Dogs, because of their range of size, shape, and color (thumbnail) are of interest to mammalian geneticsts. The Sep-Oct 2007 Vol.95 No.5 issue of American Scientist ran a feature, 'Genetics and the Shape of Dogs', summarizing the aftermath of the sequencing of the dog genome in 2005. Seven [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] parts may be a long summary, but the text is mostly non specialist.

The image of snow geese (thumbnail) flying in New Mexico is part of a slideshow of fifteen images, all from 'Creative Bird Photography' by Bill Coster. Here is a link if you want to start in at the beginning of the show, which features birds from many different parts of the world. If you enjoyed the slideshow selection, there are place-themed galleries on Coster's web site.

Another Jeff Clark rescue, but on this occasion it was puppies (thumbnail) from a burning home. Last week we reprised an earlier rescue, the famous Kiss from Cinnamon, a pregnant Doberman. This time firefighter Clark, and his partner Alan Haynes, rescued nine puppies, one of whom has since died. It is noteworthy that animal respirators were deployed on this rescue.

When Kevin London and Loki (thumbnail) go to work for Kings County Search Dogs (KCSD) in Washington State they wear protective gear. In Loki's case that means a muzzle, just in case he panics during a helicopter flight. Technically the muzzle protects everyone else. We chose an unmuzzled picture, with Loki wearing Doggles to protect his sight, and Mutt Muffs to protect his hearing.

Anyone planning to get lost may benefit from a Washington Trails Association first hand account of being rescued. They suggest padding your karma with a donation. In Switzerland, REGA (Swiss Air-Rescue service) is funded by their donating patrons, who qualify for free air rescue when the time comes to work out who pays — now surely that is an idea that would fly. Meanwhile, volunteers like Kevin and Loki do it because somebody has to do it.

Buddy, Noodles, and Pretzel (thumbnail) became poster dogs for a generation of wiener dog racers. The picture is ubiquitous on the circuit, although Kevin Nibur from Fleeting Image Photography is infrequently credited. The Wienerblog for 'dogumentary' movie 'Wiener Takes All' [groan] was fulsome in its praise for Kevin's work, and even provided a delightful high resolution picture.

If your enjoyment of looking at wiener racer pictures remains unsatiated, you may enjoy a video of the Wiener Dog Finals from Sam Houston Race Park on 13 Jun. '09 or a slideshow from the KHOU web site (and who cares if a couple of Yorkies and a boxer had to get in on the act?)

More importantly, who let the wolves in?

A recent popular song asked, "Who let the dogs out?" but even more recently scientists have been concerned about who let the wolves into the cave. Cave paintings of wolves/dogs are rare (thumbnail) but the oldest known remains were found at Goyet in Belgium, and dated to 31,000 years ago. It seems our relationship with dogs is older than was previously thought.

For the last few years a fashionable hypothesis came from a paper entitled, 'Genetic Evidence for an East Asian Origin of Domestic Dogs' (authored by Peter Savolainen, Ya-ping Zhang, Jing Luo, Joakim Lundeberg, and Thomas Leitner). Doubt has been cast on this idea by some results obtained during a working honeymoon in Africa by Ryan and Corin Boyko. The oldest dog burial recorded in the Americas was about 11,000 years ago, in the Danger Cave, Utah, near Wendover — another part of the record that may be revised.

Wild goat watching in an alpine-tundra ecosystem

Watch wild goats (thumbnail) in the Tushar Mountains on Sat. 08 Aug. '09 — assemble 08:00am at the convenience store at the bottom of Exit 109 off I-15 on the south side of Beaver. The event is free, and the DWR (Department of Wildlife Resources) will provide the equipment needed to view the goats. Follow the links for more details, and learn how you should be prepared for the trip.

UPDATE: Mon. 10 Aug. '09 — For more pictures in higher resolution, visit the DWR goat gallery on SmugMug. We saw 52 DWR galleries, with 761 images.

Heart-kun and Love-kun (thumbnail) are long haired Chihuahua brothers, born with the same heart shaped marking in their fur. In 2007, when Heart-kun was born, there were no plans to sell the dog. Love-kun was only three days old when he was shown at Pucchin Dog's shop in Odate, northern Japan, on 06 August. The two brothers are pictured together, so we presume they live together.

Breeder Emiko Sakurada was said to have bred over 1,000 dogs at the time Heart-kun was born, but we saw no statement on whether Love-kun might be sold. Forgive us for our cynicism and low estimation of commercial dog breeders, but the reassurance we were hoping for was that there were no plans to try and breed by exploiting the gene that produces the heart shape. Perhaps both dogs being born male was a blessing in disguise.

Here is a 2007 (show/hide) video of Heart-kun when he was a puppy.

Keith McCord (thumbnail) may sound like a rootin' tootin' bull-riding cowboy, but he is in fact a white collar TV presenter with KSL in Salt Lake City, Utah. He brought his usual aplomb and professional gravitas to a segment that one felt other lesser presenters would have found some way to include a "Yeeeee-ha!" — not even the ubiquitous "WOW!" passed his lips during air time.

McCord's report covered the annual Extreme Mustang Makeover. Here is the key second paragraph: "The trainers picked up the horses from the Salt Lake Regional Wild Horse and Burro Center in Herriman on Friday. For the next 90 days they'll work with them, getting them used to cages, other animals and people so they're ready for adoption. The trainer who does the best job could win $10,000." Straightforward, and easy to comprehend.

Two links were added: Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Utah Wild Horse & Burro Program; and the Extreme Mustang Makeover (EMM) web site. What part of such a format is so hard to do that other media outlets in our region are unable to emulate, often rather wandering adrift on an ocean of fog?

Click to (show/hide) the video report.

Back in February we reported on Sam the Koala surviving during one of the worst bushfire seasons Australia has experienced. The Herald Sun newspaper raised $500,000 [$418,350 USD] for the CFA (Victoria, Australia, Country Fire Authority) and the wildlife shelter that looked after Sam — the proceeds from sales of the famous picture of Sam's discovery after a bushfire.

Now the Herald Sun has reported that the decision was taken to euthanize Sam on 05 Aug. during an attempted surgical intervention for cervical cysts associated with chlamydia. CVA volunteer firefighter David Tree (thumbnail) became inexorably linked with Sam after he discovered her and gave her water, and was clearly distressed during a video interview. Carer Colleen Wood, who tended Sam for six months at her Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter (SAWS) said: "You have your miracles and there are days when you don't."

On Thu. 06 Aug. '09 a Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) news release (thumbnail) reported that the winter transplant of thirty bison from the Henry Mountains to the Book Cliffs had been successful: good rates of survival and reproduction had been achieved. The picture shows members of the herd accompanied by calves — we recommend the DWR bison gallery on SmugMug.

The story of the transplants is in three [1] [2] [3] articles on the DWR web site. The second and third articles offer a video (show/hide) report, showing the capture and processing of the animals for transport and release.

DWR is primarily focussed on the 'resources' part of its mandate: what we think of as huntin', shootin', and fishin' without wishing to be rude. So we wondered if there might be a a little 'ecological' sleight of hand at play — in the sense that bison might not be a native species of the area to which they were being introduced — while building a herd of animals that appear in a gallery that has been unequivocally entitled 'Big game animals'.

However, one of the entries in the bison gallery is captioned: "Clyde Wesley displays a bison skull he found near Hardware Ranch. Carbon dating indicated the animal existed between 1470 and 1830 and provides evidence of their historical range in northern Utah." Oh, well, another conspiracy theory shot down, if you will pardon the expression.

On the night of Mon. 22 Dec. '08, the dog later to be known as Monty (thumbnail) was struck by a train that was pulling into the station at Montclair, New Jersey. The police attended the stricken dog: a passer by, writer Joel Schwartzberg, blogged about the incident. Several blog readers were unappreciative of such "banal" news that was a "downer" during the festive season.

Fortunately, there were people paying attention who were more charitable and less self centered. You may read Monty's story at the thumbnail link, or visit his personal weblog to keep up to date with his progress. There is a video (show/hide) report showing how well he is progressing — perhaps worth sharing with the curmudgeonly, provided of course it doesn't distract them from more important concerns, or upset their otherwise untroubled lives.

Rosemary DiStefano from Faith's Hope rescued Monty and is caring for him during his recovery. His adoption page has details of the charitable fund that has been set up for his care by Last Hope Safe Haven.

Henry Drew was a family man who shared his life with his wife, Jenny, his three sons, Barry, Lawrence, and Phillip, and also his dog Moja (thumbnail), whose name means 'One' in Swahili. Henry lived a full life in Africa and England before settling in Australia, where he was an agricultural advisor. He died in a vehicle accident, which Moja survived and remained at Henry's side.

When Henry did not return as expected from a Thursday 06 Aug. '09 business trip to Gympie, Queensland, he was listed as missing on Friday. There were no witnesses reporting the accident, but on Saturday a woman heard a dog barking on the Bruce Highway at Curra, and upon investigation found Henry's crashed utility vehicle hidden down an embankment with man and dog.

We offer our condolences for their loss to Henry Drew's family and friends..

Moja and Henry Drew join a tradition of dogs who have remained with their humans after death. In 1805, Charles Gough died from a fall or exposure on Helvellyn, a mountain in the English Lake District. Gough's dog Foxy was discovered beside the body several months later.

The incident caught the imagination of the Romantic Movement, and became the subject for at least two poems and two paintings. William Wordsworth ('Fidelity') and Walter Scott ('Helvellyn') climbed the mountain together — with Humphrey Davy, whose thoughts on the incident we were unable to discover — and each produced a poem. Edwin Landseer ('Attachment') and Francis Danby ('Precipice') used a visual medium to each produce a painting.

Those artistic works have not all and always been recognized as admirable, although they seem to have passed the longevity test. Even at the time of their first publication or display, the works had their detractors. Modern interest has been historical rather than appreciative. In 1932, Scott's biographer S. Fowler Wright wrote acidily:

"Scott made the mistake here that he and Wordsworth made together at a later day. A man died on Helvellyn, and a dog was found long afterwards watching beside his skeleton. The subject was utterly unsuitable for a poem, because anything worth saying about it could be said in a single stanza. They both tried, and they both failed. They wrote the kinds of verse which were natural to either when he had nothing to say. Scott climbed the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn, and Wordsworth asked anxiously, What is the creature doing here? Neither poem is worth reading, and, had they been the work of unknown authors, neither would have been remembered for a week. They are not so much examples of how not to do it, as what not to attempt to do."