Dogs

Upon first seeing a dog-like quadruped robot for the first time, many people jokingly ask where they could buy one. Well, they can now get a fully functional miniature dog-bot of their very own via a Kickstarter campaign, for just US$195.

Most futurists probably never saw it coming, but there are now several commercially available robots designed to entertain pets while their owners are at work. One of the latest, known as Pumpkii, features a unique modular design.

A new study has explored how pheromones could lead to more harmonious relationships between cats and dogs, and found that a couple of currently available examples can have a calming effect for pairs of pets living in the same household.

The US Army has developed a more realistic bite sleeve for training military working dogs. Worn during biting exercises, the protective silicone and Kevlar sleeve looks and feels more like a human arm, but still shields the wearer from harm.

Though experiments involving more than 1,000 samples, a research team at Germany’s University of Hanover has found that with little training, sniffer dogs are capable of detecting signs of the novel coronavirus with a high degree of accuracy.

For a rough idea of a dog’s physical age, a popular approach is to simply multiply its actual age by seven, but new research upends this piece of conventional wisdom by drilling into the rate of molecular changes in their DNA.

University of Pennsylvania scientists have demonstrated how a glowing dye can be used to light up cancer cells in tumors and the lymph nodes of dogs, which they say offers hope for improved surgical outcomes in humans.

Scientists at the University of Bath have come up with a simpler method of motion capture, developing a computer model that can digitize dogs without the need for a motion capture suit and a suite of surrounding cameras.

If you're walking your dog at night, in hot weather or for long distances, you sometimes need more than just a leash. That's where the GoGoLeash comes in, as it combines several functions in one device – or more accurately, in two.

Scientists in Finland have conducted a study investigating the root causes of fearfulness in dogs, uncovering a previously unknown link between urban living environments and social fearfulness in dogs.

There is a long line of research projects aimed at leveraging the famous sensitivity of canine noses to detect risks to human health. But could they be trained to sniff out the scent of COVID-19 and offer a non-invasive way to detect the disease.

It is well known that dogs boast an incredible sense of smell, but new research has uncovered another way our four-legged friends use their famous noses to find their way around, detecting radiant heat much like a thermal infrared sensor.