You might know that in Germany they have a concept called “torture breeding“. In that country they believe that if breeders create animals which are inherently unhealthy they should be banned. It applies to certain cat breeds such as flat-faced Persians and the hairless Sphynx. This story from The Times does not refer to …
Flabby labradors suffer from a genetic mutation that affects 25% of the breed making them obsessed with eating and burning less energy in their metabolism. Why do the dog associations and clubs allow this to happen? It can be fixed by culling (removing from breeding/blood lines) those breeding dogs that carry this genetic mutation …
Today, The Sunday Times reports on a worrying story about designer dogs being abandoned by breeders to shelters when they are done with them. In this instance I’m talking about the ever-popular dachshund, a breed that was particularly popular during the Covid-19 pandemic as was the French bulldog. Louise Eccles in her Sunday Times …
NEWS AND COMMENT: I’m told that Los Angeles City Council is considering a moratorium on the issuing of breeding licences. That means a pause to the issuing of permits to breed which I presume mainly means dog and cat breeders in the city of Los Angeles. The reason why the council wants to stop …
STUDY RESULT PLUS COMMENT: Dorottya Ujfalussy from the Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary, has decided in her study that flat-faced dogs (and I’m going to include flat-faced cats) are more attractive to their owners because they are more helpless. And in being more helpless they are more like human toddlers who are themselves helpless …
Some people think that it is time to give up our cats and dogs as it is unethical and their domestication not worked out well. It’s time to end it. This would apply to other animals as well. It’s a whopping suggestion. It’s probably entirely impractical seeing as there are probably up to 500 …
The latest, hot of the press news is that scientists in Brazil have proven that a dog-fox hybrid is possible because they found one! And they say that they’ve proven in through genetic testing. The hybrid dog-fox (sometimes referred to as a ‘dox’) has 76 chromosomes which ‘were a mixture of those found in …
On the Psychology Today website Dr. Marc Bekoff introduces his article by saying that there are 1 billion dogs on the planet and 25% of them are living in homes with companions. The remaining 75% are free ranging or feral. Simple mathematics tells us that there are 750 million dogs on the planet without …
