Science News Daily: Dog News

Climbing the social ladder is a 'ruff' business for dogs, new research shows.

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In 2018, a Florida man found a piece of tooth embedded in his foot from a shark bite off Flagler Beach 24 years earlier. A DNA test of the tooth revealed the kind of shark that had nabbed his foot nearly a quarter century ago: a blacktip.

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Animals learn the hard way which sights, sounds, and smells are relevant to survival. New research in flies shows that the timing of these cues plays an important role in how mental associations arise, and elucidates brain pathways involved in this process.

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A total of 174 chicken breeds are described in a publicly accessible database which scientists have built up in recent years. This database, the Synbreed Chicken Diversity Panel (SCDP), includes information about a large proportion of the available chicken species and their diversity. The researchers created a family tree of exceptional completeness and detail.

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Researchers report the first evidence in a non-human species, the domestic dog, of a relation between joint hypermobility and excitability: dogs with more joint mobility and flexibility tend to have more anxiety problems.

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Dogs have evolved new muscles around the eyes to better communicate with humans. New research comparing the anatomy and behavior of dogs and wolves suggests dogs' facial anatomy has changed over thousands of years specifically to allow them to better communicate with humans.

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Aggressive behavior in pet dogs is a serious problem for dog owners across the world, with bite injuries representing a serious risk to both people and other dogs. New research has found that clinical animal behaviorists should focus on helping dog owners to feel confident in the effectiveness of the behavior modification techniques that they recommend and, in their ability, to actually use them successfully.

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For dogs with mammary tumors, deciding a course of treatment can depend on a variety of factors, some of which may seem to contradict one another. With a new, practical system developed by veterinarians, determining a prognosis and making treatment decisions should be an easier task.

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A new study used behavioral data from more than 76,000 dogs, to test the hypothesis that key behaviors in the domestication syndrome are correlated.

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The levels of stress in dogs and their owners follow each other, according to a new study. The scientists believe that dogs mirror their owner's stress level, rather than vice versa.

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Identifying the movements of extinct species from millions of years ago can provide insights into ancient migration routes, interaction between species, and the movement of continents.

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Rickettsia bacteria cause a number of human and animal infections, including Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Now, researchers have for the first time surveyed the prevalence of Rickettsia antibodies and Rickettsia-carrying ticks in wild boars, hunting dogs and hunters in Brazil.

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Researchers have found no genetic evidence that the iconic Australian kelpie shares canine ancestry with a dingo, despite Australian bush myth.

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Wildlife ecologists who are studying different conservation practices in the forests of Costa Rica recently made a startling discovery on a wildlife camera trap -- wild bush dogs documented farther north than ever before and at the highest elevation.

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'Swarms' of wolf-dog crossbreeds could drive Europe's wolves out of existence, according to the lead author of new research.

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Nearly five million people are bitten by dogs each year in the United States, and children are at a much higher risk than adults. Dog bites can cause significant psychological and physical damage, and bites to the face often require reconstructive surgery to repair injuries ranging from nerve damage to tissue loss. While certain breeds are known to bite more frequently or cause more severe injuries, a new study finds the breed was unknown in about 60 percent of dog bite cases.

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In Mexicali, Mexico, an uncontrolled epidemic of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, one of the deadliest tickborne diseases in the Americas, has affected more than 1,000 people since 2008.

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Researchers examine global strategies for dealing with predators.

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Scientists have studied the heritability of dog ownership using information from 35,035 twin pairs from the Swedish Twin Registry. The new study suggests that genetic variation explains more than half of the variation in dog ownership, implying that the choice of getting a dog is heavily influenced by an individual's genetic make-up.

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The discovery of a new mutation associated with breathing difficulties in popular dog breeds suggests that shortened skulls causing flat faces is not the only factor that contributes to the condition, but that swelling around the airways from edema may also play a role.

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The relative risk of a recurrence of cancer is reduced by 60% in dogs whose tumors are completely removed, a new analysis has found.

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A distinct strain of canine distemper virus, which is a widespread virus of importance to wildlife and domesticated dogs, has been identified in wild animals in New Hampshire and Vermont, according to pathologists.

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Researchers have discovered that even a very basic animal life form like the C. elegans worm has the ability to learn from past experiences. Further, the research team has pinpointed the exact neurons that store these memories and the physiological changes the worms undergo when they retrieve memories to cope with future hardships.

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In a touchscreen-based task that allowed individual animals to provide food to others, wolves behaved more prosocially toward their fellow pack members than did pack dogs.

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Researchers recently investigated levels of methylmercury in a small sampling of commercial dog foods and found good news for dog owners. Of the 24 diets tested, only three were positive for low concentrations of total mercury, and only one of those contained detectable methylmercury.

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