GPS Data Reveal How Sheepdogs Herd Sheep

Scientists using GPS technology have figured out how sheepdogs efficiently herd sheep. This may help in developing robots that can perform similar activities and other applications.

They find that the dogs follow two basic instructions which allows them to tightly reign in the sheep and move them towards a single direction. The two instructions are to (1) collect the sheep when they are loose and (2) move them forward when they are gathered.

The scientists also attached gps devices on the sheep and the dog and observed how the movements of the animals appear on screen. They also built a computer model that simulates an efficient way of herding the sheep.

Surprisingly, the two models are similar.

This discovery can help in developing applications for use by robots in activities such as crowd control, cleaning up the environment, herding of livestock, keeping animals away from sensitive areas, and collecting or guiding groups of exploring robots.

Direction of Tail Wag of Dogs Denotes Positive or Negative Emotion and Influence Behavior of Other Dogs

A research team has discovered that the direction of the tail wag of a dog reflects its general emotion and that other dogs responds to it as well. They note that when a dog wags its tail to the right, it feels positive emotions such as seeing or playing with their owners. A wag to the left means the dog is feeling negative emotions such as seeing a stranger.

Other dogs also respond to the tail wags where it was observed that when a dog wags to the right (positive emotion), other dogs are relaxed. A wag to the left and the other dogs start feeling nervous and anxious.

It is explained that the part of the brain that controls positive or negative behavior influence the direction of the tail wag. Left-brain activation produces a wag to the right, and right-brain activation produces a wag to the left.

It is not known if the dog is even aware of this response.

This study can help scientists, veterinarians, and even owners understand the dogs current psychology and use it to their advantage when it comes to the dogs health and well being.

Dog Database Set Up To Help Quantify Health, Illness, and Care of Dogs

A database for dogs was set up to help veterinarians study patterns, causes, and effects of health and disease conditions of dogs in a defined population.

One obstacle in the research and advancements in treating dog conditions and diseases is the lack of studies and data regarding these. Most dog owners call on veterinary doctors only when their pets are already sick.

Having a database of dogs would extremely help in quantifying and keep track of dogs and their health conditions within a geographic and time based period.

Also for pet owners, a reliable dog database can allow owners to compare their pet's development to other pets within the project. For researchers and veterinarians, a database would help them improve the lives of all dogs the world over.

Dogs Can Be Manipulated Through Human Cues

There are two ways to communicate with a dog; a command and a cue.

A command is a simple word or expression that the dog is trained to understand. It generally tells the dog to perform a specific action.

A cue is more subtle. It is a prompt, hint or suggestion that affects the dogs behavior in a given situation. Pointing, looking at something or even a sound can be interpreted by the dog as a cue from the owner. A cue is a signal to which the dog interprets in his or her own way. Dogs sometimes communicates to the owner through verbal cues such as wimpering, wagging its tail, and scratching.

Dogs communicate in many ways with each other, using verbal cues, body language and facial expressions. They also try to communicate with humans using these methods. Humans, of course, communicate with dogs with commands and phrases. Dogs can learn hundreds of human sounds but they can't string them together.

Dogs turn down extra food if a human provides the right cues

Dogs can be manipulated to choose against their preference by human cues, opting to turn down extra food in order to follow the human's choice, according to results published Apr. 25 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The work was led by Sarah Marshall-Pescini of the University of Milan.

Obese Dogs Find Better Quality of Life After Weight Loss

Obesity is a disease that can be defined as an excess of body fat that is enough to impair health, welfare and quality of life. Obesity is not confined to humans. Pets are also susceptible to obesity.

Although some diseases can cause pet obesity, the main reason that pets become obese is because the food that they eat contains more energy than they use up. This means that if pets eat too much or do not do enough exercise, they may become obese.

Global studies estimate that between 22 and 44 per cent of dogs are overweight or obese.

In a recent study, scientists have found a notable improvement in quality of life following successful weight loss in obese dogs

Owners of obese dogs that are successful in losing weight notice significant improvement in their dogs' health-related quality of life, a collaborative team of researchers has shown. The research was conducted by scientists from the University of Liverpool (UK), the Pain and Welfare Group at the University of Glasgow (UK), ROYAL CANIN and the WALTHAM® Centre for Pet Nutrition - the science centre supporting Mars Petcare brands such as PEDIGREE® and NUTRO®.

The study involved fifty obese dogs, representing a mix of breeds and genders that had been referred to the ROYAL CANIN Weight Management Clinic based at the University of Liverpool. Owners were asked to complete a standardised questionnaire to determine the health-related quality of life of their dog prior to weight loss. Owners of the thirty dogs that successfully completed the weight loss programme and reached their target weight then completed a follow-up questionnaire. The completed questionnaire responses were converted into scores corresponding to a range of factors, including vitality, emotional disturbance and pain.

Dogs Understand Better Than Chimpanzees When Humans Point To Something

A study published in the online journal PLoS One reveals that dogs are better then chimpanzees at interpreting pointing gestures. When someone points at an object, the dog knows what it means better than a chimp.

Research has shown that dogs understand pointing gestures in the same capacity as that of a two year old child. It is likeley that dogs' skills with human communication are part of their evolutionary adaptation to life with humans. This is also supported by the fact that untrained wolves perform poorly. Dogs develop this skill earlier and need no specific training in order to follow pointing

Chimpanzees on the other hand failed in the object-task experiments of the study.

The problem is not that chimpanzees do not follow the gaze direction of humans to outside targets; they do do this. If that target is food, then they may go and fetch it. However, in the socalled object choice task in which the food is hidden, the situation is different. Here the human points to one of several opaque containers. In this situation the subject must not only locate the target but also infer why the pointer is directing attention to the container, which in itself is uninteresting. Human infants as young as 14 months are successful in this task

Dogs Know When We Want To Talk To Them

Dogs can read our intent. They not only pick up on the words we say but also when we want to communicate with them. This is according to József Topál of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, in Budapest, Hungary and his team.

The findings might help to explain why so many people treat dogs like their children. Dogs seem to understand us when we talk to them. And as the study suggests, a dog's receptivity to human communication is similar to that of a young child, researchers say. They published their report online in the Cell Press journal Current Biology.

"Increasing evidence supports the notion that humans and dogs share some social skills, with dogs' social-cognitive functioning resembling that of a 6-month to 2-year-old child in many respects," said Topál. "The utilization of ostensive cues is one of these features: dogs, as well as human infants, are sensitive to cues that signal communicative intent." It is said that a dog can understand an average of 140 words which is the same as that of a 2 year old child.

Those cues include verbal addressing and eye contact, he explained. Whether or not dogs rely on similar pathways in the brain for processing those cues isn't yet clear.