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It turns out that chocolate is bad for dogs in more ways than one—if the dog in question is a chocolate Lab. New research found that chocolate-colored Labrador retrievers don’t live as long as black or yellow Labs. They’re also more prone to ear infections and skin diseases. Those are among the findings of a new study published last week in the journal Canine Genetics and Epidemiology

If you holler “Squirrel!” and your dog jumps up all exited and runs to the window, does he actually picture a squirrel in his mind? Could be. A new study found that dogs can tell the difference between words they’ve heard before and words that are new to them. At the very least, it suggests that dogs have a basic neurological understanding of the words they’ve been taught to associate with objects.

Coming home at the end of a rough day to be greeted joyously at the door by your dog is one of life’s great joys. And the more he jumps for joy at the sight of you, the better it feels. But it might not feel so good to him.The happier your dog is to see you after you’ve been away for a while, the more likely it is that he may suffer from some degree of separation anxiety.

Pet owners aren’t the only people who think their dogs are smarter than they actually are. So do the people who study them. Two researchers in England reviewed more than 300 scientific papers that compared the intelligence of dogs with that of animals in three broad categories that also include dogs: domestic animals, social hunters, and carnivorans. They published their findings in a paper titled In What Sense Are Dogs Special? Canine Cognition in Comparative Context.

While your senior dog is unlikely to forget where he left his glasses, he can still have the occasional senior moment. Like forgetting the way home on your daily walk together. He could be suffering from canine cognitive dysfunction (CCD), the doggy version of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in humans. AD affects one in three human seniors. About 40% of companion dogs aged 12 or older develop CCD. But for dogs, as with humans, there’s currently no cure. Ropesalazine could change that.

As studies, go, the results were mixed.The researchers had two objectives. The first: determine if a contraceptive vaccine would be effective in preventing feral cats from breeding in the wild. The second, and possibly more ambitious: establish a humane paradigm shift in feline research.

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s how high he can lift his leg. And if he can lift it high enough, there may not be a fight at all. At least, that’s the hypothesis posed by authors of a new study on scent marking by male dogs. Researchers at Cornell University say smaller dogs lift their legs higher when they urinate, possibly to exaggerate their body size.

Farmer: What's that, Lassie? Lassie: Woof, woof, woof! Farmer: Timmy fell down the well?! Lassie: Woof! Farmer: That’s the third time this month, right? Lassie: Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof. Woof, woof, woof, woof. Farmer: I agree. Let him get himself out. —A well-known joke dating back to the classic 1950s show, Lassie. That joke is a part of pop culture, but ironically, the only character on Lassie who ever fell down a well and had to be rescued was . . . well, Lassie.

We’re going to have to find a new cliché to describe people who don’t get along. A new study from the University of Lincoln in Lincoln, the United Kingdom, explores the relationships between cats and dogs who live together in the same home. And in most cases, cats and dogs living under the same roof got along just fine . . . as long as nobody ticked off the cat.

A new study on Brucellosis in dogs by researchers at Texas A&M University has troubling implications for people, particularly children, seniors, the immunosuppressed, and pregnant women. Maybe especially for pregnant women.