contained ingredients manufactured in China that had been contaminated with melamine, a compound that is used in industrial processes. Melamine has a high nitrogen content, and it was thought that the ingredients were intentionally contaminated in order to raise the recorded protein levels. Animals poisoned with melamine also suffered from kidney failure – there has been no suggestion, however, that melamine is responsible for the current problem. While the FDA searches for clues, the chicken jerky treats are still available on supermarket shelves – all three brands can be found in Aiken. The manufacturers may be right, of course: There may be nothing wrong with them and any association between illness and eating the treats might be completely coincidental. After all, millions of dogs are eating them without any problem. According to both Del Monte and Nestle, chicken jerky treats are made in China because the Chinese prefer to eat the chicken’s dark meat, meaning
that the white meat is inexpensive and readily available. The Milo’s Kitchen website, which says that they “make each treat with the love and care your dog deserves,” states that its chicken jerky treats are made in China, but that all of its other varieties are manufactured right here in the United States.
Click it or Ticket
Pretty much everyone knows that when you are driving in a car, wearing a seatbelt could save your life if you have an accident. Seatbelts themselves have been around for a long time, and became mandatory equipment on American cars in 1965. The first law stating that passengers need to be wearing seatbelts when driving in a car was enacted by New York in 1984. Today, every state except New
Summer 2012
Hampshire (the “Live free or die,” state) has a mandatory seatbelt law. This summer, New Jersey has been in the news for extending the “click-it-or-ticket” concept to dogs. New Jersey Statute 4:22:18 says that having unrestrained pets in the car is an act of animal cruelty. Drivers with unrestrained pets are subject to fines of $250 to $1,000 per offense (three unrestrained dogs in the back seat counts as three offenses) and even six months in jail. Oddly, according to the Governor’s Highway Safety Association, the maximum fine for a person not wearing a seatbelt in New Jersey is $46, including court costs. Although some in the press are calling the New Jersey law a new one, it has actually been on the books since the 1990s. It is only now receiving attention because New Jersey is carrying out a campaign to encourage seatbelt use in the state. Proponents of pet restraint laws point out that the number one cause of vehicle crashes is drivers not paying attention to the road, which could happen if they are distracted by their unrestrained pet. Meanwhile, a new survey by the AAA auto club says 60% of drivers have been distracted by pets or other passengers while on the road, while 20% have taken their hands off the wheel to prevent a dog from climbing into the front seat. (The same survey also reveals that 3% of respondents admit to taking a photo of their dog with a cell phone while they were driving.) In a crash, an unrestrained pet becomes a projectile, potentially causing injury to himself and to others - the AAA says that a 10 pound dog in a 50 mph crash exerts 500 pounds of force on whatever it strikes. Pets that are unrestrained in an accident can also become loose, run away, or even prevent emergency response personnel from attending to human victims. Unrestrained pets in the front seat, or sitting on the driver’s lap, could be injured or killed if the airbag deploys. Although over 80% of drivers in the AAA survey acknowledge the danger of driving with a loose animal, only about 16% actually use a dog seatbelt, carrier or other restraint. Experts recommend that travelling dogs be kept in kennels (which must, or course, be properly secured) or harnessed and restrained by a seatbelt. There are a number of different models of dog seatbelts that are currently available for all sizes of dog, although only a few have been crash tested using authentic dog crash test dummies. The New Jersey law is in the news now, but it is not the only state that regulates where and how your pet can ride. In Hawaii, it is illegal to drive with your dog in your lap, and California and Oregon are considering passing similar statutes. There are also at least 25 states that require that dogs riding in the back of pick up trucks be tethered, and a handful that do not allow dogs to ride in the cargo bed at all. The
number of dogs that are lost, killed or injured when they fall out of pickups is quite high – some estimates say it is as many as 100,000 a year. South Carolina does not have any rules about dogs riding in the cargo area of a pickup. Of course, people can ride in the bed of a truck, too, as long as they are over the age of 15, or accompanied by a parent. How this law can logically coexist with one that requires people inside the cab to wear a seatbelt is not immediately obvious.
Dogs Care
Do dogs know when we are sad and try to comfort us? A new study published in the May 30 issue of the journal Animal Cognition says yes. The study was conducted by Dr. Deborah Custance and Jennifer Mayer from the University of London’s psychology department. They selected 18 dogs and their owners and carried out the experiment in the dogs’ homes. In it, Mayer entered the homes and then sat with the owner in the living room. There, the owner and Meyer would take turns talking, humming and crying for 20 seconds to see how the dogs reacted to them. According to Dr. Custance, the humming was introduced as an unusual sound, to see if the dogs might approach people simply out of curiosity when they heard something they were not used to. None of the dogs approached the person who was talking, while six came up to investigate the person who was humming. Fifteen of the 18 approached the person who was crying, the majority (13) with submissive body language, bowed head and tucked, wagging tails. The researchers concluded that the dogs were responding to the person’s perceived emotional state. “If the dogs’ approaches during the crying condition were motivated by self-oriented comfort-seeking, they would be more likely to approach their usual source of comfort, their owner, rather than the stranger. No such preference was found,” wrote Mayer. “The dogs approached whoever was crying regardless of their identity. Thus they were responding to the person’s emotion, not their own needs, which is suggestive of empathic-like comfortoffering behavior.” The paper goes on to say that the experimenters are not offering their findings as definitive proof that dogs have empathy for people who are sad. It could be that the dogs approach crying people because people pet them and respond with affection when they do. But the researchers say their results offer intriguing evidence that dogs do, indeed, feel our pain and want to help alleviate it. This should come as no surprise to dog owners – dogs, after all, are well known for their ability to offer comfort to their people. Sometimes what cutting edge science tells us is exactly what we already know.
The Dog & Hound
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