So Your Dog Looks Happy? Not So Fast -- Check His Eyebrows

A study reveals that the eyebrows (and the left ear) convey important dog emotions. No kidding.

You come home from a long day at work -- or just from a trip to the mailbox -- and there's your dog, wiggling and waggling like you're the best thing in the world and that everything is joy. All that carrying on means dog is happy to see you, right? 

Don't be so sure. Have you checked her eyebrows?

Apparently, the eyebrows are a window to a dog's emotions, or something like that, according to a study from the department of animal science at Azabu University in Sagamihara, Japan. 

Using high-speed cameras, the teams studied the facial expressions of dogs during the moments they were reunited with their owners or when meeting strangers for the first time, according to the Telegraph. The study placed 12 dogs in a room, with black curtains that swept back to reveal different things. The dogs had stickers on their faces, to help track movements with the cameras. What they found is shocking (sort of): 

A half-second after being reunited with their owners, dogs tended to move their left eyebrow up. When they met someone new, dogs moved their left ear back. When presented with something lame (nail clippers, anyone?), they moved their right ear. Nobel, anyone? 

According to Dr. Miho Nagasawa, "eyebrow movement might indicate a visible response whereby dogs attempted to look at their owners more intently,” which is a good thing. Your dog just wants to eat you all up. 

The researchers also found that "the subtle changes on different sides of their face are a reflection of activity in key parts of the brain that control emotions," according to the Telegraph. 

Sometimes, the results puzzled the researchers, as when a dog who sees his owner displays positive as well as negative cues. They marked that down as the dog being so happy to see his owner but so sad he's in a damn room with a partition and stickers all over his head. 

“One explanation for this result is that presentation of the owner elicited both negative and positive emotions," said Nagasawa. “A negative response might appear … perhaps because the dogs could not approach and touch their owners despite seeing them through the partitions."

One of the most important findings, however, was how damn cute and silly all these dogs look with stickers all over their faces. 

Via the Telegraph

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Check Your Claudia’s Canine Cuisine and Nature’s Deli Items

Claudia’s recalls two Hound Cakes; the FDA warns against Nature’s Deli Chicken Jerky Dog Treats.

Claudia’s Canine Cuisine has issued a recall on two products due to "to the potential to contain mold," according to a tweet by Petsmart. The products are Dog Candy Fruit Hound Cake (7.5 ounce) and Dog Candy Blueberry Hound Cake (7.5 ounce). 

These are products are sold at Petsmart. If you have any questions about this voluntary withdrawal, please call Claudia’s customer service line at (501) 851-0002 or email Irma@claudiascaninecuisine.com.

Claudia's Canine Cuisine does not actively maintain a website, so Petsmart's Twitter account was the companies' chosen route of communication. It is unusual; we've never heard of a Twitter-only announcement of a recall, and we're not huge fans of it. Claudia's Canine Cuisine does have a static web site, which presumably could be updated with the info. 

In another matter related to dog food, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning people not to feed their dogs Nature’s Deli Chicken Jerky Dog Treats with a lot code of BESTBY061913DEN, because they might be contaminated with Salmonella. The treats are made by Kasel Associates Industries Inc. and were sold at Costco stores in the Denver area. The treats come in three-pound bags. 

Kasel is not doing a voluntary recall on this particular lot -- rather, the FDA is warning people not to eat any bags from it. Kasel did do a voluntary recall on another lot of Nature’s Deli Chicken Jerky Dog Treats in October, but it refused to voluntarily recall this latest lot for reasons that are unspecific.  

Kasel's actions are unusual, because last month the FDA tested a retail sample from this lot, which tested positive for Salmonella. Whether Kasel is disputing these findings or simply ignoring them remains to be seen. 

Photo: Party animals by Shutterstock.com. 

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Recall Alert: Check Your Bags of Nature’s Variety Kibble

More recalls? Indeed. After a string of recalls involving Diamond Pet Foods and, most recently, Pedigree, Nature's Variety enters the fray with a voluntary recall on Prairie Beef Meal & Barley Medley Kibble for Dogs. 

But don't panic: The recall is for an "off-odor smell that may develop over time," according to a message on its website. The company states that the food "is not contaminated in any way, but some products are not remaining fresh for the shelf life of the product."

According to Reed Howlett, Nature’s Variety CEO, “We’ve found that some bags of Prairie Beef Meal & Barley Medley Kibble for Dogs have an off-odor smell. To be sure that our consumers only receive the freshest and highest quality product possible, we have decided to voluntarily recall all Prairie Beef Meal & Barley Medley Kibble for Dogs from the marketplace.”

The products affected are: 

UPC No. 7 69949 60420 4--Prairie Beef Meal and Barley Medley Kibble for Dogs, 5 lb. UPC No. 7 69949 60425 9--Prairie Beef Meal and Barley Medley Kibble for Dogs, 15 lb.UPC No. 7 69949 60430 3--Prairie Beef Meal and Barley Medley Kibble for Dogs, 30 lb.UPC No. 7 69949 60432 7--Prairie Beef Meal and Barley Medley Kibble for Dogs, 3 oz. sample

The company states that consumers can obtain a "full refund or exchange it for a different variety by either returning the product in its original packaging or bringing a proof of purchase back to their retailer." 

If you have any questions, contact the company at (888) 519-7387 or by email here.

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Want the Smartest Dog on the Block? Check Out This New Book

I’m one of those people whose jobs have nothing to do with science, but who love science from afar. I could read science articles all day, and in my nerdhood, you can often find me glued to anything to do with science on TV.

But when the going gets tough — say, in an intro to physics class at the local community college — I run to series like Physics for Dummies/Idiots/Pathetic Imbeciles Who Thought Physics at a Local Community College Would be a Mickey Mouse Course. Sadly, sometimes the Dummies-type books are also a bit above my head. And that’s why I’m grateful that I can now shop for a book that’s ostensibly for someone with an even lower tolerance for physics pain: My dog.

Physics professor Chad Orzel’s latest book, How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog, comes out today. It’s a followup to his similarly titled book on physics for dogs. You don’t have to be embarrassed to buy it in a bookstore, if you can still find a bookstore. It’s for your dog, after all. But of course, our little secret is that it’s really for you, and this is one book that really will help elucidate relatively. You might actually start to understand what Einstein came up with all those years ago. That is, your dog might …

If you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe the professor himself. Here’s an excerpt from a Q&A on his website:

Why the dog?

Talking to the dog about physics is worthwhile because it can help me see how to explain physics to my human students. Humans all come at the subject with the same set of preconceptions about how the world works, and what “should” happen, and it can be very hard to shake those off. That’s a big barrier to understanding something like quantum physics.

Dogs look at the world in a very different way. To a dog, the world is a neverending source of wonder and amazement. You can walk your dog past the same rock every morning, and every morning, she’ll sniff that rock like she’s never sniffed it before. Dogs are surprised by things we take for granted, and they take in stride things that would leave us completely baffled.

Can you give an example?

Well, take the dog’s bowl, for example. Every now and then, we put scraps from dinner in the bowl when she’s not looking, and she’s become convinced that her bowl is magic– that tasty food just appears in it out of nowhere. She’ll wander over a couple of times a day, and look just to see if anything good has turned up, even when we haven’t been anywhere near the bowl in hours.

This puts her in a better position to understand quantum electrodynamics than many humans.

It does?

Sure. One of the most surprising features of QED, in Feynman’s formulation, is the idea of “virtual particles.” You have an electron that’s moving along, minding its own business, and every now and then, particle-antiparticle pairs just pop into existence for a very short time. They don’t stick around very long, but they have a real and measurable influence on the way electrons interact with each other, and with other particles.

You’re making this up, right?

No, not at all. One set of these interactions is described by a number called the “g-factor” of the electron, and this has been measured to something like fifteen decimal places, and the experimental measurement agrees perfectly with the theoretical prediction. If there weren’t electrons and positrons popping out of nowhere, there’s no way you could get that sort of agreement.

Emmy, the author's dog, is featured prominently in these books

Well, like I said, the dog is perfectly comfortable with the idea of stuff popping into existence out of nowhere. If a great big steak were to suddenly appear on your dining room table, you’d probably be a little perturbed. The dog, on the other hand, would feel it was nothing more than her due.

So she’s perfectly okay with the idea of virtual particles, unlike most humans, who tend to say things like “You’re making this up, right?” She was already convinced that there were bunnies made of cheese popping in and out of the backyard, and just regards QED as a solid theoretical justification for her beliefs.

And this helps humans, how, exactly?

Physics has a reputation as a difficult and unapproachable subject, especially in fields like quantum mechanics, where the predictions of the theory confound our human preconceptions. If you can put aside a few of your usual notions of how the world works, and think about how things look to a dog, some aspects of physics that seem absolutely impossible to accept become a lot more approachable.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going over to Amazon to buy myself —er, Jake, that is — a copy of this book straight away.

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Check collars, tags now for a safer New Year

December 28, 2010

It’s a New Year’s tradition on Pet Connection: The annual pet collar and ID check. Gina Spadafori has the story — along with some cool new collars and tags –  in this week’s Pet Connection newspaper feature:

Consider the collar first. For dogs, a buckled or snap-together collar made of leather or nylon webbing is the best choice, and the proper fit is comfortably close, but not too snug. Make sure your dog’s not wearing a “choke” or prong collar for everyday wear — if you use these, they’re for walking and training only, and are dangerous if left on an unsupervised dog.

For cats, a soft collar with an elastic insert and a slide-on tag will prevent a dangling ID from catching on anything.

Next look at the collar carefully, especially the holes and the fasteners. The collar is weakest at these spots, so if you see signs of excessive wear or strain, you’ll need to replace it.

Then check the ID tags. A license is great, but since many lost pets are picked up by people in the neighborhood, it’s a good idea to supplement the license with an ID tag that has a couple of phone numbers — yours and the number of a friend or relative. Check to make sure the information is current and legible, and if not, order a new tag.

Your pet’s ID tag is best supplemented by a microchip. Talk to your veterinarian about this permanent ID that has helped many a pet find the way home.

Our Pet Connection reviewers especially liked a few specific collars and tags in 2010…. read about them here!

And from Dr. Becker and Mikkel Becker, surprising news about how dogs recognize their owners:

Dogs recognize their owners by facial features. A study published in the journal Animal Behavior showed that dogs recognize and pay attention to their owners’ faces. When the owners’ faces are covered, dogs have a difficult time recognizing them.

Read this week’s entire Pet Connection here!

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