Tag archives: service dog

On the Front Lines of K9 Genetic Health

On the Front Lines of K9 Genetic Health

During the last week of April, the Paw Print Genetics team again paired up with the Spokane Police and Sheriff's Department, our hometown law enforcement agencies, to work toward better genetic health for service dogs such as the patrol and detection dogs found in K9 units across the country.

Spokane hosted the Washington State Police Canine Association’s Spring Seminar, which ran April 28-30, and which featured training scenarios that consisted of obstacle courses, canine first aid and building searches for patrol dogs, and scent detection of vehicles and training on a scent wall for detection dogs.

Paw Print Genetics was on hand to work with the various law enforcement agencies from across the state to educate them on some of the genetic diseases their breeds of choice are prone to inherit, and what they can do to protect themselves as an agency investing taxpayer money. The participating K9 teams were also kind enough to let us take cheek-cell samples of their dogs (or were nice enough to do so for us if their dogs weren’t fond of strangers fiddling with their mouths).

Most of the dogs were German shepherds, Belgian malinois and Labrador retrievers, although there were a couple ...

Beagle Sniffs Out Pregnant Polar Bears

Beagle Sniffs Out Pregnant Polar Bears

The olfactory capabilities of our best friends are amazing, and we continually find new ways to put them to work. From hunting and police work to security and disease detection, a dog’s sense of smell keeps us safe and healthy. Now it seems a two-year-old rabbit-hunting beagle from the Ozarks might help zookeepers detect when threatened polar bears are pregnant.

Taking a page from diabetic alert dog trainers, officials at the Cincinnati Zoo's Center for Conservation & Research of Endangered Wildlife have been working with Matt Skogen at Ironheart High Performance Working Dogs in Shawnee, Kan., to train dogs to detect hormonal changes in gestating polar bears so that officials can take necessary precautions with the expectant mothers. Polar bears have complicated reproduction cycles littered with false pregnancies that make captive breeding programs difficult to successfully administer. Early detection gives zookeepers the chance to separate male and female bears, to provide necessary cub-rearing dens and to monitor the mother more closely.

Skogen originally started with the border collie, arguably the most intelligent breed of dog, but a methodical beagle named Elvis eventually won the job. Elvis trained by sniffing fecal matter from bears that were and weren’t pregnant. When ...