Welcome to the Scoop – our weekly roundup of everything doggy that’s been making headlines. This week’s news includes the English vet who’s saving Sri Lankan street dogs and we reveal some outrageous suggestions that cats could be as intelligent as dogs. Bah!
Meet the Sri Lanka street dog vet
Did you know that there are an estimated three million street dogs on the island of Sri Lanka, and next to no-one is looking out for their health and welfare? Well, that was the case until English vet Janey Lowes from County Durham left her home country to go and give these neglected pooches a spot of much needed TLC. Watch the video for more information; you can find out more about WECare Worldwide, the charity that she’s set up to build a veterinary clinic in Talalla, which is on the south coast of Sri Lanka.
Have you been working (out) like a dog?
Ever wished you could release your inner pooch and work (out) like a dog? Well, now there’s a dog-themed fitness class you and all your dog-crazed buddies can attend.
Workout routines include digging for bones, a human fetch race, and a tug of war. If it sounds a bit barking mad to you, then trust us, there is some logic behind it. It’s all been dreamed up by personal trainer Born Barikor and it’s been designed to help humans understand how dogs can stay healthy, stimulated and happy by enjoying their favourite forms of play, such as fetch and tug of war. We think they could be on to something, after all the DogBuddy pack
So far, we’ve only seen this pop up in London, but who knows – the trend could make it further afield before we can say ‘fetch!’.
Dogs and cats, equally intelligent?
Remember the recent news about new studies that revealed that dogs were much smarter than we originally thought. The phenomena is known as ‘episodic memory’, which is basically the ability to associate events, people, objects and places with our personal memories. It’s an indication of self-consciousness or self-awareness. You can read more here about the study that revealed dogs’ episodic memories. It involved a dog and an umbrella, as well as a host of other unusual objects.
The short story this week is that similar studies have been conducted with cats and it seems that they might possess similar feats of memory as dogs. Apparently, the 49 cats who participated in the study were able to identify which food bowl they had eaten from previously, even after a fifteen-minute interval. (Doesn’t sound that significant to us, the dog tapping the umbrella was much more impressive!)
Frankly, this is a simply outrageous claim, and our position on the matter will be made absolutely clear if you fancy reading our 21 reasons why dogs are better than cats.
Oh well, at least dogs are still top dog when it comes to the interwebs.