Here is another good one. They look like a bunch of happy silly billys.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
More Golden Retriever Pictures - Just Because
Who does not like puppies. I ran across a saying a while ago, here is a paraphrase, whoever said you can not buy happiness never bought a puppy.
Anyway, I am not sure if that is exactly it but it definately gets the message across.
Golden Retrievers
I have met quite a few golden retrievers at the dog park before, but I have never really spent a lot of time with one inside.
Well last night I met Daisy, she is a 13 month old golden retriever. Wow, I need to find a way to harness that energy and sell it. You could power a small car with all of the energy she had last night and appartently that is her normal mode of operation. I played with her for easily an hour and she showed no signs of letting up. Great dog, tons of energy.
I love all dogs and she was great but I am really glad that neither Lucy or Kona has that type of energy level. Plus I have a new found respect of golden retriever owners. LOL.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Chocolate Lab Puppy
Kona has been complaining that I have not been putting any chocolate lab videos on the site. So here goes. Pretty cute, I say.
Great New Blog
Well it is not new, it has been around. But I just found it. It is http://www.btoellner.typepad.com/kcdogblog and it has a lot of great information about a lot of different things.
It has a lot of great information about dog legislation and breed specific bans.
It has a lot of great information about dog legislation and breed specific bans.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
If candidates were dogs: Mitt Romney - Smooth Fox Terrier
Description: A lively and active mid-sized terrier with deep-set eyes, long sloping shoulders and a narrow head. Their coats are dense and abundant. They are known for their longevity and were originally used for fox hunting and vermin-killing.
Behavior: Highly intelligent, but can be stubborn; likes to bark and dig. They tend to want to be dominant over other dogs. They are affectionate, and devoted to the extent that they can be protective if they feel a member of the family is being threatened.
Tendency to bark: Medium
Level of aggression: Medium
Suitability as guard dog: Medium
If candidates were dogs: Mike Huckabee - Beagle
Description: Large-eyed and long-eared, with a pure, kindly and sometimes conniving expression best captured in cartoon version by Charlie Brown’s Snoopy.
Beagles have a keen sense of smell, a desire to hunt and track down strange odors and a tendency to bay unceasingly when something seems amiss.
Behavior: Beagles like to please their masters. Training must begin early or the beagle can get out of hand and indulge in its favorite habits -- overeating and making a mess. They are also excellent escapologists and will attempt to dig their way out of any jam.
This breed, for all its apparent innocence, can be stubborn, hard to housebreak and bark to an annoying degree. Yet they are gentle and good natured and get along well with other dogs. Even inside, beagles are prone to cruising around the house with their noses down, sniffing away as they make an olfactory map of the territory, then checking the area periodically to make sure everything is as it should be.
Tendency to bark: High
Level of aggression: Low
Suitability as guard dog: Medium
This articles originally appeared in the Baltimore Sun
Movies are going to the dogs
An Austrian cinema is letting movie-goers take their pet dogs to films with them in a bid to lure more customers.
The Admiral cinema in Vienna has been struggling against competition from new multiplex cinemas which have been built nearby.
So cinema bosses have started a monthly Doggy Day in a bid to offer something different from their brash modern rivals.
Visitors pay £4 for a ticket while their pet pooch can go in for free and are given a blanket to snuggle up on in their seats, as well as water and popcorn.
A spokesman said: "The only thing different from a normal movie showing is that, on the insistence of local veterinary authorities, the volume levels for the films are turned down a bit so as not to hurt the animals' ears."
Thomas Feldinger, 24, who has already attended one of the doggy days with his pet Labrador Hanjo, said: "It's a great idea. Hanjo loved it in there and so did all the other dogs.
"I thought they might all make a noise and bark through the films but once the film started going they all settled down in their blankets and watched quietly."
Shark Attack Dog - Wow
Here is an oldie but a goodie. This is the wildest thing. That is a big shark!!!
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Tommy the Great Dane
Here is an awesome Great Dane video from You Tube. Great Danes are hard to not like. Tommy is a lot like Lucy, they both love their creature comforts. Lucy has a big blue couch that she loves and only leaves to eat, go outside, go on walks and play with me. Oh wait she does leave the couch in the mornings after I get out of bed so she can get into my spot. A little nutty but she is like one of my kids.
We recently moved and Lucy had a little seperation anxiety because she did not have her couch.
We recently moved and Lucy had a little seperation anxiety because she did not have her couch.
Dogs Could Be a Diabetic's Best Friend
I found this articles and though it was pretty inteesting.
SUNDAY, Feb. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Irish researchers hope to prove that a dog's keen sense of smell gives it the ability to watch over the blood sugar levels of diabetics.
Canines have already shown themselves capable of leading the blind, alerting the deaf, and helping the physically disabled with daily tasks.
But researchers at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, are taking the "helpful companion" idea one step further by gathering scientific evidence that could verify dogs can reliably detect dangerous blood sugar level drops in diabetics.
"Anecdotal reports suggest that some dogs can perform early warning of hypoglycemia by using their sense of smell to 'sniff out' if their owner's blood sugar levels are dropping," said lead researcher and psychology professor Deborah Wells.
More than 20 million U.S. children and adults have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. Those with the disease do not produce enough insulin, a hormone the body needs to convert sugars, starches and other food into energy.
Diabetics must test their blood glucose level regularly, even sometimes in the middle of the night to avoid the peaks and valleys that can cause organ failure, say experts.
Wells hopes to find out what cues dogs pick up on so they can officially be recognized and trained as early-warning systems for diabetics.
At least two organizations in the United States already train dogs to detect low glucose levels. But exactly what the canines notice when a person experiences a blood sugar low is still a mystery, said Mark Ruefenacht, founder of Dogs for Diabetics, in Concord, Calif.
The organization is working with a forensic laboratory to identify a possible odor.
"We just haven't come up with the right answers," he said. "Every time we think we have the answer, we find that we don't."
Ruefenacht, a diabetic, started the organization three years ago, inspired after a puppy he was raising for Guide Dogs for the Blind woke him one night. Ruefenacht forgot to check his blood sugar before going to sleep, and he thinks he had a seizure that alarmed the pup.
Since then, the all-volunteer group has placed 30 trained canines in the homes of Northern California residents with type 1 diabetes.
Demand for the dogs is high; more than 100 people are on the waiting list.
Dogs for Diabetics uses Labrador retrievers that don't graduate from guide dog school. These dogs usually flunk for reasons such as refusing to walk in the rain or step onto an escalator -- all skills important for being a working dog, but not a general assistance one.
Ruefenacht said his dogs undergo three to four months of training similar to what is used to prepare dog to detect narcotics or explosives. The 2-year-old canines are first taught to detect scent samples of low blood sugar. Then they learn to find that scent on people, and alert others by holding in their mouth a soft tube that hangs from around their neck.
Dogs that successfully complete training are 90 percent accurate, Ruefenacht said.
These clever canines aren't the only ones that must learn new tricks.
Mary Simon has battled diabetes for more than three decades, and she now drives four hours each week from her home in Fresno to attend the required class.
"I need this dog desperately," said Simon, a diabetic who is also medical director for the Diabetic Youth Foundation in Concord, Calif.
Medication she takes hampers her ability to feel nighttime lows, she said, and the special glucose sensor she wears doesn't always work.
When Simon first learned of the hypoglycemic detection dogs a few years ago, she didn't think their talent was needed because glucose sensors were about to hit the market. Since then, she's changed her mind.
"My own personal experience is we need [the dogs] right now," she said.
Not everyone is so quick to put their trust in the canines' ability.
Larry Myers, a veterinarian and professor at Auburn University in Alabama, has trained dogs to detect everything from drugs to agricultural pests for 25 years. He said the jury is still out on whether dogs can truly detect low blood sugar levels, but he believes it's a possibility worth exploring.
Even though dogs have amazing olfactory abilities, he said they are not universally sensitive to all chemicals.
"Do hypoglycemic individuals, in fact, emit an odor that is characteristic? I don't know, and I don't think anybody does know right now," he said.
A possibility other than scent is the dogs are picking up on visual cues, which is thought to be the case with seizure detection dogs. Such dogs allegedly can pick up on extremely subtle physiological changes in their human companion that may begin five to 45 minutes before an actual attack. The dogs then warn the humans so they can find a safe environment or take precautionary measures.
"It turns out what the dogs are really sensitive to is subtle changes in behavior of the individuals just prior to seizing," Myers said. "It's more of a fact that dogs are very, very, very observant of human behavior."
SUNDAY, Feb. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Irish researchers hope to prove that a dog's keen sense of smell gives it the ability to watch over the blood sugar levels of diabetics.
Canines have already shown themselves capable of leading the blind, alerting the deaf, and helping the physically disabled with daily tasks.
But researchers at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, are taking the "helpful companion" idea one step further by gathering scientific evidence that could verify dogs can reliably detect dangerous blood sugar level drops in diabetics.
"Anecdotal reports suggest that some dogs can perform early warning of hypoglycemia by using their sense of smell to 'sniff out' if their owner's blood sugar levels are dropping," said lead researcher and psychology professor Deborah Wells.
More than 20 million U.S. children and adults have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. Those with the disease do not produce enough insulin, a hormone the body needs to convert sugars, starches and other food into energy.
Diabetics must test their blood glucose level regularly, even sometimes in the middle of the night to avoid the peaks and valleys that can cause organ failure, say experts.
Wells hopes to find out what cues dogs pick up on so they can officially be recognized and trained as early-warning systems for diabetics.
At least two organizations in the United States already train dogs to detect low glucose levels. But exactly what the canines notice when a person experiences a blood sugar low is still a mystery, said Mark Ruefenacht, founder of Dogs for Diabetics, in Concord, Calif.
The organization is working with a forensic laboratory to identify a possible odor.
"We just haven't come up with the right answers," he said. "Every time we think we have the answer, we find that we don't."
Ruefenacht, a diabetic, started the organization three years ago, inspired after a puppy he was raising for Guide Dogs for the Blind woke him one night. Ruefenacht forgot to check his blood sugar before going to sleep, and he thinks he had a seizure that alarmed the pup.
Since then, the all-volunteer group has placed 30 trained canines in the homes of Northern California residents with type 1 diabetes.
Demand for the dogs is high; more than 100 people are on the waiting list.
Dogs for Diabetics uses Labrador retrievers that don't graduate from guide dog school. These dogs usually flunk for reasons such as refusing to walk in the rain or step onto an escalator -- all skills important for being a working dog, but not a general assistance one.
Ruefenacht said his dogs undergo three to four months of training similar to what is used to prepare dog to detect narcotics or explosives. The 2-year-old canines are first taught to detect scent samples of low blood sugar. Then they learn to find that scent on people, and alert others by holding in their mouth a soft tube that hangs from around their neck.
Dogs that successfully complete training are 90 percent accurate, Ruefenacht said.
These clever canines aren't the only ones that must learn new tricks.
Mary Simon has battled diabetes for more than three decades, and she now drives four hours each week from her home in Fresno to attend the required class.
"I need this dog desperately," said Simon, a diabetic who is also medical director for the Diabetic Youth Foundation in Concord, Calif.
Medication she takes hampers her ability to feel nighttime lows, she said, and the special glucose sensor she wears doesn't always work.
When Simon first learned of the hypoglycemic detection dogs a few years ago, she didn't think their talent was needed because glucose sensors were about to hit the market. Since then, she's changed her mind.
"My own personal experience is we need [the dogs] right now," she said.
Not everyone is so quick to put their trust in the canines' ability.
Larry Myers, a veterinarian and professor at Auburn University in Alabama, has trained dogs to detect everything from drugs to agricultural pests for 25 years. He said the jury is still out on whether dogs can truly detect low blood sugar levels, but he believes it's a possibility worth exploring.
Even though dogs have amazing olfactory abilities, he said they are not universally sensitive to all chemicals.
"Do hypoglycemic individuals, in fact, emit an odor that is characteristic? I don't know, and I don't think anybody does know right now," he said.
A possibility other than scent is the dogs are picking up on visual cues, which is thought to be the case with seizure detection dogs. Such dogs allegedly can pick up on extremely subtle physiological changes in their human companion that may begin five to 45 minutes before an actual attack. The dogs then warn the humans so they can find a safe environment or take precautionary measures.
"It turns out what the dogs are really sensitive to is subtle changes in behavior of the individuals just prior to seizing," Myers said. "It's more of a fact that dogs are very, very, very observant of human behavior."
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