Family Dog Research Articles

I Really Want the Cake by Simon Philip

Reviewed by: I Really Want the Cake by Simon Philip Kiri Palm Philip, Simon I Really Want the Cake; illus. by Lucia Gaggiotti. Orchard/Scholastic, 2020 [40p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-338-58941-2 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-338-68428-5 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys R 4-7 yrs In this British import, our pigtailed protagonist and her ever-present pup smell an alluring scent coming from the kitchen: Mom has baked a chocolate cake, towering with icing and calling out to be consumed. The only problem is that Mom has also left specific instructions to her child to not eat the beautiful cake. In this bouncing readaloud, our unnamed heroine narrates in rhyme her valiant attempt (and eventual failure) to refrain from eating the delicious dessert. Gaggiotti’s digital art is rife with comical expressions and vibrant vintage colors, and it is especially charming when it transcends reality, expressing the narrator’s determination through fantasy scenes: approaching her baked bounty with gun holsters full of cutlery; walking away from the kitchen wearing full hiking gear and wandering up onto a mountain. The narrative leaves some small questions, such as why the family dog is shown consuming a massive chocolate cake without medical consequences. However, this is more likely to bother the adult readers than the young listeners, who will likely be too busy giggling at the daughter’s attempted apology cake and the resulting kitchen mess. Back matter features a recipe for a chocolate cake (and strict instructions not to share the results with Fido). Copyright © 2020 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

“Who Gets the Dog?” A Family Law Approach

As the saying goes, pets are family. It is well-known, however, that the law does not take animal interests into account when resolving family law disputes dealing with companion animals. In law, they are property — mere things, the value of which rests solely in their market price. The property designation does not prevent people from treating their dogs as more than objects — providing them with expensive medical care, sharing their homes with them, loving them in a similar way to children. But when families break down, and their members cannot agree on what should happen to them, the property status of nonhuman animals becomes stark. When it comes to the family dog, there are no custody determinations, no inquiries into the animal’s best interests, and no doctrinal basis for ordering access, visitation, or financial support. Rather, in Canadian courts, who gets the dog is typically determined by a straightforward property analysis, where purchaser equals owner. With few exceptions, and as unpalatable as it may be to people who share their lives with an animal, the law concerning the ownership and continued care of companion animals has not kept pace with societal attitudes toward them. This article makes a case for change. On the heels of the only reported Canadian appellate court decision to weigh in on companion animal ownership following a break-up, it sets out and argues in favour of an alternative model — one that looks beyond who purchased an animal and considers the relationship between dog and human. This is not a radical proposition. In setting out its approach to determining ownership, this article draws on relational theory to endorse a rising trend in the case law. It envisions an analysis premised on the view that determining ownership of a companion animal requires nuanced analysis, that looks to a series of factors and indicators about the relationship between human and animal.

Lone Wolf by Sarah Kurpiel

Reviewed by: Lone Wolf by Sarah Kurpiel Deborah Stevenson, Editor Kurpiel, Sarah Lone Wolf; written and illus. by Sarah Kurpiel. Greenwillow, 2020 [34p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-06-294382-8 $17.99 Reviewed from galleys R 4-8 yrs Maple is the Parker family dog, but outsiders often mistake the husky for a wolf. Eventually even Maple begins to wonder, so when she has the chance to slip out and try a wolf’s life, she goes for it. She quickly realizes that she’s not cut out for a wild existence, though, and finds her way back home to her welcoming family. The story builds on a common canine confusion to create a funny little tale about belonging, regardless of the perception of outsiders, with some humorous touches in dialogue (a passerby excitedly observes, “Dude, that dog looks like a wolf”) and narration. Illustrations combine a playfully drafted, slightly cartoonish Maple with more realistic and diverse humans (including a younger Parker, whose use of a wheelchair is treated as literally unremarkable) and geometric backgrounds; charts about wolf vs. husky ID and diagrams of Maple’s travels are comic as well as informative. This may clear up some audience misconceptions about the northern dog breeds in their own neighborhood, and youngsters will giggle at Maple’s misplaced adventure. Copyright © 2020 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Age-related positivity effect on behavioural responses of dogs to human vocalisations

Age-related changes in the brain can alter how emotions are processed. In humans, valence specific changes in attention and memory were reported with increasing age, i.e. older people are less attentive toward and experience fewer negative emotions, while processing of positive emotions remains intact. Little is yet known about this “positivity effect” in non-human animals. We tested young (n = 21, 1–5 years) and old (n = 19, >10 years) family dogs with positive (laugh), negative (cry), and neutral (hiccup, cough) human vocalisations and investigated age-related differences in their behavioural reactions. Only dogs with intact hearing were analysed and the selected sound samples were balanced regarding mean and fundamental frequencies between valence categories. Compared to young dogs, old individuals reacted slower only to the negative sounds and there was no significant difference in the duration of the reactions between groups. The selective response of the aged dogs to the sound stimuli suggests that the results cannot be explained by general cognitive and/or perceptual decline. and supports the presence of an age-related positivity effect in dogs, too. Similarities in emotional processing between humans and dogs may imply analogous changes in subcortical emotional processing in the canine brain during ageing.

Genetic Pathways of Aging and Their Relevance in the Dog as a Natural Model of Human Aging.

Aging research has experienced a burst of scientific efforts in the last decades as the growing ratio of elderly people has begun to pose an increased burden on the healthcare and pension systems of developed countries. Although many breakthroughs have been reported in understanding the cellular mechanisms of aging, the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that contribute to senescence on higher biological levels are still barely understood. The dog, Canis familiaris, has already served as a valuable model of human physiology and disease. The possible role the dog could play in aging research is still an open question, although utilization of dogs may hold great promises as they naturally develop age-related cognitive decline, with behavioral and histological characteristics very similar to those of humans. In this regard, family dogs may possess unmatched potentials as models for investigations on the complex interactions between environmental, behavioral, and genetic factors that determine the course of aging. In this review, we summarize the known genetic pathways in aging and their relevance in dogs, putting emphasis on the yet barely described nature of certain aging pathways in canines. Reasons for highlighting the dog as a future aging and gerontology model are also discussed, ranging from its unique evolutionary path shared with humans, its social skills, and the fact that family dogs live together with their owners, and are being exposed to the same environmental effects.

Intracranial Injury after a Dog Attack in a Neonate

AbstractDog bites are a common event, especially in the pediatric population. Common anatomic site of dog bites is the head. Despite this, intracranial injuries due to dog bites are reported anecdotally, especially in neonates. In this article, we reported a 7-day-old female neonate attacked in the head by the family dog. She presented penetrating bilateral intracranial injuries that required urgent surgery and pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) admission. She received rabies and tetanus prophylaxis, wide-spectrum antibiotic, and anticonvulsive prophylaxis. She was hospitalized in PICU for 9 days, developing intracranial hypertension. One year after the dog bite, she showed moderate psychomotor retardation and focal epilepsy.

Potential Physiological Parameters to Indicate Inner States in Dogs: The Analysis of ECG, and Respiratory Signal During Different Sleep Phases.

The sleeping activity of family dogs has been studied increasingly in the past years. Recently, a validated, non-invasive polysomnographic method has been developed for dogs, enabling the parallel recording of several neurophysiological signals on non-anesthetized family dogs, including brain activity (EEG), eye movements (EOG), cardiac (ECG), and respiratory activity (PNG). In this study, we examined the ECG (N = 30) and respiratory signals (N = 19) of dogs during a 3-h sleep period in the afternoon, under laboratory conditions. We calculated four time-domain heart rate variables [mean heart rate (HR), SDNN, RMSSD, and pNN50] from the ECG and the estimated average respiratory frequency from the respiratory signal. We analyzed how these variables are affected by the different sleep-wake phases (wakefulness, drowsiness, NREM, and REM) as well as the dogs’ sex, age and weight. We have found that the sleep-wake phase had a significant effect on all measured cardiac parameters. In the wake phase, the mean HR was higher than in all other phases, while SDNN, RMSSD, and pNN50 were lower than in all other sleep phases. In drowsiness, mean HR was higher compared to NREM and REM phases, while SDNN and RMSSD was lower compared to NREM and REM phases. In REM, SDNN, and RMSSD was higher than in NREM. However, the sleep-wake phase had no effect on the estimated average respiratory frequency of dogs. The dogs’ sex, age and weight had no effect on any of the investigated variables. This study represents a detailed analysis of the cardiac and respiratory activity of dogs during sleep. Since variations in these physiological signals reflect the dynamics of autonomic functions, a more detailed understanding of their changes may help us to gain a better understanding of the internal/emotional processes of dogs in response to different conditions of external stimuli. As such, our results are important since they are directly comparable to human findings and may also serve as a potential basis for future studies on dogs.

Individual Differences in Response to Ambiguous Stimuli in a Modified Go/No-Go Paradigm are Associated with Personality in Family Dogs

Cognitive biases, often used as indices of affective and emotional states, are associated with individual differences in personality in humans and have been observed in nonhuman animals, including dogs. Although dogs have complementary advantages over traditional animal models of human cognition, little is known about the relationship between dogs’ cognitive bias and personality. Here, we examined in 29 family dogs (representing 14 breeds and 12 mutts; Mage = 4.59 years, SD = 2.90), the association between naturally occurring – as opposed to experimentally induced – cognitive bias, indexed via active choice behavior in a Go/No-Go (GNG) paradigm reflecting positive/negative expectations about ambiguous stimuli, and owner-rated personality. In a subsample we additionally assessed whether prior inhibition, personality, and inattention (IA)/hyperactivity/impulsivity (H/I) results could be replicated in a modified paradigm. We also explored whether expanding the response time-window would increase GNG errors and whether dogs exhibited differences in their behavioral approach to uncertainty. Findings indicated dogs with higher conscientiousness and extraversion scores were more likely to exhibit a “go” response to ambiguous stimuli. Replicability across prior and current results was generally established, e.g., as previously, IA did not predict GNG performance but extraversion did, whereas H/I predicted different indices of GNG performance. Increased response time-window did not result in differential performance, except for less commission errors. No differences in behavioral response strategy to trained “no-go” and to ambiguous stimuli were apparent. Results evince the dog is a promising animal model of the association between an optimistic cognitive bias and personality.

Comparing interspecific socio-communicative skills of socialized juvenile dogs and miniature pigs

Previous research proves dogs’ outstanding success in socio-communicative interactions with humans; however, little is known about other domestic species’ interspecific skills when kept as companion animals. Our aim was to assess highly socialized young miniature pigs’ spontaneous reactions in interactions with humans in direct comparison with that of young family dogs. All subjects experienced similar amount of socialization in human families. In Study 1, we investigated the appearance of human-oriented behaviours without the presence of food (Control condition) when a previously provided food reward was withheld (Food condition). In Study 2, we measured responsiveness to two types of the distal pointing gesture (dynamic sustained and momentary) in a two-way object choice test. In the Control condition of Study 1, the duration of pigs’ and dogs’ orientation towards and their frequency of touching the human’s body was similar. In the Food condition, these behaviours and orienting to the human’s face were intensified in both species. However, pigs exhibited face-orientation to an overall lesser extent and almost exclusively in the Food condition. In Study 2, only dogs relied spontaneously on the distal dynamic-sustained pointing gesture, while all pigs developed side bias. The results suggest that individual familiarization to a human environment enables the spontaneous appearance of similar socio-communicative behaviours in dogs and pigs, however, species predispositions might cause differences in the display of specific signals as well as in the success of spontaneously responding to certain types of the human pointing gestures.

Insights about the Epidemiology of Dog Bites in a Canadian City Using a Dog Aggression Scale and Administrative Data.

Simple SummaryAny dog is capable of biting, and dog bites can cause serious injuries to humans or other animals. To prevent dogs from biting, we need to understand the circumstances in which dog bites are most likely to occur. Once we have that information, we can act by improving public awareness and tailoring interventions to those most at risk of being injured. In this study, we assess the circumstances surrounding dog-bite injuries, by considering dog-bite severity in conjunction with information about where the incident occurred, about human victims, and about the dogs themselves. This approach was possible because The City of Calgary systematically tracks dog-bite severity. We found that from 2012–2017, the number of severe bites occurring in Calgary has fallen. That said, severe bites tended to occur in the homes where the dogs lived, and to be directed towards children and older adults. The results from our study underscore that educational communication for parents, grandparents, and other caregivers should emphasize the importance of constant supervision around dogs, including family dogs, whenever children are present. In addition, more attention should be paid to the risks that dogs pose to older adults. Failure to protect people from dog-bite injuries has implications for the dogs’ own welfare, as well as for human health. Dogs are most likely to bite when they feel insecure in the first place. Furthermore, common responses to severe dog-bite injuries in people include rehoming and euthanizing dogs.Dog bites are a public health concern that also implicates animal welfare, with negative outcomes such as rehoming or euthanasia for the animals responsible. Previous research has shown that the severity of dog-bite injuries reflects multiple factors, including the degree of inhibition exhibited by dogs and how people behave towards dogs. This study utilizes an objective dog bite injury assessment tool: The Dunbar aggression scale. Trained officers employed by The City of Calgary systematically use the Dunbar scale whenever investigating dog-bite complaints. We analyzed The City of Calgary’s administrative data on confirmed dog-bite injuries in people, 2012–2017, with a multivariable generalized ordered logistic regression model. Severe dog-bite injuries occurred more frequently in the family home than in any other setting. Young children, youths and older adults were at higher risk of more serious bites than adults. There has been a decreasing trend in the probability of a high or medium severity bite, and an increasing trend in the probability of a low severity bite since 2012. These results indicate that greater public awareness regarding dog-bite injuries is needed. Consideration should be given to campaigns targeted towards different demographics, including older adults, to provide an understanding of dog behaviour and to emphasize the need to supervise children closely in the presence of all dogs at all times, including family dogs in the home environment. Given that dog-bite injuries are not just a public health issue, but also an animal welfare issue, we endorse One Health responses in educational campaigns, policy development, and professional practice.

Social behavior in dog puppies: Breed differences and the effect of rearing conditions

IntroductionMost of the studies investigating the effect of early rearing environment in dogs used laboratory dogs and reported that early experiences markedly affect the puppies’ behavior. However, the subjects of these experiments cannot be considered as representatives of family dogs.MethodsIn this study, we investigated whether different raising conditions shape social behavior toward humans in 8-week-old family dog puppies of two breeds, Labrador and Czechoslovakian wolf dog. The puppies were tested in a series of tests that represented typical situations of family dogs.ResultsWe found that Czechoslovakian wolf dog puppies were more active than Labrador puppies in general, as they were more likely to explore the environment and the objects and spent more time doing so. Tendency to gaze at humans also varied between breeds, but in a context-specific way. Additionally, puppies housed separately from their mother interacted more with toys, puppies housed in a kennel tended to stay closer to the experimenter than puppies raised in the house, and puppies housed in a kennel tended to stay in the proximity of the experimenter more than puppies raised in the house.ConclusionsOur results provide evidence for early keeping conditions influencing social behavior and also highlight breed differences in puppies’ behavior. Whether these differences are due to different developmental patterns and/or behavioral predispositions remains to be explored.

Associations among behavioral inhibition and owner-rated attention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, and personality in the domestic dog (Canis familiaris).

In humans, behavioral disinhibition is associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Limitations to rodent models of ADHD-like behaviors/symptoms may be augmented by complementary ones, such as the domestic dog. We examined associations between family dogs' (N = 29; of 14 breeds and 12 mongrels) performance on a self-developed touchscreen behavioral Go/No-Go paradigm and their owner-rated inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity, accounting for relevant covariates. A greater proportion of commission errors was associated with greater hyperactivity/impulsivity. Regardless of accuracy, relative to dogs with no previous training, those with basic training had shorter response latencies. Also, regardless of accuracy, greater confidence and extraversion were associated with shorter latencies, and greater openness was associated with longer latencies. Shorter latency to commission errors was associated with greater inattention. Findings support the dog as a model of the association between behavioral disinhibition and ADHD-like behaviors/symptoms and are early evidence of convergent validity between the behavioral paradigm and the rating scale measure in dogs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Dredge a River, Make a Nation Great: Shipping, Commerce, and Territoriality in the Detroit River, 1870–1905

The Michigan Historical Review 45:1 (Spring 2019): 27-46©2019 Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved Dredge a River, Make a Nation Great: Shipping, Commerce, and Territoriality in the Detroit River, 1870-1905 By Ramya Swayamprakash Bob-Lo, or Bois Blanc Island, on the Canadian side of the lower Detroit River, is now full of expensive houses. There is no public transportation to or on the island, so to get there you would need to take the car ferry to cross the 1,000-foot channel. If you avoid the houses and go south (in the general direction of the “space needle”), you would enter the remains of Bob-Lo amusement park, which served the area from 1898 until 1994. If you walk to the end of the park, you will get to the head of a long, narrow strip of land. At the end of that strip, with Clifford the family dog’s grave for company, you will see Lake Erie stretching from a mile or so downstream all the way to the horizon. What you probably would not notice is that the long strip of land at the tip of Bois Blanc is all dredged material deposited to create an “upbound” sheltered shipping channel—the one you cross to get on the island in the first place. If you look towards the United States, you will see another sliver of land, covered with trees. That is the tail end of the “downbound” Livingstone Channel, created in the early twentieth century to make lake shipping in the lower Detroit River more efficient by separating it into unidirectional channels. Upstream of Bois Blanc Island and Fort Malden near Amherstburg, Ontario, lies the Limekiln Crossing.1 Dredged since the 1890s, the crossing is the subject of this article. Between 1874 and 1968 (when major dredging operations stopped), construction projects in the Detroit River created 96.5 kilometers (60 miles) of shipping channels, removed over 46,200,000 cubic meters of material, covered 4,050 hectares (40.5 square kilometers) of river bottom with dredge spoils, and built 85 hectares of above-waterline compensating works at a total cost of $283 million, all in the service of commercial 1 Historical sources also refer to the area as “Lime Kiln,” “Limekilns,” and “Limekiln.” For consistency, this article uses “Limekiln Crossing” except when quoting primary sources. 28 The Michigan Historical Review shipping in the Great Lakes.2 Even today, dredging continues as a maintenance act, to keep channels navigable and capable of handling bigger ships with deeper drafts. Dredging is clearly big business. The strip of land on which Clifford rests was constructed in the mid-twentieth century; however, the antecedents of this strip lie in the nineteenth century. This essay conceptualizes dredging as a process that was not merely a technological challenge but also had political underpinnings and territorial ambitions. Dredging is an act of claiming territory through “improvements.” Using the Detroit River in the late nineteenth century as a case study, I contend that dredging involved a process of making place—both physically, as dredge spills created new territory, and in imagination, as dredging helped promote state sovereignty. Dredging exposes the complications of boundary making, territorial control, and commerce. I examine dredging in the Detroit River from 1870 to 1905 for two reasons. First, dredging did not actually begin in the Great Lakes until the second half of the nineteenth century. Second, the possibility of railroad development brought together the shipping industry in its attempt to wield its substantial economic and political clout to stop railroads in their tracks by “improving” the channels through dredging as an important strategy. By 1906, the Detroit-Windsor rail tunnel was under construction. Completed in 1910, the tunnel allowed railroads to bypass the rail ferries that had been the primary means for railroads to cross the river. While the tunnel did not immediately terminate dredging operations, it did present a slow breaking-down of the hegemony of the shipping industry. Between 1870 and 1905, the shipping industry enjoyed almost unparalleled commercial success and political power; thus, this essay also chronicles the heyday of that industry. Why the Detroit River? From the height...

Dog Bites Among Teenagers in Ogun State, Nigeria

A cross sectional study was conducted to investigate dog bites incidences among teenagers in the age group 13-19 years attending secondary schools in Ogun State. A semi structured questionnaire was administered to one thousand one hundred and seventy eight (1178) students to elicit information on factors such as age, sex, ownership of family dog, educational status of parents, circumstance of bite, types of dogs associated with previous dog bites and rabies and dog bites prevention knowledge. Two hundred and thirteen (18%) of the teenagers reported history of previous dog bite. Being a male, ownership of dog and having parent without at least secondary school education were statistically significant risk factors (p

Rapid eye movement density during REM sleep in dogs (Canis familiaris)

Dogs (Canis familiaris) are excellent models of human behavior as during domestication they have adapted to the same environment as humans. There have been many comparative studies on dog behavior; however, several easily measurable and analyzable psychophysiological variables that are widely used in humans are still largely unexplored in dogs. One such measure is rapid eye movement density (REMD) during REM sleep. The aim of this study was to test the viability of measuring REMD in dogs and to explore the relationship between the REMD and different variables (sex, age, body size, and REM sleep duration). Fifty family dogs of different breeds and ages (from 6 months to 15 years old) participated in a 3-h non-invasive polysomnography recording, and the data for 31 of them could be analyzed. The signal of the electro-oculogram (EOG) was used to detect the rapid eye movements during REM sleep, and REMD was calculated based on these data. The duration of REM sleep had a quadratic effect on REMD. Subjects' REMD increased with age, but only in male dogs with short REM sleep duration. Furthermore, in the case of dogs with short REM sleep, the interaction of body mass and REM sleep duration had a significant effect on REMD. No such effects were found in dogs with long REM duration. These results suggest that relationships may exist between REMD and several different variables.

Effect of age on discrimination learning, reversal learning, and cognitive bias in family dogs.

Several studies on age-related cognitive decline in dogs involve laboratory dogs and prolonged training. We developed two spatial tasks that required a single 1-h session. We tested 107 medium-large sized dogs: "young" (N=41, aged 2.5-6.5 years) and "old" (N=66, aged 8-14.5 years). Our results indicated that, in a discrimination learning task and in a reversal learning task, young dogs learned significantly faster than the old dogs, indicating that these two tasks could successfully be used to investigate differences in spatial learning between young and old dogs. We also provide two novel findings. First, in the reversal learning, the dogs trained based on the location of stimuli learned faster than the dogs trained based on stimulus characteristics. Most old dogs did not learn the task within our cut-off of 50 trials. Training based on an object's location is therefore more appropriate for reversal learning tasks. Second, the contrast between the response to the positive and negative stimuli was narrower in old dogs, compared to young dogs, during the reversal learning task, as well as the cognitive bias test. This measure favors comparability between tasks and between studies. Following the cognitive bias test, we could not find any indication of differences in the positive and negative expectations between young and old dogs. Taken together, these findings do not support the hypothesis that old dogs have more negative expectations than young dogs and the use of the cognitive bias test in older dogs requires further investigation.

Veterinary-Prescribed Buprenorphine Ingestion in a 2-Year-Old Girl

Ingestion of buprenorphine by young children is on the rise and can lead to life-threatening consequences and death. Exposure most often occurs when a child acquires the medication intended for adult use. However, buprenorphine is also prescribed by veterinarians and may be sent home, typically in non-child-resistant packaging, to be administered to the family pet. A previously healthy 2-year-old girl weighing 11.36 kg was found with a 1-mL syringe containing 0.6 mg/mL of buprenorphine in her mouth. The syringe had been in a plastic bag provided to the family by their veterinarian for the family dog. She was hospitalized for 24 hours but remained asymptomatic and was discharged healthy. This type of exposure to buprenorphine has not previously been described in the literature. Having this unsecured medication in the home increases the potential risk of exposure for young children and associated health consequences. Pediatricians should be aware of the potential dangers that veterinary pharmaceuticals can pose and educate parents about proper storage of medications. In addition, veterinarians should take extra precautions when dispensing these medications to pet owners with children.

Characteristics of Dog Bites in Arkansas.

Dog bite injuries are encountered frequently in emergency departments and can cause significant morbidity. The objective of this study was to explore the associations between the multiple variables at play during these occurrences (eg, the patient's age, the bite location, the bite severity, the dog's relationship with the patient, the breed of dog). This two-institution study collected and analyzed dog bite data from Arkansas' only Level I trauma centers. The charts of 740 patients were included in our retrospective chart review. The chart review extracted data, including each individual patient's age, sex, dog bite location, and dog bite severity, as well as the patient's relationship to the dog and the dog's breed. To determine the relation between and among variables, contingency tables were created and analyzed to determine odds ratios (ORs) and confidence intervals (CIs). In addition, standard t tests were used in statistical comparisons of means and proportions. Of the 740 patient charts reviewed, 574 were for patients who presented to Arkansas Children's Hospital and 166 were for patients who presented to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Of the patients across both institutions, 267 (37.1%) required some form of repair, with 225 (30.4%) receiving closure within the emergency department and 42 (6.7%) requiring an operative intervention. Among children, those younger than age 5 years were >8 times as likely to require an operative repair (OR 8.1, 95% CI 2.77-23.58, P < 0.0001), >4 times as likely to be bitten on the head and neck (OR 4.30, 95% CI 3.00-6.16, P < 0.0001), and ≤3 times as likely to be bitten by a family dog (OR 2.97, 95% CI 2.10-4.20, P < 0.0001). Conversely, children older than age 12 years were >3 times as likely to be bitten on an extremity (OR 3.43, 95% CI 2.08-5.65, P < 0.0001). The results of this retrospective review are aligned mostly with the general trends found in previous national and global studies, supporting the notion that family dogs represent a more significant threat than often is realized and that, among the breeds identified, pit bulls are proportionally linked with more severe bite injuries. Our data further validate previous studies that note an increased risk of bites and bite severity in children younger than 5 years. In addition, our data show that bites to the head and neck occurred more frequently among children younger than 5 years than among older children, and that boys younger than 5 years were bitten more frequently than girls.

Heart Rate and Heart Rate Variability during Sleep in Family Dogs (Canis familiaris). Moderate Effect of Pre-Sleep Emotions.

Simple SummaryIt is common knowledge that negative emotions in humans are accompanied by both impaired subjective experience as well as maladaptive changes in behavior and physiology. The present paper investigates heart rate—one of the most commonly used emotion-related physiology measures—in the family dog, with the aim of uncovering its potential relationship with emotions. Sleep recordings were conducted following a positive versus a negative social interaction, as sleep alternations are one of the most conspicuous changes in response to negative affect. We observed differences in heart rate following the positive versus negative interactions, however these were only apparent during wakefulness, but not during sleep.The domestic dog (Canis familiaris) has been shown to both excel in recognising human emotions and produce emotion-related vocalisations and postures that humans can easily recognise. However, little is known about the effect of emotional experiences on subsequent sleep physiology, a set of phenomena heavily interrelated with emotions in the case of humans. The present paper examines heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) during dogs’ sleep, measures that are influenced by both positive and negative emotions in awake dogs. In Study I, descriptive HR and HRV data is provided on N = 12 dogs about the different sleep stages (wake, drowsiness, non-rapid eye movement (non-REM), REM; scoring based on electroencephalogram (EEG) data). We conclude that wakefulness is characterised by higher HR and lower HRV compared to all sleep stages. Furthermore, drowsiness is characterised by higher HR and lower HRV than non-REM and REM, but only if the electrocardiogram (ECG) samples are taken from the first occurrence of a given sleep stage, not when the longest periods of each sleep stage are analysed. Non-REM and REM sleep were not found to be different from each other in either HR or HRV parameters. In Study II, sleep HR and HRV measures are compared in N = 16 dogs after a positive versus negative social interaction (within-subject design). The positive social interaction consisted of petting and ball play, while the negative social interaction was a mixture of separation, threatening approach and still face test. Results are consistent with the two-dimensional emotion hypothesis in that following the intense positive interaction more elevated HR and decreased HRV is found compared to the mildly negative (lower intensity) interaction. However, although this trend can be observed in all sleep stages except for REM, the results only reach significance in the wake stage. In sum, the present findings suggest that HR and HRV are possible to measure during dogs’ sleep, and can potentially be used to study the effect of emotions not only during but also after such interactions.

Differences in pre-sleep activity and sleep location are associated with variability in daytime/nighttime sleep electrophysiology in the domestic dog

The domestic dog (Canis familiaris) is a promising animal model. Yet, the canine neuroscience literature is predominantly comprised of studies wherein (semi-)invasive methods and intensive training are used to study awake dog behavior. Given prior findings with humans and/or dogs, our goal was to assess, in 16 family dogs (1.5–7 years old; 10 males; 10 different breeds) the effects of pre-sleep activity and timing and location of sleep on sleep electrophysiology. All three factors had a main and/or interactive effect on sleep macrostructure. Following an active day, dogs slept more, were more likely to have an earlier drowsiness and NREM, and spent less time in drowsiness and more time in NREM and REM. Activity also had location- and time of day-specific effects. Time of day had main effects; at nighttime, dogs slept more and spent less time in drowsiness and awake after first drowsiness, and more time in NREM and in REM. Location had a main effect; when not at home, REM sleep following a first NREM was less likely. Findings are consistent with and extend prior human and dog data and have implications for the dog as an animal model and for informing future comparative research on sleep.