Recent content by sciatrix

De-lurking because I was in the exact same situation as you (22, newly graduated, about to move a thousand miles for an ecology program and then be relatively stationary for five years) and I went and got the dog anyway. I actually adopted her right before my last exam in undergrad. And it...

I'm just delurking here because evolutionary biology is my field and there are a couple of misconceptions that are bugging me a bit. Basically, the definition of a species has to do with barriers to gene flow. Postzygotic isolation--that is, never being able to produce offspring together--is...

They were apparently used for dog fighting for quite a while, so elevated levels of dog aggression even for terriers wouldn't surprise me. My parents' (rescued, of unknown origin) dog looks very much like one, but given their rarity I usually guess that he's a Wheaten/corgi cross.

When I last had flea problems, I found that a dose of Capstar for all infected animals (kills anything that bites them within 24 hours) is a good way to try and catch an infection early. After that, I treated the resident dog with Sentinel (which has an agent that prevents fleas from laying...

I don't think creating a bottleneck in the species is too likely--all you really have to do is allow your purebreds to crossbreed again. Dogs have a ton of genetic diversity on the species level, even if you don't include wolves (which, remember, are the same species as dogs are). The problem is...

As someone with a lot of background in population genetics, I am very much in agreement with Aleron about breeding only the "best of the best" being terrible for the breed as a whole because it can quickly take almost all of the genetic diversity out of the breed. Most breeds currently exist in...

This. The thing is, when people breed for show or for work or for sport, they're... not necessarily selecting for traits that make good pets. Some breeds have show lines selected for traits like exaggerated wrinkling or extreme coat that are a pain for pet people to keep up with. Working...

Speaking as someone who has a shelter dog--Yes. Yes, if the dog was not the perfect dog I was looking for, I would not have adopted her, and she might have died. (And there were many dogs "in need" I did not look twice at because they did not fit my needs, and some of them were euthanized. And...

Thanks for all the compliments! She really is an awesome little dog, especially for what I want to do with her (I adopted her partly because I wanted to get involved in dog sports, especially agility). Hah, that first picture Dixie's Mom posted makes me laugh because there's one of her where...

Hi! I'm delurking out of curiosity to see what guesses you have on my dog Tribble's breed. I have a couple of thoughts myself--I tend to flip-flop between a pit mix and some sort of Boston Terrier cross because of her enormous eyes--but I'd like to see what you guys think. She's about 19 inches...