Bertie is working hard (bless his cotton socks)

I want you to know that I have been working hard analysing the data you all so kindly provided for my Pee-hD thesis. Gosh, when I asked you to tell me how long you can go without needing a 'comfort break', for sure it was like I tapped into a full bladder of information and it all came gushing out...

I am aiming have my thesis ready to present (and defend) on Monday 21 November.

If you are wondering why I am wearing these silly socks, well it is 'cos this week  I have had another flare up of the horrid interdigital cyst problem I get from time to time. Gail is making me wear the socks indoors to stop me licking and chewing my paws.

I was limping so badly earlier in the week I even had to go to the vet. Can you believe, she actually wanted to touch my paws, despite them being ever so sore! I was prescribed some antibiotics and anti-inflammatory tablets.  By this morning my feet were feeling a bit better and I enjoyed a wee run in the park before knuckling down to my research.

A scene on the ferry home inspires a new research project

"I'm expected to go there in that sandbox?

"As if I were a cat?

"NO WAY.

"I need to be outside.

"When I said outside, this was not what I had in mind. Look, this ship is moving all over the place. If I lift my leg I might topple overboard into the North Sea. 

"I think I shall wait until we reach Newcastle. It can't be long now surely."

************ 

After seventeen hours on the ferry, I finally gave in and peed in sandbox. Just enough to relieve the pressure. I saved the rest until I found some good solid Tyneside soil an hour later.

I  am wondering how long my friends can go without needing to pee.
Do smaller or older pups need to go more often?
Is it a breed specific thing?
And what about gender?

It occurs to me that this topic merits a proper scientific study. And who better to conduct the research than your very own Bouncing Boffin!

I am hoping my readers can provide me with data, on which I can conduct an in-depth analysis in my own inimitable style.

So, all I need you to do is leave me a comment stating your age, gender, breed, weight and length of time you can go before you need to pee. You can tell me about your friends too.

The more data the better, so please feel free to include any additional information - hard facts or even anecdotes - you might consider relevant (in the broadest sense).

In compliance with the usual ethical data protection principles, strict confidentiality will apply...(sort of).

Goodbye satnav, hello dog poo?

What a good thing that Gail’s friend the Oil Man has had his work visa for Yemen revoked. 

Why so, I hear you ask?

Well had he not been kicking his heels in Dubai, I doubt he would have had time to email Gail about the latest exciting breakthrough in canine research*. To my great shame, both she and I had missed reading about this study, which purports to show that when us pups poo we align ourselves with the earth’s magnetic field.

Yes really!  

Gosh I am so impressed that a team of dedicated scientists would collect data from over 7000 individual canine defecation and urination 'events’ to come up with this earth shattering discovery.  I am proud to tell you that fox terriers were amongst the 37 breeds participating in such important work. And my esteemed godmother Tootsie will be interested to know that fully a quarter of the dogs involved were dachshunds – possibly (I am speculating here) due to the ease of measuring the orientation of such an elongate breed.

Now I am not going to bore you with the finer details of the research, but I thought you might like at least to see an image illustrating the measurement principle. 

A paragraph from the paper’s abstract is also worth quoting:

“Magnetic alignment is a suitable paradigm to scan for the occurrence of magnetosensitivity across animal taxa with the heuristic potential to contribute to the understanding of the mechanism of magnetoreception and identify further functions of magnetosensation apart from navigation”.

All clear now? 

Oh and you should definitely know that all the ‘events’ were recorded when the participants were off leash, to ensure unbiased data. 

More good news is that we can look forward to a follow-up paper, given these words - another direct quote from the original publication - about the male dog urination: “Indications of different directional tendencies depending on which leg (left or right) is lifted are currently under study”. 

I am sorry to report that Gail does not agree with me about the significance of this fascinating research and has poo-poo’d my idea that dog owners could soon be throwing away their satnavs. And when I suggested we could contribute new data if she carried a compass and notebook on future walks she just gave me a ‘look’ and said people would rightly question her sanity. 

In fact, Gail went so far as to say she suspects the study’s authors Hart et al. of a blatant attempt to win an award at the 2014 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. 

It is tough, sometimes, for even the most bouncy of Boffins to soldier on in the face of such cynicism. But fear not, it will take more than a sceptical owner to deter me from my mission to educate and enlighten my readers about the wonderful world of science! 

*Hart et al., Frontiers in Zoology 2013, 10:80 http://www.frontiersinzoology.com/content/10/1/80

Carry on wagging - a letter to the editor of Current Biology

Dear Sir,

Re: the recent 'Tail Wagging' paper 

As the recognised scientific advisor to 'Blogville' (the well known international community of dog bloggers), I, wire-haired fox terrier Bouncing Bertie Boffin, wish to respond to the paper by Siniscalchi et al,   (on the topic of interpretation of tail wagging in my 'conspecifics') with some general comments and a report on my own related studies. 

In case you doubt my credentials as a researcher, I would refer you to this page on my blog, which contains links to my many past pronouncements on a wide range of scientific subjects.

My latest investigations were prompted by a degree of cynicism regarding the basic assumption in the Siniscalchi paper, namely, that there is an asymmetry in tail wags of us dogs, with a bias to the right when we are happy, and to the left when anxious and apprehensive. 

So, using the power of the internet, I 'crowd-sourced' my own dataset by asking my dog blogging colleagues to supply me with results of their own tail wagging experiments. Note that my investigation, which includes data from the UK, the USA, Canada, France, Australia and Switzerland, turned out to be considerably more wide ranging that Dr Siniscalchi's study, limited as it was, I understand, to dogs resident in Italy. 

The experimental method and the raw data collected can be found in my previous post 'On tail wagging and the scientific method'.

My findings are shown in the following graph.

So to summarise: in a study population n=21, not a single dog, of any age, breed, gender or geographic location, exhibited the predicted rightwards bias to their tail wag on being offered a treat. 

Now far be it for me to question the good intentions of the Dr Siniscalchi and his colleagues. I have no doubt that they approached this topic aiming for the utmost scientific rigour. However, I would have to query whether any of those tasked by your esteemed journal with peer reviewing this research were at all familiar with dog behaviour. Surely, they should have realised that a simplistic classification of a dog's tail wag as either leftward, rightward or symmetrical is a woefully inadequate system, ignoring, for example, the following types of 'wag' (all either mentioned by my study population or practiced by myself): the propellor, the random thrash, the coffee table clearer, the vertical shake, the 'vibrator', the whole body twist, the tail tucked under, etc. etc. 

My owner, herself a scientist of sorts, has warned me that human researchers can be a touchy lot, and not all have a sense of humour…. To reassure any delicate egos that my only concern is the furtherance of high quality experimental science, I, along with my dog blogging colleagues, would like to put ourselves at the disposal of Dr Siniscalchi's group for any follow-up studies they have in mind. In exchange for travel expenses to Italy, comfortable accommodation, a plentiful supply of treats for us dogs and wine for our humans*, we shall I'm sure be happy to wag our tails for as long and in whatsoever direction as is required for the expansion of knowledge…

Yours most sincerely, 

Bouncing Bertie Boffin. 

*I am indebted to my friend Wyatt for this excellent suggestion.