This week in The Scoop, a dog steals the show (and the trampoline) in the new John Lewis Christmas advert, we reveal the UK’s best dog-friendly pub and learn about how we can tell dogs and humans have been eating together for millennia.
John Lewis kicks off Christmas with a bouncy Boxer
We covered this story earlier this week in the only way we knew how – by capturing all our favourite moments in GIF format, of course. If for some reason you’ve been living in the dog house for the last couple of days and haven’t seen it yet, here’s the ad featuring Buster the Boxer. Our favourite kind of ad.
The UK’s best dog-friendly pubs – revealed!
This week we were excited to reveal the 12 regional winners of the Dog-Friendly Pub Awards – all brilliantly doggy loving pubs across the UK – as voted by you.
That’s not all! We asked our pack of expert judges to pick an overall national winner from the 12 regional finalists – not an easy task; so many great contenders. After some deliberation, we were very pleased to announce that the Hand in Hand in Wimbledon, South West London has been crowned the nation’s best Dog-Friendly Pub. You can read more about how they clinched the prize here.
Dogs and humans bonded over food
No surprises there then. There are several different schools of thought about how dogs became man’s best friend. Some things are certain – several thousand years ago, wolf-like dogs decided to spend more time living side by side with us humans, and the rest is history. It’s thought that dogs were domesticated more than once in separate parts of the world, which just proves that it was a simply brilliant idea. (Check out this video to learn more about new theories of doggy history.)
This week, DNA scientists revealed that due to some shared genetic traits, it’s possible that dogs and humans co-evolved in a way that allows both species to eat and digest starchy foods. Studying bones and teeth from archaeological sites, the scientists found that Eurasian (continental Europe and Asia combined) dogs from more than 6,000 years ago shared this gene, scientifically known as AQmy2B. This meaning that it’s possible that dogs and humans have been sharing food since the time of the Pyramids. So when your pooch is giving you the begging eyes at dinner time, you know that people have been dealing with this for a very, very long time!
Apparently, there’s a dog in this photo…
We can’t get enough of Chris Hemsworth. He isn’t just one amazing superhero, but he loves dogs, too. So we perused the Hollywood star’s Instagram for cute pics of him and his dog.
Here’s one that made us chuckle.
However, we can’t seem to find the dog in this snap… can you help us locate the pup?