Trippy Tails.
Dog News Items
1. In hour of reiki therapy. A multi-course raw-food brunch. A private movie screening in a mobile theater. No, this isn’t the average Sunday of a well-off tech founder — it’s the agenda of San Francisco’s most pampered dogs, thanks to a slew of services cropping up from entrepreneurs and pet lovers. With its glut of dog-friendly parks, apartment pet perks, and high-tech members-only veterinary clinics, the Bay Area is a good place to be a canine. Dozens of local entrepreneurs have built businesses in recent years around the idea that dogs are entitled to the same creature comforts as people. (via San Francisco Standard)
2. Sometimes it feels like your dog just gets you in a way nobody else does. That’s partially because of a neurological function underpinning social connection known as inter-brain activity coupling. In short, the phenomenon is like a telepathic path to friendship, where simultaneous brain activity between two individuals primes them for social engagement. Animals are social creatures and so it’s no surprise that the phenomenon of synchronized neural activity between individuals has been documented in humans, mice, bats, and monkeys, but never between two distinct species. Until now. (via Inverse)
3. Blaring music drowned out the barking, but there was no masking the neglect inside the sweltering Riverside County garage. Jamie Abruzzo, a Missouri middle school teacher who picked up a summer job trucking puppies around the country, was overcome by anger as he took in the filth and feces that surrounded him. Outside, the temperature neared triple digits. Inside, where the air conditioner wasn’t working, dozens of puppies and kittens were jammed into small cages and storage bins lined with soiled shredded paper. Water containers nearby were empty. (via Los Angeles Times)
4. It was understood that immigration would be front and center during Tuesday night’s presidential debate. More surprising was that the conversation veered into bizarre falsehoods about migrants eating pet dogs and cats in Ohio. While certainly strange, these accusations are hardly unprecedented. In fact, there’s a long history of accusing immigrants of eating cats and dogs. For context, in the last few days, vice presidential candidate JD Vance has echoed a rumor about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio eating people’s pets. Springfield, a city of around 60,000, has received 15,000 to 20,000 migrants in the last four years, many from Haiti. (via National Public Radio)
5. This growth burden weighs on big dogs’ cells, says Urfer. As cells divide, protective bits of DNA called telomeres on the end of chromosomes get shorter, and the body produces more oxidative molecules that can damage DNA. As they grow, large dogs, he says, “accumulate damage in their cells for each division, including telomere attrition and … oxidative damage.” This genetic wear-and-tear means big dogs age faster than small dogs. Urfer’s previous research showed large dogs develop age-related cataracts earlier than small dogs. It also increases their risk of other health conditions. (via National Geographic)
6. The British Army has trained a second group of Ukrainian military dog handlers, building on its ongoing military assistance to Ukraine. As part of Operation Interflex, a programme that has trained more than 45,000 Ukrainian personnel since Russia's invasion in 2022, the UK hosted 16 Ukrainian handlers for courses on combat operations, explosive device searches, and border patrols. The three-week training course, run by the British Army's 1st Military Working Dog Regiment, prepares dogs to detect explosives, locate ammunition, and assist in search and rescue operations. (via Force News)
7. There’s the Blue Heeler family loved around the world in Bluey. There’s the fluffy stray who brings two strangers together in Colin From Accounts. And there was the charismatic kelpie from the Red Dog trilogy and the Maremma who protected a penguin colony in family film Oddball. Mad Max had a cattle dog named Dog. Babe was taken in by border collies Fly and Rex. And a beer-drinking, dope-smoking, foul-mouthed mongrel was so popular that the SBS cult hit Wilfred was remade for American TV. Hollywood has long loved telling stories featuring dogs - making Lassie, Toto, Beethoven, Marley and many others famous - and now canines have been turning up a lot as major characters on Australian screens. Author Craig Silvey, who has written a new film based on his bestselling children’s novel Runt, thinks he knows why. (via Sydney Morning Herald)
8. Virgin Australia is pioneering a groundbreaking initiative to revolutionize air travel for pet owners. It plans to become the first airline in Australia to allow pets onboard its flights. This innovative move will enable small cats and dogs to accompany their owners on specific domestic flights. Australia’s airline, Virgin Australia, has unveiled plans to make history by becoming the nation’s inaugural airline to permit pets onboard, as per Daily Mail. Thus, in the near future, small cats and dogs will be able to fly with their owners in the cabin, making the travel experience stress-free for both pets and pet parents. (via Dogtime)
9. Call this statement cliché, but the story of Ferg and his beloved dog, KrasH, sounds like a movie. Back in 2020, the rapper and entrepreneur gifted his then girlfriend, director photographer Renell Medrano, a puppy. The Australian shepherd ended up spending a lot of time at Ferg’s house in New Jersey. “You know how it is—you don’t live with each other, but y’all basically live with each other, so the dog was my dog as well,” Ferg tells me over the phone of the canine co-parenting situation. KrasH was not unlike most puppies: He loved to be outside and enjoyed a good game of chase—so much so that even if a door was just slightly ajar, he’d bolt out of it and “have the whole neighborhood looking for him,” Ferg says. He did this twice while at a dog sitter in Jersey. “Then, the third time, he didn’t return.” The experience, Ferg says, was traumatic. “I’d never felt like that before. It was alien, like losing a member of your family. I was speaking to psychics, asking, ‘Where’s my dog?’” A psychic told him that KrasH was in the wilderness, to which he replied, “That’s crazy.” But perhaps it wasn’t. (via Vogue)
10. China is grappling with a fast-aging population and shrinking labor force after decades of enforcing a one-child policy. The country is also one of the most expensive places in the world to raise a child in relative terms, easily beating Australia and France, according to a study from the Beijing-based YuWa Population Research Institute earlier this year. After ending the one-child policy in 2016 and making yet another major birth policy shift in 2021, the government now wants couples to have three children. But Beijing hasn’t been as successful in driving up births as it was in deterring them. Many Chinese couples like Hansen, 36, and Momo, 35, are not sold on children. Instead, they’ve become pet parents. (via CNN)
Bonus: They’re known affectionately as “wiener dogs” in North America and “sausage dogs” in Britain, but on Sept. 22 the dachshund will simply be “top dog.” That’s the day Germany hopes to reclaim its crown as the home of the short-legged, long-bodied canine. An estimated 1,500 dachsies, as they’re also known, are expected to gather with their owners from around the world in an effort to set a new record in the Bavarian city of Regensburg. They will be trying to topple the Guinness world title set in London when 342 canines strutted their stuff. Demand has been such that the deadline was extended for submissions, just two weeks before the puppy parade. (via Canada)
Dog Photo of the Week
Photo by A.I., “Apple Shared Its First Public AI-Generated Image. It’s Craig Federighi’s Dog” (via Wired)
Dog Video of the Week
Video by ViralHog, “Dog Leads Ducks Through Tricky Obstacle Course”.