Sign from Dogstuff

What do city dogs do for fun? Jill Abramson and her retriever puppy, Scout, find heated pools, doggy day camps, and other services for canny canines and their humans.

A poster protesting Denver's anti-pit bull ordinance

Denver has an ordinance banning any dog that is entirely or predominantly pit bull (APBT, AST, and/or SBT). One day, when a dog named Dexter was at his pet sitter’s in Denver, officials who were in the neighborhood for another reason spotted him and confiscated him. A 3-person panel employed by the city subsequently decided that Dexter was indeed a pit bull, and therefore condemned to be euthanized.

Fortunately for Dexter, his owner, Kevin O’Connell, successfully challenged the finding at a hearing. He presented evidence from four veterinarians, a UKC judge, an AKC judge, and a veterinary technician that Dexter is not a pit bull, but a boxer or mastiff mix.

The hearing officer found that Dexter’s side had presented “stronger and more detailed” evidence, and that the city had not met its burden of proof that Dexter is a pit bull.

More dog owners are planning to challenge the city’s findings, and many dog lovers are fighting to overturn the law altogether, charging that it unfairly condemns good family dogs with muscular builds, regardless of their actual breed.

Playful puppies chase their tails ... in adult dogs, it may be more serious

Human studies have previously linked high cholesterol to panic attacks and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Now, a new study says the same thing appears to be true of dogs.

The study took blood samples from 15 compulsive tail-chasers and 15 non-chasers; both groups were otherwise healthy. The tail-chasing dogs had significantly higher cholesterol, both LDL and HDL, than the control dogs.

The study also found that female dogs are more likely to be tail-chasers than male dogs, though they’re not sure why.

Some dogs doo more than others (print from Dogstuff)

Amelia Glynn gives us the scoop on San Francisco’s, and other cities’, dog-doo dilemma and potential responses, including a group in Ithaca, New York that thinks it can profitably compost its 50,000 dogs’ waste.

Endal was a service dog given to Royal Navy Chief Petty Officer Allen Parton after he suffered severe head injuries during the (first) Gulf War. He’s credited with saving Parton’s marriage, and on at least one occasion, his life.

Endal died in March at age 13, but not before his story had been told in a British tv documentary and a book. Now a U.K. film producer has optioned the rights to tell Endal’s story on the big screen.