Dogs and Allergies

Allergies are becoming more and more common in the human population in industrialized countries, and the same is sadly true for our four legged companions. Dogs can just like us develop allergies to pollen, dust mites and even certain protein sources in food, among many other things. While there are no certain answers to why there's such an increase in allergy prevalence, at least more and more effective treatments for allergies are found.

Symptoms to look for in your dog if you suspect it might be allergic. 

Picture borrowed from http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/article.cfm?aid=75

Just like in humans, where antihistamines and cortisone can be used to alleviate the symptoms of allergy, it doesn't remove the allergy itself. The only way to get rid of the allergy, or at least make the individual less sensitive to a certain allergen (substance that can cause an allergic reaction) is a process called hyposensibilization. That used to imply going to the doctor, or veterinarian in the case of dogs, to get an injection of the substance you/the dog were allergic to with certain intervals (usually every 14 days). This is often both time consuming and quite often unsuccessful in treating the allergy in question. Not to mention the fact that some people and dogs (yes dogs too) are actually scared of needles. What is worse, some extra sensitive individuals can actually get a very severe allergic reaction to the injection. Thankfully a new method of hyposensibilization for dogs  have been found and was presented this summer: Oral drops. They are simply dropped under the tongue twice a day. It has show to be comparable to injections in effectiveness but without the risk of strong allergic reactions. In some cases where allergy shots haven't worked, the oral drops did, so it appears to have a different mode of action. The treatment still has to be supervised by a veterinarian, but it is a good alternative to allergy shots. The drops also apparently taste good, so the dog won't mind taking them. Which I can tell you from personal experience is a very good thing.. I've seldom been as exhausted and sweaty at work as after I've tried to medicate a dog with pills it doesn't want..

I for one hope that more research will be done in this area for the sake of allergic people and dogs alike. Hopefully some time in the future we will find a treatment for allergy that is both more effective and safe. But maybe we should start in the other end, to find out why we and our dogs get allergic in the first place.

Source: 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120724144429.htm

The dog's exceptional smelling ability helps researchers

The dogs sense of smell is ranging from one hundred thousand to one million times more sensitive than ours, this together with the ease with which they cooperate with us humans make them the perfect tool, or as I prefer to view it, coworker, for the scientists doing everything from medical research to wildlife population estimations and everything in between.

When most people hear about dogs used in science or for scientific purposes, they think of beagles in a lab that has tubes inserted in different places and get injected with different chemicals. The role of the dog in science has evolved however, and we find more and more uses for our four-legged companions, mostly in ways that doesn't harm them one bit, but rather harness the awesome capacities hidden inside the nose and central nervous system of the dog; its sens of smell.
Unlike the human brain where a large part is concerned with dealing with interpretation of visual input, the dogs brain is dominated by its olfactory cortex, that is the area of the brain concerned with the sense of smell. In a way you could say that they see the world through smells, or at least experience it through smells. The olfactory bulb (where the receptors for smell are located) of the dog is forty times bigger than that of a human.
Due to this and their will to cooperate with humans on an unprecedented level in the animal kingdom, dogs are now used in many fields of research, from detecting cancer to locating owls and even finding killer whales! (Click on the links below to read more about it.) There seems to be no limits to what dogs can detect with their noses, the limiting factor is the human imagination.

"Is that a whale I smell?" A picture from one of the walks with the Siberian huskies this summer, Vida tried to smell things under water..

Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14557224

http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20120902/NEWS0107/209020364/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120815174906.htm

Diseases, genes, dog breeds and humans

Dogs are a gold mine when it comes to studying hereditary diseases. This is due to the relatively small gene pool within each breed, which makes it comparatively easy to pinpoint the gene(s) that increases the risk of developing the disease. The small gene pool is unfortunately also what makes diseases so common in pure bred dogs.

Documentary about what research in dogs can do for our understanding of hereditary diseases.

Documentary about what the small gene pool does to the dogs themselves.

Just recently, the gene for hereditary epilepsy was identified in Belgian shepherd dogs. Dogs that was homozygous (dogs that has the same gene on both chromosomes) for the particular gene had a 7-fold increase in risk of developing epilepsy. The gene is however also found to be homozygous in 1/5 of healthy Belgian shepherd dogs, so more research needs to be done. Epilepsy is very common in some breeds and in this particular breed, as many as 20% of the dogs have epilepsy. This can be compared to 1-5% of the human population. It is therefore quite clear that in order to save this breed, a reliable gene test needs to be developed.

One of the four Belgian Shepherd dogs, the Terveren. Photo from Wikipedia.

Source:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120323205337.htm

Dogs, walks, weight and health

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have in a study found that pregnant women owning a dog is 50% more likely than women without dogs to achieve the recommended 30 minutes of exercise a day. Failing to achieve this increases the risk of  gaining too much weight during the pregnancy, which in turn increases the risk of complications during both pregnancy and child birth, and the risk for the child to be over-weight or obese itself will be higher if the mother is or becomes over-weight during the pregnancy. Being obese or over weight is itself a risk as this increases the risk of different diseases, like for example diabetes. Another rather alarming realization gained from this study was that some pregnant women don't walk their dog at all. Which brings us to the second part of this post.



What about the weight and health of the dog itself? Another study, also at the University of Liverpool showed that obese dogs that lost weight had an increased quality of life. Obesity is in dogs just as in humans, a serious condition that can lead to many health disorders including diabetes, heart disease and arthritis. The increased quality of life however that the dogs experienced after losing weight was only in part due to these direct health benefits. Other effects were reduction of pain and emotional disturbances and increased vitality. Methods of keeping the dog lean and healthy, or losing weight if necessary, include portion control, increased exercise and diets specifically formulated for overweight pets.


So what to do? Walk your dog! Both you and your beloved pet will be healthier and happier!

Me on a mountain walk with Siberian huskies Birk and Tessa, july 2011.

Sources:


http://m.liv.ac.uk/research/index.php#owning-a-dog-encourages-exercise-in-pregnant-women


https://news.liv.ac.uk/2012/02/20/quality-of-life-of-obese-dogs-improves-when-they-lose-weight/

The benefits of growing up with pets

Not only do you get healthier from growing up with animals, you also get better social skills compared to children without pets.

 In a study from 2011, that had followed 566 children from birth until they were 18 have showed that living with a dog or a cat during your first year of life decreases the risk of allergies against these pets by as much as 50%. This was true for both sexes when they lived with cats, while the same effect was only seen in boys not in girls when they lived with dogs. Exposure to pets during any other time than the first year of life had no effect on the prevalence of allergies later in life.

So in short, living with a cat or dog does not increase the risk of becoming allergic to these pets. To have an effect you need to live with these pets as an infant and the effect then will be that the risk of getting allergic is decreased, possibly by as much as 50%.

So what other effects of growing up with pets have been found?

• A Swedish study found that pet exposure during the first year of life was associated with a lower prevalence of allergic rhinitis and asthma in children ages 7 to 13 years old.
• A large–scale survey of 11,000 Australians, Chinese, and Germans found that pet owners made up to 20 percent fewer annual visits to the doctor than non-pet owners.
• A study of 256 children, ages 5 to 11 years, in three schools in England and Scotland found that kids with pets had fewer sick days.
• A study of 100 children younger than 13 years who owned cats found that more than 80 percent said they got along better with family and friends.
• Studies have linked family ownership of a pet with high self–esteem in young children and greater cognitive development.
• Children with pets at home score significantly higher on empathy and pro–social scales than non–pet owners. 

I wish I had had these facts to back me up when I as a child relentlessly begged my parents to give me a dog. Maybe it would have made a difference..

Sources:
 Wegienka G, Johnson CC, Havstad S. Lifetime dog and cat exposure and dog- and cat-specific sensitization at age 18 years. Clinical & Experimental Allergy.

http://www.everydayhealth.com/pet-health/effects-of-pets-on-kids.aspx

Guinness world record in Agility

The current Guinness world record in Agility is held by Norwegians. Link to video below:

Guinness world record in Agility

14 dogs managed to go through a agility course without mistakes in 5 minutes, that's pretty impressive!

Below is a video I shot at an agility competition in Tromsø, northern Norway.

The Dog - Man's Best and First friend

According to new findings by scientists at the University of Arizona, the dog (or the wolf) was domesticated more than 33000 years ago. This is based on the finding of two dog sculls (not wolf sculls) from Siberia and Belgium, both approximately 33 000 years old. According to the scientists this indicates that the dog has been domesticated several times and does not have one ancestor as the DNA has indicated, but several. This also means that there is now proof that out of all the domesticated animals we have today, the dog was the first one (and maybe apart from the cat, the only one) to choose a life by our side. For more about this here's a link to the original article:

http://uanews.org/node/44227

In my opinion this doesn't indicate that the dog has been domesticated several times, but rather that the dog was domesticated long before we previously thought. I wouldn't be surprised if the dog was domesticated 100 000 years ago or maybe even earlier than that. The dog is so very in-tuned with our body language and gestures and we are so finely tuned to theirs (well for the most part) that we simply must have co-evolved for a very long time. But that is just my humble opinion.. But I didn't actually come up with that myself, it is from the BBC documentary "The secret life of the dog", part of which you can watch below.