The Amazing Adventures of Archibald Esq.
Dog Duties: Dogs Help Hunt Genetic Diseases
Add this one to the long list of dog duties! Watch dogs. Guard dogs. Companion dogs. Shepherding dogs. Accelerant dogs. Whale-poop sniffing dogs. Humane educator dogs. Hearing dogs. Seeing-eye dogs. Pets as Therapy Dogs. And now: scientific assistant dogs.
Purebred dogs of all kinds are helping humans hunt the roots of genetic mutations that lead to diseases. As reported in Science Daily (16 October 2008), researchers have said that dogs are now helping hunt the genetic causes of many human and doggish diseases.
“Dogs get very similar diseases to humans,” said Kerstin Lindblad-Toh of Uppsala University in Sweden and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts. “If you ask a dog owner what sort of conditions their pets get, they will say cancer, allergies, eye diseases.”
A new European consortium has been set up called LUPA, where 20 veterinary schools from 12 countries spread across Europe will work together to collect 10,000 DNA samples from purebred dogs, comparing healthy animals with those affected by similar diseases as human. The analysis of the genome of affected dogs compared to healthy ones of the same breed will lead to the identification of genes implied in the mechanisms of these diseases.
Lindblad-Toh was speaking at the European Science Foundation’s 3rd Functional Genomics Conference, held in Innsbruck, Austria (1-4 October 2008). Functional genomics describes the way in which genes and their products, proteins, interact together in complex networks in living cells. If these interactions are abnormal, diseases can result.
Read on…
Posted 20 Oct 08
Dog Duties: Posh Pooch
Now here’s two posh pooches with oodles of style and sassiness!
SuperWoof!
Archie — a hound who awaits who awaits an advertising contract…
Posted 18 Aug 08
Dog Duties: Humane Educator Hound
In Canada there’s a new and wonderful way of being a working dog! To be a ‘humane educator’! Which just goes to show how cutting-edge and forward-thinking those wily Canadians are…
In a scheme operating in Guelph (Ontario), Calloway the basset hound has busy days in area schools.
It takes a special dog to be a humane educator, and Calloway underwent a year of progressive training before he was able to do full days in elementary schools. Jessica Ing (his two legged companion) and the seven-year-old hound are now the newest members of the Guelph Humane Society family. She started as their humane educator this fall, and Calloway has been given the title of Humane Values mascot.
Read on…
Posted 03 Aug 08
Dog Duties: Hearing Dogs
All dog duties involve dogs doing things that help out the two-leggeds in their community, whether it’s shepherding sheep and cattle up and down the commons and mountains, or sniffing out accelerants and combustibles at airports and other security hot-spots.
A Charity based in Glasgow Scotland is looking for special dogs to help deaf people live independently. Hearing Dogs for Deaf People need young adult dogs which are suitable to be trained to act as the ears of a deaf adult.
They are particularly interested in dogs with a friendly nature aged between 8 months and 3 years. Anyone who has a dog they believe might be suitable should call the Puppy Socialising Department on 01844 348 105.
But surely one of the most rewarding of dog duties is to do for two-leggeds what they themselves cannot do. Seeing dogs for blind people is probably the best-known of this type of dog duty, but a relatively new charity that is equally important is that devoted to Hearing Dogs for Deaf People. Woof! (Hearing Dogs were launched at the world-famous Crufts Dog Show in 1982).
Posted 09 May 08
Dog Duties: Sea Dog Emergency
I particularly like the jaunty logo of the ‘Sea Dog Emergency Response’ unit, that features a salty pirate-styled dog, complete with wooden leg and pirate eye patch. Notice also the head scarf and small barrel of rum borne on his chest. Grrwoooof!
As exciting as being a pirate dog is, I must admit that this is definitely not the job for me — just as being a whale poop sniffing marine conservationist dog was not for me.
Read on…
Posted 21 Apr 08
Dog Duties: Accelerant Dogs
Now you know I’m a dog looking for a career… You know… Available as an artist’s model… a muse. Can also be hired as a consultant on all things doggish. And would not say bow wow to an offer of being some company’s noble mascot… Or even to feature in a pop video, like the lucky dachshunds who featured in that Graham Coxon video…
But not all canine careers are as glamourous as mine own aspirations. So how about this for a line of doggish work: being an ‘accelerant dog’. Sounds snazzy. Sounds fast. Speedy. But really it’s just another way of being a sniffer dog. But this time it’s not bedbugs, or even orca whale poop. No. This time it’s to sniff out the work of arsonists.
Read on…
Posted 07 Apr 08
Dog Duties: Avalanche Dogs
Avalanche dogs to the rescue! From Colorado to Switzerland, avalanche rescue dogs have helped save lives in difficult alpine conditions since the mid-1900s.
Rescue dogs (such as St Bernard dogs) rescue dogs were employed by the Swiss Army to rescue avalanche victims from the 1930s onwards. The dogs search an area utilizing a zigzag pattern and let out a high-pitched, excited bark to alert their handler when the scent of a person is detected.
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Posted 20 Feb 08
Dog Duties: R.E.A.D.ing Dogs
The Northants Evening Telegraph reported on the arrival of reading dogs in the UK. Already a massive success in America, Reading Education Assistance Dogs (R.E.A.D.) are specially-trained dogs who sit with children and encourage them to enjoy books and reading.
Read on…
Posted 24 Oct 07
Dog Duties: Four-Leggeds Gaining Acceptance in the American Workplace
In a story reported in The Ledger (Florida) in December 2006, it seems that dogs are increasingly accompanying their two leggeds when the two leggeds head out to work.
Perhaps the workplace is the last place most people would expect to find an animal of any kind (except perhaps a fish tank at the dentist or doctor’s), but some workplaces are populated by multiple dogs, potbellied pigs and, on occasion, a squirrel or two.
In 2005 an internet newstory covered a University English department in the United States that allowed dogs to join the professors in the halls of learning — with great success. And the trend is taking off!
One American workplace — Replacements Ltd. — welcomes well-behaved animals throughout its 300,000 square-foot showroom which is well stocked with fine china and crystal. “I don’t know when a pet has broken anything,” said Bob Page, CEO and founder of the Greensboro, N.C. center. And wouldn’t you know it?!! Bob is accompanied to work on most days by his 10-year-old miniature dachshunds, Toby and Trudy. Awooof!
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Posted 27 Mar 07
The Tinker’s Cur and other English Dogs
Dog duties through the ages have changed. British dogs have been all sorts in the past — from prized companion and hunting hound to tinker’s cur and butcher’s dog.
Dogs used to really be put to use… Pulling dog carts. Turning wheels…
And living in muck… Enduring the rain and cold in outdwellings and barns.
Read on…
Posted 25 Feb 07
No denying the Archaeological Evidence
Dogs have been the eternal companions of two-leggeds, from time immemorial unto death — as shown in this charming ceramic water vessel in the shape of a dog that is pre-Columbian from around 200-300 AD.
Some studies have dated the domestically enjoined destinies of dogs and humans to between 13,000 and 17,000 years ago, while other studies think that the union of dogs and humans occurred anywhere between 40,000 and 135,000 years ago.
One study (published last year in the February 2006 issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science), postulated that the bond between humans and dogs coincides with canine burials. Why this should be so is a mystery — surely the relations go back farther than dog burial, but there is no question that practices of dog burial do show a close and intimate tie between dogs and the two-leggeds.
The earliest known morphological evidence of what was probabably dog remains dates to around 17,000 years ago in central Russia.
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Posted 20 Feb 07
Archaeological Links Trace Back to Archaic Period
Ice Age mammals such as the mastodon, wooly mammoth, and peccary were extinct by the beginning of the Archaic period.
Ice Age mammals were eventually replaced by a variety of animals, many of which are still common in the United States today, such as white-tailed deer, raccoon, and possum. Also common were a variety of amphibians, reptiles, fish, and mussels.
The remains of at least four domesticated dogs were buried by Early Archaic people at the Koster site in Illinois is more than 8,000 years ago.
Each dog was laid on its side in a shallow grave and then covered with dirt. The dogs were buried in an area of the village where residents also buried the remains of adults and children.
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Posted 06 Feb 07
Dog Duties: Being a ‘House’ Dog
‘House dog’ is really a euphamism for ‘assistance dog’ — the kind that comes in to help people lower their blood pressure and get a sense of what’s important in life and how the rhythm of a day should swing…
With the big difference, I guess, that a ‘house dog’ is a full time, 24 hours a day kind of assistance dog, whilst a lot of ‘assistance dogs’ are other people’s pets, who do a little part-time volunteering on the side….
Nevertheless, house dogs and assistance dogs in common are a sign of a growing tide of the converted in terms of accepting and welcoming the presence of dogs in human life, in all types of healing environments. Such is the power of the hound — Awoof!
Read on…
Posted 25 Jan 07
Merry Superwoof Christmas!
Superwoof Holidays! Archibald, Esq.
Posted 23 Dec 06
Dog Duties: Marine Conservationist
A dog trained to sniff out whale poop is joining the front line of conservation efforts to save the great Orca.
Gator, an Australian cattle dog, is a dog with a number of lives. He flunked out of the Department of Corrections school that trains drug-sniffing dogs. But now he’s an experienced scat tracker, and is learning the ropes of taking boat rides to sniff out the poop of orcas, a task scientists hope will help save the endangered marine mammals.
Scientists hope that Gator will soon be on the front lines of saving orcas. And Gator can enjoy the quiet satisfaction of knowing that he was the first dog in the world to sniff out orca droppings, which can tell scientists about the physical condition of the killer whales. Sam Wasser — a member of the research team at the University of Washington’s Center for Conservation Biology — noted that “It’s a fantastic way” to track endangered animals such as orcas “without seeing any animals at all..”
Gator is one of 11 scat-detection dogs at the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington, Seattle. Wasser, the center’s director, has been studying animals via their droppings for more than 20 years. He commented that eliminate sampling bias when collecting dung (as well as a little company on long boat rides), Wasser began employing detection dogs to track the scat.
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Posted 01 Dec 06
Dog Duties: Dog Cart Dogs
When I first heard the term ‘dog cart’ I immediately imagined that it was a nice horse-drawn cart with which to carry dignified and dandy dogs. Awoof! Boy was I wrong… According to reliable dictionary sources a ‘dog cart’ — pronounced ‘dôgkärt’ — is either a vehicle drawn by one horse and accommodating two persons seated back to back, or — quelle horreur! — a small cart pulled by dogs.
Now it goes without saying that I prefer the first meaning, and see myself ensconced in blankets in a nice dogcart pulled by a white horse or two through snow.. somewhere romantic like St Petersburgh or Krakow, Poland, or Quebec City, Canada…. But the notion of a dog-pulled cart piqued my curiousity. What was it all about?, I wondered.
Posted 25 Nov 06
Dog Duties: How to Sell Just about Anything
I bet you when you saw the ‘headline’ you thought immediately ’bout sex!
If you did, you’d be wrong. The new sexy is not skin. The new sexy selling point in advertising is none other than your average dog. Dogs are everywhere on the ‘High Street’: in posters for banks, investment companies, fashion lines, record shops, and so on and so forth. There’s nothing in life that can’t be linked with doggishness. And all this is fitting and as it should be, given that we are, after all, still in the Year of the Dog according to the Chinese calendar.
As a signifier of comfort, stability and health, dogs in advertising are playing an increasingly prominent role. Seems every advertisement that addresses itself to stable, residential consumers — no matter what the product may be — includes dogs in family settings. Banks, gas and electricity, banking, internet searching, high street fashion — there’s bloodhounds, terriers, labradors, dalmatians, and dogs, dogs and more dogs helping companies off-load their products in the general market.
And there’s no differentiating consumer range: from top designers and bespoke businesses all the way to mass market target groups. For example, I noticed in a passing kind of a way that the new Ikea catalogue demonstrates that they are starting to feature dogs in their catalogue pictures — dogs of course being the ultimate signifier of a comfortable and happy home. But exclusive just as much as mass-market products are using the figure of the hound to promote their wares…
Though there are many instances of dogs in advertising these days, there aren’t that many dachshunds. I like to think that this is an indication of our prestige and princelyness rather than a lack of popularity. And to prove my point is the fact that one of the best-styled German manufacturers of taps and faucets — Kholer — used dachshunds in plural to help promote their kitchen sink faucet/spray.
Read on…
Posted 19 Nov 06
Animals in War Memorial, Hyde Park, London
I hope that those who took some time to remember the fallen in war — both human and animal — found some time to visit the Animals in War Memorial that honours the millions of conscripted animals that served, suffered and died alongside British, Commonwealth and American forces in 20th century wars and conflicts.
The memorial is situated at Brook Gate, Park Lane, on the edge of London’s Hyde Park (near Speaker’s Corner) and was designed by leading English sculptor, David Backhouse. As the name suggests, the memorial sculpture depicts the many animals that have been used by troops in wartime – horses, mules, dogs, elephants, camels, pigeons and canaries.
None are forgotten — not even the lowly glow worm. (Glow worms were used by soldiers in the trenches during the First World War to help them read their maps in the gloom.)
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Posted 13 Nov 06
©2008 Roleta Archibald, Awoof!™