Man's Friend Research Articles

A dog really is man's best friend!

Owning a pet can be rewarding in many ways. Laura Stokes explores the relationship between pets and their owners and reveals the physical, emotional and social benefits of interaction with animals.

IgE-based Immunotherapy of Cancer -A Comparative Oncology Approach.

Antibody-based immunotherapies are important therapy options in human oncology. Although human humoral specific immunity is constituted of five different immunoglobulin classes, currently only IgG-based immunotherapies have proceeded to clinical application.This review, however, discusses the benefits and difficulties of IgE-based immunotherapy of cancer, with special emphasis on how to translate promising preclinical results into clinical studies. Pursuing the “Comparative Oncology” approach, novel drug candidates are investigated in clinical trials with veterinary cancer patients, most often dogs. By this strategy drug development could be speeded up, animal experiments could be reduced and novel therapy options could be introduced benefitting humans as well as man’s best friend.

Dog burials associated with Human burials in the West Indies during the early pre-Columbian Ceramic Age (500 BC-600 AD)

Across the Caribbean, the widespread presence of canine remains at archaeological sites from the Salado id period raises questions about the role of “man's best friend.” Dog (Canis familiaris) remains have been found located in both refuse middens and burials adjacent to human graves in a number of sites in the French Antilles and Barbuda, West Indies. This paper will critically examine dog remains and discuss the varied duality of the dog's role in the Saladoid world: from food source to lifelong companion. The importance of dogs within Amerindian sites from Saint Martin, the Guadeloupe archipelago, Martinique and Barbuda will be explored from a zooarchaeological perspective, concluding with a critical discussion of changes in cultural patterns, as seen through the decline in dog remains during the Troumassoid and Suazoid period at the sites in the French Antilles.

Patch by David Slonim (review)

Reviewed by: Patch by David Slonim Deborah Stevenson Slonim, David . Patch; written and illus. by David Slonim. Roaring Brook, 2013. 32p. ISBN 978-1-59643-643-5 $15.99 R Gr. 1-2. This gentle chapter-divided, picture book-format title offers three brief stories featuring the narrator's adventures with his beloved dog, Patch. In the first story, the narrator explains that Patch can't resist chasing rabbits and always ends up bristling with thorns from the prickly bush; in the second, Patch gets fleas, and when remedies don't work, he's exiled to the doghouse (where the narrator joins him); finally, the narrator and Patch train for a big "dog contest," but on the big day Patch's stage fright leaves him trembling and incapable. The individual stories are a bit light on action, but they're suffused with sweetness, since the point in each case is the narrator's deep loyalty to and caretaking of his beloved canine friend; [End Page 114] the overall message, which kids will appreciate, is one of unwavering devotion to friends. The text is spare, with short simple sentences that gain energy from the narrator's informal voice, and the chapter format makes this a promising title for youngsters oscillating between readalouds and readalones. Slonim's line and watercolor art is lighter in tone and intensity than his goofy cartoons for books such as Goodman's It's a Dog's Life (BCCB 9/12); compositions mostly focus on Patch and his boy together or Patch alone, with only a few bits of scenery (which makes the contrast of the teeming crowd at the dog contest effectively daunting). While touches of visual hyperbole add humor, the illustrations, with their soft blurs of watercolor and casual penciled textures, are at heart comradely more than comic. It's great to have a pet story that emphasizes caretaking as well as affection; use this in partnership with a friendship story like Frog and Toad to talk about our comradeship with man's best friend. Copyright © 2013 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Men's Center Approach: Ecological Interventions for College Men's Health

College men are facing a health crisis. Although many men experience positive, healthy outcomes of male socialization on individual (e.g., heroism, bonding and caring through action, self-reliance, use of humor) and group (e.g., humanitarian work, team orientation) levels (Kiselica & Englar-Carlson, 2010), researchers have found that men who adhere to more restrictive notions of masculinity are at higher risk for encountering significant, negative health outcomes (O'Neil & Crasper, 2011). In particular, college men have been identified as a group of men facing a health crisis. For example, compared with college women, college-age men participate in more harmful behaviors, such as consuming large quantities of alcohol, abusing substances, and pursuing unsafe sexual encounters (Bonar et al., 2011; Borsari, Murphy, & Barnett, 2007). Furthermore, approximately 10% of college men admit to at least one incidence of physical aggression toward a partner (Gallagher & Parrott, 2011). College men are also less likely to engage in health-promoting behaviors, such as preventive care (Courtenay, 2011; Courtenay, McCreary, & Merighi, 2002), are 3 times as likely as female peers to complete suicide (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2009), and account for roughly two thirds of deaths among individuals ages 15-24 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2008). College men also hold more unrealistic health beliefs (e.g., compared with their female counterparts, they evaluate problems associated with marijuana as less severe and less likely) and doubt their vulnerability to contract disease (Courtenay et al., 2002) despite much higher rates of sexually transmitted infections compared with women (CDC, 2009; Courtenay, 2011). All of these behaviors and outcomes are intertwined with the university community and beyond in terms of bidirectional influences with men's families, roommates, friends, fraternity brothers, coworkers, classmates, neighborhoods, and religious communities. However, despite conceptual and empirical advancements in the scholarship on men and masculinity, few have attended to interactions among the multiple systems in which men are embedded, and few have connected men's health risks with the contextual demands and developmental tasks that occur alongside gender role socialization (O'Neil, 2008). We use Bronfenbrenner's ecological model (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1986; Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994) to provide a multisystemic perspective on (a) contextual influences on the expression of masculinity ideology and health behaviors, (b) potential costs of those behaviors, and (c) counseling intervention opportunities (Courtenay, 2011; Isacco, Garfield, & Rogers, 2010; Smiler, 2004). Our rationale for using the ecological model rests in the complexity of our goal to change college men's masculine ideals. To address that goal, we have found it crucial to use multiple interventions at multiple levels. We also integrate the ecological model with the men's center approach (MCA) and the concept of possible masculinities (Davies, Shen-Miller, & Isacco, 2010) to guide the design and implementation of systemic, culturally sensitive interventions for college men. Using Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Model to Understand College Men's Health According to Bronfenbrenner (1979, 1989; Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994), development occurs within an individual ecology comprised of nested systems, including the macrosystem, exosystem, mesosystem, and microsystem (see Figure 1). Moving inward from the outermost system, each system has an increasingly direct influence on the individual, yet inner (or proximal) systems can also effect change in more distal ones. Bronfenbrenner (1979, 1989) emphasized how perceptions of relations within and among an individual's varied systems influence attitudes, behaviors, and expression of social roles. Change in one system invariably triggers change in others through a process of mutual accommodation. …

To be or not to be social: foraging associations of free-ranging dogs in an urban ecosystem

Canids display a wide diversity of social systems, from solitary to pairs to packs, and hence they have been extensively used as model systems to understand social dynamics in natural systems. Among canids, the dog can show various levels of social organization due to the influence of humans on their lives. Though the dog is known as man's best friend and has been studied extensively as a pet, studies on the natural history, ecology and behaviour of dogs in a natural habitat are rare. Here we report results of an extensive population-level study conducted through one-time censuses in urban India to understand the ecoethology of free-ranging dogs. We built a model to test if the observed groups could have been formed through random associations while foraging. Our modeling results suggest that the dogs, like all efficient scavengers, tend to forage singly but also form random uncorrelated groups. A closer inspection of the group compositions however reveals that the foraging associations are non-random events. The tendency of adults to associate with the opposite sex in the mating season and of juveniles to stay close to adults in the non-mating season drives the population towards aggregation, in spite of the apparently random nature of the group size distribution. Hence we conclude that to be or not to be social is a matter of choice for the free-ranging dogs, and not a matter of chance.

The Death Rattle and the Old Man's Friend

To the Editor: Sir William Osler first referred to pneumonia as “the old man's friend”—identifying it as a common cause of relatively peaceful death in the late 1800s.1 Pneumonia remains among the most common primary or proximate causes of death in 2012.2 Most pneumonias share the common feature of defeating the normally robust mechanical, cellular, and immune mechanisms to prevent infection of the lower respiratory tract. Denudation of the trachea or bronchi due to viral (e.g., influenza) infections or toxic inhalants (e.g., smoking-related injury) predisposes to bacterial superinfection and subsequent pneumonia.3 Dysphagia is also a well-studied risk for aspiration of upper aerodigestive secretions causing pneumonia,3 but little has been written about another antecedent, encountered by clinicians regularly and recognized since the time of Laennac. This is upper airway incompetence marked by the sound of air gurgling through secretions above the glottis, heard with or without the stethoscope, when individuals speak or breathe—gargouillement.4 Laennac may also have been first to connote gurgling breath sounds with death—“the death rattle.”5 There is no published research that ties the “death rattle” or gargouillement to pneumonia, even though early clinicians acknowledged this association.4, 5 One study demonstrated gurgling in 20 individuals admitted during a 5-month period to a 24-bed hospital ward; 11 developed pneumonia, and the odds of pneumonia in gurglers were 130 times those of nongurglers.6 The epidemiology of inappropriate pooling of supraglottic secretions and gurgling, rates of subglottic aspiration in such individuals, and subsequent rates of pneumonia of those who aspirate are all unknown. There are some data that describe the relationship between advancing age and disease and aspiration. For example, of 127 home-based elderly adults (mean age 84), 44% had “laryngeal penetrations” seen on nasopharyngeal endoscopy. Medications (neuroleptics), stroke, and other neurological disorders were risks, and odds of aspiration were 12 times as great in those with abnormal water swallowing tests.7 In another study, subglottic aspiration was noted in 62% of hospitalized elderly adults and 6% of ambulatory normal elderly adults. Pooled secretions in the larynx were associated with aspiration, but age was not.8 “Wet phonation” is highly associated with subglottic penetration of secretions,9 and another study showed that “none of the patients coughed or cleared their throats after penetrating/aspirating.”10 Risk factors for pathological pooling of secretions and gurgling include neurological disorders,7 dementia,6 acute nonneurological illness in elderly adults,6, 10 and sedating medications.6 There are no data to support that risk of gurgling increases with age, except insofar as diseases and medications that predispose to gurgling accumulate with age. There is abundant evidence that antipsychotics increase the risk of pneumonia, presumably by causing occult micro-aspiration.7 There is a subset of such individuals with extreme medication-induced blunting of upper respiratory reflexes unto gurgling.6 If it is accepted that gurgling breath sounds promote pneumonia and that pneumonia is a common cause of death in elderly adults, a number of research questions arise that may be of interest to those—geriatricians, internists, intensivists, palliative care clinicians—who provide care at the end of life. What are the epidemiology, risks, and reversible causes of gurgling? For reversible causes, what are countermeasures (e.g., levels of care and monitoring, medications, positions, frequent oropharyngeal suctioning) that can be taken to mitigate risk until gurgling is corrected by treating underlying causes? For irreversible causes of gurgling, is pneumonia inevitable? If so, is there any long-term benefit to treating the pneumonia with antibiotics or endotracheal intubation if it will only recur, or do such treatments simply prolong dying—inevitably of pneumonia or its complications? All who gurgle are not certain to develop pneumonia and die.6 Gargouillement may be a rattle, but not necessarily a death rattle. Perhaps a more-accurate description in 2013 is that gurgling is a “risk-of-death rattle,” and greater understanding of gurgling sounds may permit clinicians to more-deliberately identify and treat reversible causes. To the extent that gurgling may signal extreme risk,6 this clinical sign, easily recognized by simple physical examination, might also be a useful additional trigger for rapid response, assessment, and treatment for as-yet-to-be-determined reversible causes or to allow those whose gurgling portends recurrent pneumonia to die peacefully—as Osler described—without multiple endotracheal intubations and trials of death-prolonging critical care. Conflict of Interest: Dr. Manthous has no financial conflicts of interest relevant to this manuscript. Author Contributions: Dr. Manthous is responsible for the entire content of this paper. Sponsor's Role: None.

Another Look at That Old Friend, Pneumonia

Before antibiotics, pneumonia was called “the old man's friend” for carrying the old and infirm to a swift and relatively painless death. Now that short-term survival after pneumonia is the rule, does the disease provide any …

Genetics of Man's (and Woman's) best friend

Genetics of Man's (and Woman's) best friend

Canonical Wnt signaling and caveolae play a role in intervertebral disc degeneration; the continuing saga of the mysterious notochordal cell

Over the past few decades small animal models mainly involving rodents and rabbits have been developed whereby needle puncture, stab incision or enzymatic approaches have been validated to create the degenerative disc. Although important, these models continue to be plagued by biological attributes that limit applicability to the human condition. However, the fascinating story of two naturally occurring subspecies of canine, the non-chondrodystrophic and chondrodystrophic canine, provides us with an animal model that differentially is protected from the development of degenerative disc disease. Here, Smolders and colleagues provide the first steps to understanding some of the secrets held by man's best friend.

Social perceptions towards man's best friend

Social perceptions towards man's best friend

Man's best friend

Animal instincts.

Ten Years Later: No Longer A Student, But Still Learning

Ten Years Later: No Longer A Student, But Still Learning

Do children understand man's best friend? Classification of dog barks by pre-adolescents and adults

Play back experiments compared the ability of children (aged 6, 8, and 10 years) and adults to discriminate dog barks recorded in three different contexts. Participants had to categorize barks according to recording context, and to characterize the inner states of dogs by relating barks to facial expression of humans. It was found that older children classified more barks correctly. Children in all groups classified barks at a ‘Stranger’ significantly above chance level, however, only the ten-year-old children and adults could classify ‘Play’ barks over the chance level. There were no significant differences between the groups’ performances in the inner state characterization task. ‘Stranger’ barks were considered as more ‘angry’, while ‘Alone’ barks were indicated as being more ‘fearful’. In the case of ‘Play’ barks, participants had more difficulties in characterization. Overall we found only slight differences between the performances of preschoolers and adults. This shows that the ability of understanding basic inner states of dogs on the basis of acoustic signals is present in humans from a very young age. These results are in sharp contrast with other reports in the literature which showed that young children tend to misinterpret canine visual signals.

“Man's best friend:” How the presence of a dog reduces mental distress after social exclusion

A substantial amount of research shows that social exclusion is a threat to mental health. In the research reported here, we tested the hypothesis that the presence of a companion animal can serve as a buffer against these adverse effects. In a controlled laboratory experiment, we found that only socially excluded participants who did not work in the presence of a dog reported lower mental well-being compared with socially excluded participants who performed in the presence of a dog and participants who were not socially excluded. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Old man's friend

Old man's friend

David Crockett in Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Poor Man's Friend, with Collected Correspondence, Selected Speeches, and Circulars (review)

David Crockett in Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Poor Man's Friend, with Collected Correspondence, Selected Speeches, and Circulars (review)

The domestic dog: man's best friend in the genomic era.

The domestic dog genome - shaped by domestication, adaptation to human-dominated environments and artificial selection - encodes tremendous phenotypic diversity. Recent developments have improved our understanding of the genetics underlying this diversity, unleashing the dog as an important model organism for complex-trait analysis.

EN

Dogs are sometimes referred to as "man's best friend" and with the increase in urbanization and lifestyle changes, dogs are seen by their owners as family members. Society expresses specific concerns about the experimental use of dogs, as they are sometimes perceived to have a special status for humans. This may appear somewhat conflicting with the idea that the intrinsic value of all animals is the same, and that also several other animal species are used in biomedical research and toxicology. This aspect and many others are discussed in an introductory chapter dealing with ethical considerations on the use of dogs as laboratory animals. The report gives an overview on the use of dogs in biomedical research, safety assessment and the drug developmental process and reflects the discussion on the use of dogs as second (non-rodent)species in toxicity testing. Approximately 20,000 dogs are used in scientific procedures in Europe every year, and their distinct genetic, physiological and behavioral characteristics may support their use as models for e.g. behavioral analysis and genetic research. Advances in the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement of experiments using dogs) are described, potential opportunities are discussed and recommendations for further progress in this area are made.

The company you keep: Fear of rejection in intergroup interaction

People use many cues to infer the likelihood of acceptance or rejection in intergroup interactions. Nearly all prior research has focused on personal cues directly given off by the potential interaction partner (e.g., eye contact and smiling). However, we argue that in the context of intergroup interactions, individuals may be especially sensitive to broader social cues, such as an interaction partner's social network. Across three experiments we explored differences in White participants' evaluations of a smiling Black man presented with a Black or White friend. When this Black man was featured with a Black friend, White participants reported greater rejection concerns and a greater inclination to reject this Black man compared to when he was featured with a White friend (Experiments 1–3) or featured alone (Experiment 2). Furthermore, when participants received a simple intervention designed to buffer against social rejection, the race of the Black man's friend no longer influenced participants' interests in befriending the Black man (Experiment 3). This research demonstrates the power of friendships in interracial interactions and provides evidence for a simple intervention to reduce the weight of rejection concerns in interracial interactions.