Embrace This: Most People Hug Their Dogs More Than They Hug Other People

Got dog fur across the fronts of your sweaters and shirts? Not surprising, according to a recent dog owner survey. Blame it on our dogs being just too embraceable to resist.

More than two-thirds (68 percent) of those surveyed say they hug their dogs more often than they hug "certain people" in their lives. Nearly one-third (30 percent) say they hug their dogs more than their relatives, and one-quarter (26 percent) say they hug their dogs more than they hug their best friends.

That's a lot of dog love, and could help explain what (at least to me) seems to be a rise in fur/lint rollers in stores.

But is one dog's affection gain someone else's loss? Does the good old physics law of the conservation of mass/energy apply here? Possibly. The survey of 482 U.S. adult dog owners in the Beneful Baked Delights survey found that 10 percent of women say they hug their dogs more than they hug their spouses or significant others. That probably translates to 10 percent of spouses who would like to be treated like a dog.

So what's so intoxicating about hugging a dog? The majority of owners surveyed say that hugging their dog makes them smile and feel happier. Nearly 40 percent say hugging their dog causes them to forget about the stress in their lives.

Hugging isn't just a one-way street, either. According to the survey, more than 60 percent of owners say that when they hug their dog, the dog returns their affection.

I think it's true. Dogs may not hug you back, but they embrace with their eyes and a certain way of leaning and being quiet and in the moment of the hug.

What's your hugging history? Do you hug your dog more than you do certain friends and loved ones? How does it make you feel to hug your pooch? Does it melt away stress, or just get you fretting about your black cashmere sweater suddenly turning the same color as your dog? And how does it make your dog feel? I realize certain dogs may not like being hugged. If you have a significant other, has s/he complained that your dog gets too much of your affection? Let us know!

For now, I sign off with big hugs. (For Jake, that is. Sorry, he's just looking too adorable curled up at my feet all loyal and cozy as write this.)

Photos via Shutterstock: Man hugging dog, woman hugging dog

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Holiday Miracles: Dog Survives Blast, and Other Happy Tales

Diva

It was miracle enough that the Diaz family survived a huge explosion that wrecked their home Tuesday. A little boy, his dad, and grandparents were home when there apparently was a natural gas pipeline explosion at their home in Haltom City, Texas.

But when they found their beloved dog, Diva, hiding among the ruins the next day, they finally called it a true miracle. They took her to the veterinarian right away and were hugely relieved that she had no serious injuries.

“We’re just blessed — Christmas miracle, I guess,” Maggie Diaz told NBC-DFW. Check out the video below the illustration to see just how bad the damage was, and you’ll see how very lucky they all were. (If you can call it lucky when you lose your home.)

On your way down to the video, take a look at this Holiday Pet Miracles illustration. The Dogster Dog Blog is the very first place you’ll find this on the Internet! The good folks at eBay Classifieds thought we were a deserving bunch because we write about these types of story pretty frequently. They thought you’d enjoy seeing some of these happy tales in illustrated form. It would be fun to see a poster like this at veterinary clinics this time of year, wouldn’t it? Some people taking their pets there really do need a miracle.

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Clip We Love: Monkey and Dog Clean Each Other

You know how many web denizens use the term TL;DR (too long, didn’t read)?

Well, we’d like to start TC;CD (too cute, cannot deal) here on Dogster, starting with this video our social media scientist, Anna Zeman, found while poking around online earlier today. (Yes, be jealous, we have a mad scientist on staff.)

You may recognize the little monkey from this viral video that made the rounds in July.

P.S. After watching the video, we were dying to know more about this little creature. Apparently Nala is a Black Cap Capuchin monkey who lives in Vegas with her family. She was rescued from a veterinarian and not purchased at a store. Her best friend is Miss Millie Marshmellow (yes, spelled as such), who we are assuming is the dog in the video above. (Someone correct us if we’re wrong.) She helps care for two autistic boys! What a little sweetie.

Learn more about Nala here.

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“Great” Compliments and Other Dog-Socializing Tips Courtesy of Susan Orlean

Author Susan Orlean, who released her latest book, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend last week with Simon & Schuster, has some tips on socializing dogs in her latest “Free Range” column for the New Yorker.

Susan Orlean (Photo by New Yorker)

Orlean moved from having acreage in New York’s Hudson Valley to the more city-dense Los Angeles, where her dog, Ivy, is reveling in all the new friends she’s made at the Laurel Canyon dog park.

Drawing upon her time as a dog owner in Manhattan before she moved to the more suburban Hudson Valley, Orlean came to remember seven key rules of etiquette when introducing your pooch to the playground. Her list touches on introductions, cellphone use (don’t be deep in convo if your little dear is a little terror), and how to handle what might be a grade-school clique (just deal).

Some examples from the woman herself:

1. Ask the dog’s name, never the owner’s name.

2. For some reason, every single request for the name of the dog is immediately followed by an inquiry about the age of the dog. I have no idea why, but believe me, this is true.

3. Compliment every dog on its beauty. If the dog is one-eyed, three-legged, gap-toothed, and mangy, make your compliment more fulsome. Having trouble thinking of a way to effuse about a pug-ugly mutt? Just remember, no one ever tires of hearing how “great” a face their dog has. Remember: “great” sounds really good without having a specific definition.

Read more of Orlean’s dog park tips over here.

Our favorite tip? How every dog deserves a compliment, and if you happen to encounter a pup you might not find to be the cutest, use the word “great” to describe its face. We can think of a few instances where this would have served us well.

Tell us, Dogsters, what is the most valuable social lesson you’ve learned at the dog park?

[Source: New Yorker]

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Police Dog Gets Past Python and Other Animals to Find Pot Stash

A Light Phase Asian Rock Python from the San Diego Zoo. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

A police dog near Genoa, Italy, was able to get past an alleged drug dealer’s menagerie which included a cat, a rabbit, and a seven-foot-long python to sniff out a large stash of marijuana, according to ANSA.

According to the report, the little zoo was there to foil the noses of police dogs. But the dog, named Umos, was not distracted, and even the python didn’t faze him.

Umos “soon turfed out the snake and we found the man’s cannabis as well as equipment to process it,” police said. “He was fearless.”

I am still on my trip, and as we left Italy yesterday, we saw this story on the TV news at the train station. It had “Dogster” written all over it.

(We are now in Athens, leaving soon for Santorini. Athens is a fun and lively and beautiful place, but it’s hard for me to be here because of the terrible situation with homeless dogs. They are everywhere. Very sad, and unexpected. I’m going to do an article on this when I get back and have a chance to do more research.)

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Pets on the bed and other media scares: This veterinarian’s perspective

Seems while so many of us DVMs and other veterinary professionals were meeting, sharing and learning at the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando this week, our MD colleagues decided to grab the stage and tell you that pets aren’t really that good for you after all. One story says you should be more worried about your pet than bedbugs; another declares that sleeping with your pet can kill you.  Yes, kill you. And no, I’m not making that up: That was the headline, and the story didn’t bother to note that having a tree fall on your house or a car crash through your window can kill you, too, and it’s probably about as likely.

Only in one story does the writer  get around to mentioning that a few basic precautions will minimize any problems to the point of being of little to no concern at all.  And even that’s at the end. The basic precautions mentioned are nothing more than routine advice from veterinarians.

As I like to put it to the pet-lovers I talk to: Lose the risk, keep the pet. Even on the bed, and I am sure it won’t surprise you to know that pets are on the bed in my home.

But of course, telling you that your healthy, well-mannered pet presents little disease risk to you wouldn’t make headlines, would it? Nor would pointing out that while bedbugs have no “up side” — unless you’re in the business of exterminating them — pets always do. The body of work showing the many ways sharing our lives with pets helps us being happier and healthier is not only incontrovertible but it’s also growing all the time. I would love to do a new edition of my best-seller “The Healing Power of Pets” just to update with all the pet-positive new information that has come out since it was published.

So should you worry?

There is a small point of importance to all these scary non-stories, and it’s that preventive care is important for your health as well as for your pet’s.

Did you know that veterinarians are charged with protecting the public health as well as animal health? It’s true: Here’s the Veterinarian’s Oath. And that’s why we’re often in a better position to advise on how keeping pets healthy protects people, too. Because let’s be honest: Not many people are going to toss their pets off their beds. And in the majority of cases, you don’t have to, as long as your pet is healthy. That means regular check-ups to catch illness early and veterinary-recommended parasite control as needed — no fleas, ticks or worms. That means clean pets frequently bathed, and it means keeping picking up after pets and keeping the yard and litter box clean, too.

Unfortunately, a  study released at NAVC says pet-lovers are cutting back on preventive care for economic reasons. That’s just plain bad medicine, and it’s a trend that needs to be reversed.

Pets aren’t going anywhere, and it’s long past the time for public health experts on the human side to give up any idea that they will — or they should. Instead of spreading dire scares through the sensational media machine, I call on my colleagues in human medicine to embrace pets, as their patients already have. And to continue to work with veterinarians to keep both animals and people safe, for the good of us all.

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Dog Collapses When the Mail Comes, and Other Odd Videos of Canine Narcolepsy

We’ve all known people who fall asleep quickly. But Mable puts them to shame. This cute 5-year-old bearded collie mix suffers from canine narcolepsy. The most noticeable — and frightfully odd — sign of this rare disorder happens when a dog gets excited. She’ll typically go from being super excited to looking like she’s fallen into a deep sleep in an instant. As the owner of Mable describes it, “…like she’s been struck by a bullet.”

Sometimes the sleep of collapsed narcoleptic dogs is real sleep, but often the excited narcoleptic dog collapses into a catatonic state — one where she is awake, and aware of what’s going on around her, but utterly unable to move. The catatonic dog loses all muscle tone, much as happens to humans and other mammals in normal REM-stage sleep. (When you’re sleeping, that’s OK. Not so when you’re driving on the highway.)

The adorable Doxie mix in the second half of the Stanford video below is a textbook case of the floppy wet noodle quality of catatonia. She’s apparently fully aware of being like a rag doll, but can do nothing about it. Poor little pup! At last she’s in the very knowledgeable and gentle hands of Dr. Emmanuel Mignot, probably the world’s foremost expert in the field.

The next (and last) video of a narcoleptic dog is a heartbreaker. Skeeter struggles to resist sleep/catatonia, fights it valiantly, knows what’s going on, and can’t win. It seems to make his life a wreck.

There’s not much that can be done for narcoleptic dogs yet, although some tricyclic antidepressants may be of limited help. Some dogs have mild cases that don’t interfere too much with life, but for others, like Skeeter, it makes for a miserable and exhausting existence.

You can read more about canine narcolepsy and its genetic links in this K9 Perspective article. Check out this easy-to-understand article from Science News about narcolepsy in general, should you want to learn more.

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In Other Dogster Blogs…

Sniff around Dogster blogs this weekend!

Hey Dogsters! Today we start our occasional look at what’s going on in other Dogster blogs, so you can sniff out what’s going on in other corners of the Dogster world!

First, congratulations to veterinarian Eric Barchus, who published his 1,000th Dogster post on the Vet Blog this week! He answers questions about pet health and well-being, so if you have any, check him out!

One of my favorite questions of the month was “Can food affect the way an animal smells?” Dr. B mentioned — among other things — that he knew someone who overdid Omega 3 fatty acids and ended up smelling like fish. Check out his post for his full answer. (It could explain why Jake sometimes smells like old shoes…)

Over at Living With Dogs, Julia Szabo wrote this week about making accommodations at home for dogs with disabilities. I was sorry to learn that her beloved dog, Tiki, is having trouble getting traction in his rear paws, but interested in everything she’s doing to make life easier for him in her NYC apartment.

Finally, canine behavior expert Casey Lomonaco blogged about a great new canine sport called Treibball over at her blog, the Dog Training Guide. “Treibball involves teaching dogs to herd a number of large exercise balls into a pen at the direction of a handler,” she writes. Sounds like fun! “Treibball also allows you to take foundation behaviors (targeting, send out, ’stay,’ ‘wait,’ directionals, settling on a mat) and proof them in a fun new way.”

Happy sniffing!

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The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs

Improve communication with your best friend! This book teaches readers how to retrain themselves to speak consistently in a language dogs understand and avoid sending conflicting and confusing messages.

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