This news makes me soooo want to visit Brisbane! Any place that has a mayor like this one must be filled with great people and pups!

If anyone knows how we can send well wishes to the Lord Mayor and the City Council please bark it in!

Thanks to ABC Brisbane for this good news.

Labor councillor slams university experiments on pound dogs

The Brisbane City Council is awaiting a report into the use of live dogs in veterinary research.

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PLEASE CROSSPOST!!!!!

Nine dogs in Raleigh, NC need to be rescued immediately!

Thanks to Lynn for barking this in. Please pass it on to anyone who could make the difference for these furbabies.

Hi All,
Laboratory Animal Resources at the Vet School has 9 dogs available to be adopted out immediately. These dogs have been offered before, and we had no takers.

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Way to go Republic of San Marino!!!!! Isn’t there some award someone can give them for making this major move into human evolution!?

Thanks to the good person who barked in this announcement from the AnimalRightsActivistsResources Yahoo Group.

The Republic of San Marino, an independent state within central Italy and a
member of the United Nations and the Council of Europe, has become the first
nation to formally abolish animal experimentation.

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Isn’t it time that Melbourne University join the rest of the civilized world and STOP using dogs for surgery practice?

Please be warned that this is a very upsetting article.

Thanks to LIVENEWS.com.au for this article.

Healthy dogs used for surgery training
Richard Maxton
13/04/2008

Veterinary students at Melbourne University are operating on healthy and sometimes pregnant dogs, then killing the animals.

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This is pathetic! I understand wanting to have a treasured furbaby supposedly returned to you but clones are NOT the original dog!

There are certain dogs who’ve been in my life that I would love to have back alive and healthy. But part of loving a dog or dogs is the knowledge that you will outlive them. Its a sad fact. Trying to bring a dog back via cloning is wrong on so many levels.

First, expecting a cloned dog to be the original dog is not fair to him or you. There are so many experiences you shared that built the bond between you that the clone has not experiences. Yes, the clone can look like your beloved furbaby but he or she is NOT the dog you love.

Second, there are so many needy dogs in shelters and with rescue groups that creating a clone seems wasteful. Unlike responsible breeding, cloning is not done to improve a specific breed. Dogs are cloned to serve the emotional needs of the humans.

Thanks to the Associated Press for this article.

Company offers to clone dogs for 5 highest bidders
By MARCUS WOHLSEN

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A Northern California biotech company announced Wednesday that it will clone dogs for the five highest bidders in a series of online auctions. Some ethicists condemned the offer, fearing it could lead to human clones.

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Thanks to the Associated Press for this article.

Computer helps jailers understand dogs
By BETH MARLOWE

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli jails are using a custom-built computer program to interpret the barks of guard dogs and distinguish warnings of a breakout from everyday woofs, a prisons official said Monday.

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Well, doesn’t this just blow the top off that old lie from greyhound racers that they care about their dogs!

So let’s talk about greyhound racing. Isn’t it time civilized countries (like Britain and the US) get over it? Yes, greyhounds are gorgeous when they run but as any greyhound rescuer can tell you, the dogs have much more fun racing off track in weekend events where the track is a field and no money rides on their backs.

What’s the difference between puppy mills and these greyhound breeders that sell their dogs for any purpose whatsoever? Nothing?

Notice that this race miller used to be a pig breeder? With his level of concern for dogs I wouldn’t be surprized if he sold dogs for food to Asian countries that still allow that horrendous culinary practice.

Thanks to the Times Online for this article.

Greyhound breeder offers slow dogs to be killed for research
Daniel Foggo

The largest breeder of greyhounds in Britain is offering to sell healthy young dogs to be killed and dissected for research, an investigation has found.

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How cool is this! Not only do dogs teach children how to be better people; they actually reduce allergies too!

Thanks to The Register for this article.

Dogs reduce allergies in kids
The benefit of mutts as pets
By Lester Haines
Published Tuesday 29th April 2008

German researchers have apparently confirmed that keeping a dog as a family pet will reduce the chance that kids will develop allergies - a finding which backs a theory that having a mutt about the house “trains the immune system to be less sensitive to potential triggers for allergies like asthma, eczema and hay fever”.

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Thanks to the L.A. Unleashed Blog for putting me onto this interesting new research at Ball State University.

New study could lead to improvement in placement of companion animals
(4/22/2008)

Pet owners often intuitively describe themselves as “cat people” or “dog people,” but a study from Ball State University confirms that success rates of animal adoptions could be greatly improved if personalities of both human and animal were better matched.

A study of dog and cat guardians found that it is the fit between owner needs and pet personality, rather than pet type, that best predicts companion animal attachment, said Lucinda Woodward, a professor of psychological sciences and personality researcher

.

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But remember, its not just pollutants that can damage our furbabies; things like lawn products can hurt them too. Who spends the most time rolling around on those artificially green lawns with all those weed and bug killers? Dogs and cats, of course. So while pollutants are terrible things please keep in mind that we can protect our furbabies from some things.

Meanwhile, join Eddie at his blog and the Pets for the Environment to work together against the pollution killing us all.

Thanks to the Environmental Working Group for letting me know about their recent report on taxic contamination in pets. How sad!

On the other hand, Dogster Eddie is leading the way for all dogs, cats and other pets to take a stand (or sit) for the environment. I look forward to hearing more from Pets for the Environment!

Hi Joy,

I just wanted to give you a heads-up about a report EWG is releasing today on pet body burden. We tested 60 dogs and cats for 70 different toxic chemicals and found that in many cases, pets are even more contaminated than people.

Considering rising rates of cancer in dogs and rampant hyperthyroidism in cats, we think there’s cause for concern. You can see the report at the Environmental Working group site.

We’re launching a campaign to go along with the report: Pets for the Environment — the idea is to rally pet lovers to advocate for toxic chemical reform while providing tips to help us all keep our pets healthy. We’ve got a supercute spokesdog named Eddie (who’s on dogster, of course!), and supporters can even upload their own pet photos to Eddie’s Wall of Cute.

Here’s the article:

High Levels of Toxic Industrial Chemicals Contaminate Cats And Dogs
Summary and Findings

They are trying their best to warn us.

In the first study of its kind, Environmental Working Group found that American pets are polluted with even higher levels of many of the same synthetic industrial chemicals that researchers have recently found in people, including newborns.

The results show that America’s pets are serving as involuntary sentinels of the widespread chemical contamination that scientists increasingly link to a growing array of health problems across a wide range of animals—wild, domesticated and human.

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