Dogs enhance the immunity system in children

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I cannot resist to post those two links toward scientific articles with the aim of giving a little advertisement for the benefit of our four legs companions!

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1034/j.1399-3038.2002.02063.x/abstract

Reference: Hölscher B, Frye C, Wichmann HE, Heinrich J. Exposure to pets and allergies in children. Pediatric Allergy and Immunology. 2002;13(5):334-341. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1034/j.1399-3038.2002.02063.x.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/07/03/peds.2011-2825.full.pdf?sid=1770172f-e6d1-4f38-890e-6d9c4e91a362

Reference: Bergroth E, Remes S, Pekkanen J, Kauppila T, Büchele G, Keski-Nisula L. Respiratory Tract Illnesses During the First Year of Life: Effect of Dog and Cat Contacts. Pediatrics. 2012 Jul;Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.2011-2825.

Related articles

• Babies with dogs less likely to develop colds, ear infections as infants (cbsnews.com)
• Pets May Make Children Healthier (wibw.com)

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Dogs like humans are wired to run

As we do, dogs experience a « runner’s high » i.e. a jump of their endocannabinoid blood level after running.

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It appears that we and our dogs are wired to run, a scientist says, as a consequence of the brain production of endocannabinoid that triggers our shared appetite for running.
Prof Raichlen and colleagues wanted to “to test the hypothesis that neurobiological rewards are linked to high-intensity exercise in cursorial mammals” (quoted). Their results just confirmed their hypothesis: “We show that humans and dogs share significantly increased exercise-induced eCB signaling following high-intensity endurance running” (quoted).

There are many similarities between the dogs and us, beside being mammals, loving our babies, loving to play (especially with balls or balloons), having a great sense of property, we also share, as I just have discovered it, thanks to Professor David Raichlen, the delights of the runner’s high.

As for us, human beings, running is for dogs a necessity, be it for hunting and chasing their prey or fleeing a danger such as a mightier predator.

So the evolution made the fact of running a real pleasure for our two species using for that purpose a little molecule secreted by our brain: the endocannabinoid. It acts as a reward for the individuals who manage to train and maintain their running capacities.

Professor Raichlen’s merit, as an anthropologist, stands in the fact that he demonstrates the phenomenon is not a human specificity but exists also for some other mammals close to us like dogs. (Note that non cursorial mammals like ferrets are excluded from this encouraging, rewarding mechanism).

Photos credits and writting by Philippe Ha-Vinh

More information and content:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22442371

Raichlen DA, Foster AD, Gerdeman GL, Seillier A, Giuffrida A. Wired to run: exercise-induced endocannabinoid signaling in humans and cursorial mammals with implications for the ‘runner’s high’. The Journal of experimental biology. 2012 Apr;215(Pt 8):1331-1336. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.063677.

Related articles

• Runner’s high motivated the evolution of exercise (eurekalert.org)
• The Evolution of the Runner’s High – New York Times Blogs (well.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Well: Phys Ed: Getting to the Root of Runner’s High (well.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Runner’s High Hardwired in People – And Dogs (news.nationalgeographic.com)
• Running High and Saving Lives (naturenplanet.com)
• Runner’s high motivated the evolution of exercise (esciencenews.com)
• Chasing Down the Runner’s High (blogs.wsj.com)
• Why did we evolve to experience “runner’s high”? (io9.com)
• Runners’ Highs Evolved to Make Us Better Hunter Gatherers [Exercise] (gizmodo.com)
• ‘Wired To Run’: Runner’s High May Have Been Evolutionary Advantage (wnyc.org)

Dogs invest in affection, not in financial assets

Can we judge the moral degree of a man by the way he treat an animal?

These photographs testify that a master can be poor financially but very rich viewed by  his pet. The loyalty of the heart of their dog is their only  and most precious good.  If we trust what Gandhi said [1] we can state that those three men in the photographs, although facing the highest distress, managed to maintain a high degree of moral values.

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Reference
[1] ‘The greatness of a nation and its moral progress

can be judged by the ways its animals are treated

~ Mahatma Gandhi’

(1869-1948. Spiritual leader of India)

Other quotations on animal welfare are available here and further comments on the Mahatma Gandhi sentence here

the outburst of spring

The lilac has just erupted with flowers on my balcony.
Bees are flying all around. The cherry tree is also in flower. Smell like spring is really on time this year! And the Cockers participate to the fest, as always, enthusiastically.
The cycle of the year is reaching a summit in April in my view.

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Related articles

• (Mostly) Spring Flowers (awindowintomyworld.wordpress.com)
• How Io know it’s spring (leggotunglei808.wordpress.com)

Dogs are crazy when they are playing with a ball

That’s why I love them!  But as you know I’m a crazy  dog person…

“Images represented by TandemStock.com“

via “Ruff Water” – Los Angeles, CA – Seth Casteel – Featured Photographer.

Such a commitment for a simple piece of plastic will always astonish me. They live their life fully with no half measure, especially when it comes to toys and swimming pools.

Credit for these amazing pictures:

http://photobotos.com/

see more at their post here:

http://photobotos.com/2012/02/17/ruff-water-los-angeles-ca-seth-casteel-featured-photographer/

More pictures available here:

http://www.facebook.com/LittleFriendsPhoto

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=as_li_qf_sp_sr_il_tl?ie=UTF8&keywords=seth%20casteel&tag=photo01ba-20&index=aps&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325

when a man rescues his dog

It shows how the bonds between dogs and their owners are!

How certain men can risk their life to rescue a dog while others don’t even understand how one can think even to adopt one?

In fact adopting and rescuing belong not at all to the same context.
From my point of view, a man decides in a few minutes if he can rescue a living being be it member of his family or not, a pet or a human.

Genetically, from the cavern ages we, men, are programmed to protect the clan from dangers from outside when men lived in the wilderness. And I think, at least in some of us, those old reflex are still present.

As far as I am concerned, the same situation occurred one year in winter (month of February) when one of my cockers crossed a river chasing his ball and trapped his ears (which cockers have very very long as it is well known) in the brambles of the other bank of the river. Evaluating rapidly the situation (he would rapidly drown) I put my self  in the same dress code like the man in the picture (only in under-wears) and I dived  for a quick rescue.

I must have keep the gene of the protector of the clan.

But you should know it can be very dangerous; each year men die doing those sort of things for rescuing an animal (on average seven death per year  in the UK).

Bentley the rescued and Malcom his master who saved him.

Congrats Malcom!

Source of documentation:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17013243

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2101257/Dog-owner-inched-ice-save-pet-explains-reckless-act.html

Related articles

• Icy river dog rescue: Man who saved dog revealed (thesun.co.uk)
• Man who saved dog from icy river revealed (thesun.co.uk)
• Man And Dog Rescued From Cliffside In LA (news.sky.com)
• Update on Romanian Dog Rescue (socyberty.com)

Police dog or riot dog, no difference

Dogs are on the side of humans be they protesters or policemen.

Dogs do not make politic.
Their master does.
So they follow or, most of the time, precede him when comes the time of physical confrontation. I told you a few post earlier of Sausage the courageous Greek dog standing always in the front line of the Athens’s unrest last year. He was on the side of protesters, only because the human he trusted was one of them. And now comes the turn of Lyon and Dox, two valiant Brazilian dogs who have heroically fallen and passed away in Rio de Janeiro unrests, but this time on the side of the police. Why? Not at all because of politic beliefs nor because it was their job but only because they stood by or preceded their beloved masters, like Sausage in Greece. And anyway there is no difference between police dog and riot dog.
And here is their complete story that you can read on Motley News. Thanks to him for having revealed the story.

Related articles

• Memorial to heroic police dog who died in the line of duty being built (nj.com)
• Shaka: Once a Shelter Dog, Now a Police Dog (doggies.com)

Three dogs

Looking at my dogs puts me in an introspective mood

I have the chance that three dogs consider me as their master. I did very little to deserve this non academic distinction: I only bought them at a very high price to a dog breeder of pure race cocker, I give them very expansive croquettes twice a day and I’m out with them in the cold in winter and in the suffocating warm air in summer four times a day, the last walk occurring at night with some time strange people wandering around. But anyway I accept the distinction that they gave to me in considering me as their master.
Living under the same roof with my three dogs (cockers) taught me some fundamental things:
The following behaviours or spirit features are far from being specifically human: a) sense of property, b) jealousy, c) loose of all rationality when it comes to sexual temptation (especially when a female dog urinated around), d) will of making other congeners envious (my bone is bigger than yours, I have a toy that you do not possess, watch it), e) to be careful with young baby or the elderly but without mercy with potential concurrent, f) barking loud but not much acting if the danger approach and if necessary not being ashamed of fleeing if there is any doubt on his own capacity to win.
And these thing are a pale outlook of how near from other mammal the human behaviour of every days living is.
Having been chosen as his master by a dog brings modesty and a great insight on human nature.

The video attached to the link below (it’s a dog affair) will make you cry for sure, if you watch it close the door and don’t let  anybody (your wife or husband or kids) in. Thanks to Valerie for having shared her emotion with us:

• It’s a dog affair (imhappywithmylife.wordpress.com)

The dog and the fisherman

Sometime fishermen are the dog’s best friend.
Vodpod videos no longer available.

Kayak Fisherman Rescues Dog Swimming Off the Co…, posted with vodpod

Humans and dogs share affinity since thousand of years from now. Perhaps their love story began in the caverns ages when for the first time a wolf was rescued by a lonely dear hunter. But the scene we witness here must have been quite unusual until now. Indeed it is rare that a fisherman encounters a dog swimming alone and urging into his boat. They look both (the man and the dog) very sympathetic. And you can notice that they have in common the same slender profile. If the fisherman is searching a name for his brand new friend I advise him to call the dog Noah, because his boat looked like a little Noah’s Ark 😉

Related articles

• Kayak fisherman saves dog from sea (VIDEO) (newslite.tv)
• Kayak Fisherman Rescues Dog: Bizarre End To Grisly Tale (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)

Occupy the world

Last saturday, october 15, it was the Occupy the world day. Thousand of places have been occupied by the 99% of people who sees themselves as forgotten by their own politicians. They wanted to show them what democracy looks like with peaceful protest. One place, although not representative of the global financial trade, have participated to the Occupy the world day: Betel, Alaska. There was four resolute looking activists: One woman named McEachern, assistant professor of the University of Alaska, and her three dogs. One of them is named Seabiscuit. Indeed he is a colleague of Saussage the courageous Athenian dog we presented in a precedent post. The Los Angeles time made an article of their story.