LOOK: How Wet Dogs Dry By Shaking Explained!

This is fascinating stuff! Some scientists and engineers have studied how dogs shake their fur incredibly efficiently to dry themselves and wet and discovered that a  "dog can shake roughly 70 percent of the water from its fur in four seconds."

In fact, it's not only dogs.

So, get this, the process that dogs use is common to many mammals, even if some, like kangaroos and elephants, don't really need to use it for a variety of reasons. And the researchers found something astounding: the animals tuned how quickly they shook to their size. That is to say, the bigger animals shook slower while the smaller ones shook really quickly. That's because they need to exert a certain amount of force on the water droplets to shake them off. For the little guys, that means moving really quickly: a mouse has to shake 30 times per second, a rat 18 times per second, and a cat nine times per second. (Remember the labrador retriever was at about 4 times per second.) 

"The largest animal is 10,000 times heavier than the smallest animal," [David] Hu [of Georgia Tech]  told me, "but the forces on the drops are basically constant across all these mammals."

Check out a wet shaking dog getting dry  in (super slow mo) action:

Pretty cool!

Dog For Marriage Equality!

This dog supports same sex marriage. I wonder what the dog from Texts From Dog thinks about marriage equality?

Hat/tip to Towleroad.

READ: Texts From Your Dog!

There is a Tumblr site devoted entirely to (alleged) screenshots of texts between a guy in England and his dog. It is ridiculously funny. Check it out.  The one above is one I could most definitely imagine getting from my dog (he hates the mail carrier and the mail).

Hat/tip to Slog.

Celebrity Friday: Pierre, Novak Djokovic's Dog

World #1 Novak Djokovic graces the cover of L'Uomo Vogue (Italian Vogue), the top fashion magazine in the world, with his pet poodle, Pierre! Pierre happens to have his own Twitter page, if you're interested.

Djokovic is apparently a devoted dog owner and was distraught when he could not bring Pierre with him to Wimbledon due to the United Kingdom's extreme quarantine laws for cats and dogs.

Here's another picture of this week's Celebrity Friday, Pierre the Poodle (with Novak).

It makes me a bigger fan of Djokovic, knowing he also loves dogs, like I do.

10-Year-Old Spaniel Wins WKC Best In Show

At The Westminster Kennel Club's 133rd Annual Dog Show in Madison Square Garden last night a Sussex Spaniel named Stump was named Best In Show, the oldest winner ever.

Who's Your Doggie?

The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show finals are on CNBC tonight at 10pm PST. This picture shows a number of bichon frises appearing yesterday in New York City's Madison Square Garden.

L.A. Mayor Signs Mandatory Spay-Neuter Ordinance

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed a tough spay-neuter bill into law on Tuesday, making Los Angeles the largest municipality in the United States to require the sterilization of most domestic pets. The ordinance passed the Los Angeles City Council by a vote of 14-1 two weeks ago.

From the official City Hall press release (pdf):

"By requiring that all cats and dogs be spayed or neutered, we can help to
humanely decrease the number of pets abandoned and euthanized each year,"
said Mayor Villaraigosa. "This ordinance, which contains clear guidelines and
enforceable penalties, creates a valuable tool to take this city another step closer
toward eliminating the unnecessary euthanasia of animals."

The Spay/Neuter Ordinance will require all pet owners in the City of Los Angeles
to have their cats and dogs (four months of age and older) spayed or neutered,
unless otherwise exempted because the animal competes, serves as a rescue or
service animal, or unless the pet is a registered breeder. Any person violating the
spay/neuter law will be cited, and could be subject to up to a $500 dollar fine or 40
hours of community service.

[...]

“As with so many important accomplishments, this Spay/Neuter law is not the end
of the story, but rather just the beginning,” said Mayor Villaraigosa. “We will
continue to lead the effort by getting our dogs and cats spayed and neutered,
licensed and permitted, and saving more animals’ lives.”

The new Spay/Neuter law will take effect in April.

Mad Professah is a strong supprter of this bill, as well as the statewide version, The California Healthy Pets Act (AB 1634) by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine. Both my dogs (Dezmond, left, Leenah, right) are neutered.

Doggie Saturday: Dezmond

Too lazy to blog so I'll throw up this picture of the latest edition to the household: Dezmond.

Pets Become "Family"

The New York Times published an article entitled "Who Invited The Dog?" in which these statistics about pet ownership are given:

More American households have pets than ever — 68.7 million of them in 2006, according to a new survey by the American Veterinary Medical Association, up 12.4 percent from 2001.

Among dog owners, 53.5 percent considered their pets to be members of the family, the survey found. For cats, the number was 49.2 percent.

Of course, the paper of record for all sorts of meaningless factoids is USA Today, which also reported on the results of a survey released by the American Veterinary Medical Association.

Apparently there are 10 million more cats than dogs (81.2 million to 72 million) in the United States there are more American households that have dogs than cats. 59.5% of all households have a pet compared to 35% of households that have children.

Although there more pet cats than dogs, more families actually have dogs. Counting by household, 37.2% are dog owners, compared with 32.4% with cats. But cat owners have more of them: 2.2 per house compared with 1.7 for dogs.

[...]

The survey involved 47,842 American households.

Hmmm, well Mad Professah just moved from 1 dog per household to 2 dogs per household.

According to Autumn Sandeen at Pam's House Blend, LGBT families have more pets per household than straight households. Interesting, eh?

Leenah Friday

I know it's been awhile, but I thought I would revive the tradition of Leenah Fridays! Here she is...