It constantly amazes me how dogs can help us in so many new ways! Take this article for example. Here is a dedicated group of humans trying to address a very serious problem. And who steps up to be their partners once again? Dogs, of course!

Okay, I know the dogs didn’t actually apply for the job but as our closest friends and symbiotes, dogs are helping theri humans meet these challenges. What would we do without them?

Thanks to Lindsey at Conservation International for barking over this article.

For These Dogs, Are Their New Tricks Saving Species?
May 13, 2008

Sniffing Dogs Help Monitor and Protect Threatened Animals in Brazil

It’s a tough job, but somebody – or at least some dogs – have to do it.

In the Cerrado region of Brazil, four dogs have been trained to detect animal feces by scent. These canines are helping researchers monitor rare and threatened wildlife such as jaguars, tapirs, giant anteaters, and maned wolves in and around Emas National Park, a protected area with the largest concentration of threatened species in Brazil.

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Have you ever shopped the bargain bins at PetSmart? I have. But one blogger has found some expired pproducts in those bins.

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Are you looking for a new home? Have pets? Then you may find the PeoplewithPets site to be a real timesaver!

PeopleWithPets has listings of rental properties and hotels that accept pets. How cool is this? When I first moved to St. Louis I remember how hard it was to find a first home with my pack then, coonhound Reba and Weimaraner Nigel. How happy do you think most landlords were to see US coming? 90 pounds of Weimaraner, 65 pounds of coonhound and well, uh, me. Not exactly a landlords dream, I bet.

Here’s some information from the site:

Our goal at PeopleWithPets.com is to ease the burden of finding rental housing or hotel accommodations that will allow your dog, cat or other animals. We started in a few metro cities: Atlanta, Dallas, Austin, Orlando, Jacksonville and Raleigh-Durham. We have since then expanded to include the entire United States with pet friendly places to call home. If you find an apartment from our site, please tell them you found them on PeopleWithPets.com so we can continue to provide this FREE service to you. Happy home hunting for you and your best friends!

Dogsters and Catsters know that dogs, cats and others animalshave a different yet important type of intelligence. So this National Geographic article will probably not surprize you too much. Bit it will confirm some of what you already feel and know.

Personally, I’m thrilled to see this information talked about openly by reputable publications because there are way too many people who still believe that there is nothing we can learn from dogs and other animals.

Those of you who have visited me at the science fiction conventions know I am usually on panels about how humans view and write about non-humans. A few years ago I was on a panel with a successful writer who actually has a good-selling series with aliens. But he has little interest in non-human animals on THIS planet. When i asked him why he said it was because there was nothing else we could learn from other species on Earth. I hope this writer gets a chance to read this article. There are so many excellent scientists who know better. I hope the writer and others like him can learn from these true scientific pioneers.

There is so much we can learn about and from our canine and feline symbiotes, as well as the other species with whom we share this planet.

Thanks to Michael K. (who saw the convention panel with the other writer) for barking in this article from National Geographic.

Minds of their Own
Animals are smarter than you think.
By Virginia Morell
Photograph by Vincent J. Musi

In 1977 Irene Pepperberg, a recent graduate of Harvard University, did something very bold. At a time when animals still were considered automatons, she set out to find what was on another creature’s mind by talking to it. She brought a one-year-old African gray parrot she named Alex into her lab to teach him to reproduce the sounds of the English language. “I thought if he learned to communicate, I could ask him questions about how he sees the world.”

When Pepperberg began her dialogue with Alex, who died last September at the age of 31, many scientists believed animals were incapable of any thought. They were simply machines, robots programmed to react to stimuli but lacking the ability to think or feel. Any pet owner would disagree. We see the love in our dogs’ eyes and know that, of course, Spot has thoughts and emotions. But such claims remain highly controversial. Gut instinct is not science, and it is all too easy to project human thoughts and feelings onto another creature. How, then, does a scientist prove that an animal is capable of thinking—that it is able to acquire information about the world and act on it?

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Yay for Rex! big barks!!!

Thanks to the Telegraph for this article.

Dog comes to the rescue of baby kangaroo
01/04/2008

A dog has rescued a tiny baby kangaroo, gently carrying it to safety in its mouth after the joey’s mother was killed by car.

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Thanks to i.c.Wales.co.uk for this sweet article.

Roxy lamb adapts to dog’s life
Apr 1 2008
by Liz Shankland, Western Mail

There’s an unexpected and very demanding new house guest at the smallholding

WHEN your child turns 18 you’re supposed to be free of all parental responsibilities, aren’t you? Well, Josh may have reached his landmark birthday last week, but at almost the same time, I ended up with another baby to look after.

Dotty, my favourite ewe, gave birth to twins. It was quite a relief at first, because last year she had a stillborn and it really was heartbreaking to see her calling to it in vain. Unfortunately, it seems she was so chuffed at delivering her first live lamb that when another arrived, she wasn’t interested. While the ram lamb suckled contentedly, his much smaller sister couldn’t get a look-in. Every time she tried to feed, Dotty head-butted her away; she kept trying again and again, but there was no way she was going to get a taste of her mother’s milk.

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If you’re looking for interesting new computer games, or just new things to learn about wolves, check out the WolfQuest game on the Minnesota Zoo site! High quality graphics and a storyline based on wolf behavior make this game something very different from the usual shoot ‘em, crash ‘em sort of computer game.

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Doesn’t this sound like a stupid frat prank gone wrong? Who would think a grown man would be unthinking enough to aim a golf ball at a living creature?

And is this hubris or just disregard for life when it comes to Calcavecchio?

And yes, this isn’t about dogs or cats but someone needs to be watching this guy’s interactions with all animals.

Thanks to Yukiko for barking in this article from Yahoo Sports.

Isenhour getting plenty of unwanted attention for hawk killing
By TRAVIS REED, Associated Press Writer
Mar 8

Golf Gallery ORLANDO, Fla. (AP)—Tripp Isenhour has never gotten this much attention for a single golf shot. Really, he’s never gotten this much attention, period.

Isenhour said it was a “one-in-a-million” golf shot that killed a protected hawk and that he was only trying to scare the bird he now faces misdemeanor criminal charges for killing.

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Here in the Northern Hemisphere a lot of us are getting a bit tired of winter. Spring starts March 20th but here are a few very sweet pictures of another cross-species love. I know these aren’t dogs or cats but the spirit of these pictures are so good I just had to share them.

If anyone knows who shot these photos, please bark in so I can give credit.

Thanks to Sandy for barking these in to the blog!

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Thanks to Daily Yomiuri Online for this article.

Dogs to foil pilfering primates
The Yomiuri Shimbun

The Aichi prefectural government has decided to train dogs to protect rice and other agricultural products from thieving monkeys in mountainous areas.

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