calif.-based pit bull rescue and education group Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pit bulls, or BAD RAP.
"Animal welfare organizations will have to come together to ensure animals are comfortable in their confinement and they have the best opportunity to be evaluated, and if possible, offered rescue resources," Reynolds said.
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Associated Press reporters Betsy Taylor in St. Louis, John McFarland in Dallas, and Ed Donahue and Nedra Pickler in Washington contributed to this report.
http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation/20090708_ap_350dogsseizedindogfightingraidsin5states.html
Dog Behavior is Owner-Dependent
ScienceDaily (May 1, 2009) — Many dogs are put down or abandoned due to their violent nature, but contrary to popular belief, breed has little to do with a dog's aggressive behaviour compared to all the owner-dependant factors. This is shown in a new study from the University of Córdoba, which includes breeds that are considered aggressive by nature, such as the Rottweiler or the Pit Bull.
The conclusions, however, are surprising: it is the owners who are primarily responsible for attacks due to dominance or competition of their pets.
The research team from the University of Córdoba (UCO) has determined a series of external factors which are inherent to the dogs in order to understand their aggressiveness, and they have observed that external, modifiable and owner-dependent factors have a greater influence on the animals.
According to Joaquín Pérez-Guisado, the main author of the study and a researcher from the UCO, some of the factors that cause aggressiveness in dogs are: first-time dog ownership; failure to subject the dog to basic obedience training; spoiling or pampering the dog; not using physical punishment when it is required; buying a dog as a present, as a guard dog or on impulse; spaying female dogs; leaving the dog with a constant supply of food, or spending very little time with the dog in general and on its walks.
"Failure to observe all of these modifiable factors will encourage this type of aggressiveness and would conform to what we would colloquially call 'giving our dog a bad education'", Pérez-Guisado explains to SINC.
The study, which has recently been published in the Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, is based on the following fact: approximately 40% of dominance aggression in dogs is associated with a lack of authority on the part of the owners who have never performed basic obedience training with their pets or who have only carried out the bare minimum of training.
Breed has less influence on aggressiveness
The Spanish researchers studied 711 dogs (354 males and 357 females) of which 594 were purebred and 117 were half-breed dogs older than one year of age. Among the breeds observed were the Bull Terrier, the American Pit Bull Terrier, the Alsatian, the Boxer, the Rottweiler, the Doberman, as well as apparently more docile breeds such as the Dalmatian, the Irish Setter, the Golden Retriever, the Labrador Retriever, the Miniature Poodle, the Chihuahua, the Pekinese, or the French Bulldog, which also exhibit dominant behaviour.
According to Pérez-Guisado, certain breeds, male sex, a small size, or an age of between 5-7 years old are "the dog-dependent factors associated with greater dominance aggression". Nevertheless, these factors have "minimal effect" on whether the dog behaves aggressively. Factors linked to the owner's actions are more influential.
To correct the animal's behaviour, the owner should handle it appropriately and "re-establish dominance over the dog", the researcher adds. In terms of physical punishment, Pérez-Guisado points out that "this method cannot be used with all dogs given the danger involved, although it could be used to re-establish dominance over puppies or small and easy-to-control dogs". However, "it should never be used as justification for treating a dog brutally, since physical punishment should be used more as a way to frighten and demonstrate the dominance we have over the dog than to inflict great suffering on the animal", the vet states.
According to the researcher, "dogs that are trained properly do not normally retain aggressive dominance behaviour". Pérez-Guisado attributes this "exceptional" conduct to the existence of some medical or organic problem, "which can cause changes in the dog's behaviour"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090424114315.htm
Once-a-Month Pill For Both Fleas |||amp; Ticks in Cats |||amp; Dogs
ScienceDaily (June 29, 2009) — Scientists in New Jersey are describing discovery and successful tests of the first once-a-month pill for controlling both fleas and ticks in domestic dogs and cats.
Peter Meinke and colleagues at Merck Research Laboratories note the need for better ways of controlling fleas and ticks, driven in part by increases in pet ownership. Estimates suggest that there were 71 million pet dogs and 81 million pet cats in the United States alone in 2007 — up from 61 million and 70 million in 2001.
Although many powders, sprays and other topical agents are on the market, many pet owners prefer the convenience of pills. Products given orally can reach more parts of an animal's body, do not wash off in rain or bath water, and don't transfer from pets to people. At least one existing pill fights fleas in pets, but does not appear effective for ticks.
In tests on fleas and ticks in dogs and cats, a single dose of the new pill was 100 percent effective in protecting against both fleas and ticks for a month. There were no signs of toxic effects on the animals. Scientists obtained the flea and tick fighter from a substance first found in a fungus that "has the potential to usher in a new era in the treatment of ecoparasitic [ticks and fleas, for instance] infestations in companion animals."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090629100639.htm
What Really Prompts the Dog's 'Guilty Look'
ScienceDaily (June 14, 2009) — What dog owner has not come home to a broken vase or other valuable items and a guilty-looking dog slouching around the house? By ingeniously setting up conditions where the owner was misinformed as to whether their dog had really committed an offense, Alexandra Horowitz, Assistant Professor from Barnard College in New York, uncovered the origins of the “guilty look” in dogs in the recently published “Canine Behaviour and Cognition” Special Issue of Elsevier’s Behavioural Processes.
Horowitz was able to show that the human tendency to attribute a “guilty look” to a dog was not due to whether the dog was indeed guilty. Instead, people see ‘guilt’ in a dog’s body language when they believe the dog has done something it shouldn’t have – even if the dog is in fact completely innocent of any offense.
During the study, owners were asked to leave the room after ordering their dogs not to eat a tasty treat. While the owner was away, Horowitz gave some of the dogs this forbidden treat before asking the owners back into the room. In some trials the owners were told that their dog had eaten the forbidden treat; in others, they were told their dog had behaved properly and left the treat alone. What the owners were told, however, often did not correlate with reality.
Whether the dogs' demeanor included elements of the "guilty look" had little to do with whether the dogs had actually eaten the forbidden treat or not. Dogs looked most “guilty” if they were admonished by their owners for eating the treat. In fact, dogs that had been obedient and had not eaten the treat, but were scolded by their (misinformed) owners, looked more “guilty” than those that had, in fact, eaten the treat. Thus the dog’s guilty look is a response to the owner’s behavior, and not necessarily indicative of any appreciation of its own misdeeds.
This study sheds new light on the natural human tendency to interpret animal behavior in human terms. Anthropomorphisms compare animal behavior to human behavior, and if there is some superficial similarity, then the animal behavior will be interpreted in the same terms as superficially similar human actions. This can include the attribution of higher-order emotions such as guilt or remorse to the animal.
The editor of the special issue, Clive D.L. Wynne of the Department of Psychology, University of Florida, explained, “this is a remarkably powerful demonstration of the need for careful experimental designs if we are to understand the human-dog relationship and not just reify our natural prejudices about animal behavior.” He pointed out that dogs are the oldest domesticated species and have a uniquely intimate role in the lives of millions of people. Recent research on dogs has indicated more human-like forms of reasoning about what people know than has been demonstrated even in chimpanzees.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090611065839.htm
Pain of Dysplasia in Dogs Relieved With Gold Treatment, Study Shows
ScienceDaily (June 26, 2009) — Many animals and people experience chronic joint pain. In dogs, a common source of joint pain is hip dysplasia, a developmental defect of the hip joint. Implantation of gold into the soft tissues around the hip joints of dogs with dysplasia can relieve pain and lessen stiffness for several years.
Joint pain in animals and man may be due to injury, wear or deformity. Hip dysplasia of dogs is a congenital defect that makes itself known during the growth phase, leading to varying degrees of pain and loss of function as the dogs age. Dog owners will as a rule notice that their dogs are reluctant to jump, that they lag behind on longer walks, or that they are stiff and sore when standing after resting. Some dogs also become lame after longer walks.
Early in the 1970's, an American veterinary surgeon and acupuncturist described a form of pain relief in dogs that involved implanting small grains of pure gold into acupuncture points round painful joints in dogs. The theory behind the treatment was that the gold grains implanted into the acupuncture points would provide chronic stimulation of the points.
The method has been used both on dogs and people in the USA and Europe, although no scientific documentation of the pain-relieving affect of gold-implants existed. Gry Tove Jæger has in her doctorate investigated whether grains of metallic gold implanted around painful joints could reduce pain and improve function in patients, using dogs as a model.
Family dogs with pain and loss of function due to hip dysplasia were chosen as experimental animals. The dogs were divided randomly into two groups, one of which received gold transplants, while the other acted as control. Neither the owner nor the veterinarian assessing the affect of the gold treatment knew which group an individual dog belonged to. This is called double-blind experimentation. The study was designed to provide an answer to whether gold implantation had an effect or not, and any possible acupuncture effect was not considered.
After six months the effect of the treatment was considered. Statistically-significant differences were shown to exist between the two groups. The dogs with implanted gold had less pain and loss of function compared to those that had not received gold. As was expected, the dogs in the control group also improved, but the effect was greater in those that had received gold.
The dogs were followed for a further year and a half. After two years, 80% of the dogs still showed a positive effect of treatment. The hip dysplasia had not improved, and many dogs showed in fact an increased degree of calcification round the affected hip joints, but they lived better after the gold treatment. An inflammatory response was shown to have developed around the grains of gold, which may possibly explain in part the pain-relieving effect.
Implantation of gold is an effective treatment for chronic degenerative joint disease and the method has few serious side-effects. This study could not uncover if part of the effect was due to acupuncture, to the gold lying in the soft tissue, or to a combination of the two.
Cand. med. vet. Gry Jæger defended her Ph. D. thesis, entitled "The effect of gold bead implantation in a dog model with chronic joint arthritis - a method of pain control", at the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, on May 29, 2009.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090626084633.htm
