Weekly News Roundup 12/8-12/14

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Pit Bull service dog banned

A Yakima, Washington woman had her service dog, Romeo, impounded after officials discovered that Romeo was a pit bull. Yakima implemented a pit bull ban in 1987 after a series of pit bull attacks, including one where a senior citizen attacked in his wheelchair died of his injuries. The ban forbids four specific pit bull breeds; American pit bull terriers, Staffordshire bull terriers, American bulldogs and American Staffordshire terriers. The woman claims that Romeo isn’t even a pit bull, but a lab mix, and is suing the city.

Therapy dogs studied for signs of stress, depression

Can emotional support therapy dogs suffer from compassion fatigue? That’s a question Alberta, Canada public health officials hope to answer as they measure cortisol levels in several accredited facility dogs. Cortisol is also known as the “stress” hormone, and research shows that dogs are affected by meeting new people day after day and absorbing stress from others. The therapy dogs being studied work specifically with paramedics, and help calm them after especially difficult emergency calls.

LSU vet school on drug resistant heartworm strains: Rare, but there

Louisiana State University’s school of veterinary medicine began investigating the possible emergence of drug-resistant heartworms in 2008, around the same time that a Hurricane Katrina-relocation dog identified in Canada was suspected of being infected with drug-resistant heartworms. Over the next seen years, multiple dogs were found to be infected with nearly a dozen laboratory-verified drug-resistant heartworm strains.

Check out those six-pack labs!

 Veterinary fraternity Omega Tau Sigma at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York has released the 2018 edition of their popular Men of the Vet School calendar. The colander features photos of buff male veterinary students stripped to the waist and posing with a variety of animals, including puppies, horses, llamas and even a kangaroo. Proceeds support the fraternity as well as fundraising for multiple charities. Last year sales of the calendar raised $5,000 for a fund to benefit sick pets.

But can they identify that wet dog smell?

Humans don’t have to experience the smell of every fish in existence to know that something smells “fishy.” New research, published in the journal Scientific Reports, reveals that dogs can do the same. Scientists found that when presented with completely unknown smells, dogs were able to place them in the correct category and to remember the odors six weeks later. The findings have implications in the field of working dog training as it implies that it may be possible to improve the way we train detection dogs.

NEWStat Advancements & research News Interesting/unusual