Happy weekend! It’s been a long week for me and I am looking for some west and wewaxation. I hope you have a great weekend too!
Gene for OCD isolated in Dogs
While studying Doberman Pinschers with obsessive compulsive disorder, scientists isolated a gene associated with the disorder. This research may be applicable to humans and other researchers are now studying it too! It turns out that the relatively small populations offered by some purebreeds are useful in this type of research.
Dog lost for over a year reunited with human
A dog lost in California in 2008 was recently located in South Carolina because of his microchip. Is there a more compelling reason to chip your dog that than?
Dog saves boy from cougar
This is probably story of the week! Last weekend Angel, a young golden retriever threw herself between an 11-year-old boy and a cougar as it charged at him. Wow!
What’s the difference between a bite and an attack?
If you spend any time working in the pet industry, especially with dogs, you see the annual numbers and periodic research on dog bites and attacks. But what is the difference? Severity? Intensity? Brent Toellner has some thoughts on dog bites and attacks this week.
Doggie Zen
Last, here’s a training video from Mary Hunter’s series on Clicker Training Doggie Zen. The exercise looks a lot like how I train “leave it”, but adds a bit of an impulse control twist.
2 Comments
The OCD article is really interesting. I think it's so cool how much more we're learning about dogs and dog biology because of recent scientific advances. Here's a question I would have, how are OCD type behaviors distinguished from or different from stereotypic type behaviors?
And thanks for including my zen video! I told Ginger she was on your blog.
cheers,
Mary
I'm not sure that OCD and stereotypic behaviors are different from each other. It could be that stereotypic is a broader term, related to any repetitive motor behavior?
Ginger is a real cutie BTW. Reminds me of my Buddha.
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