Animal attraction revealed... by a nose 'US researchers have tapped into mouse brains while they sniff their partners' subtle perfume.
We mainly use our eyes to recognize our mates, but many mammals rely on a cocktail of chemicals called pheromones...  'We have opened up a black box in the brain, and a new way of looking at animal chemical communication...' [Nature]

It's still snowing... I just shoveled a mountain of snow in our backyard and I hardly made a dent... Our dog is having trouble walking around in it. He's developed a technique to maneuver in three feet drifts: hop and push forward. He looks like a bunny rabbit... Chow chows are supposedly artic dogs, but not our dog... he wants in after just a few minutes. Me too...  Storm socks NE US

    Get fuzzy... a smartypants cat, a fun loving dog..., a confused owner... [GrooveLounge weblog]

Fur better or fur worse UK 'Custody battles are fiercely contested and often bitter as couples fight for the most important things in their lives: their pets...'  (cats, dogs, birds and even frogs) [Daily Telegraph] Related: Pet Custody

Living, and dying ... in a nursing home A thughtful article on the difficulties of giving decent care in a nursing home setting... [Salt Lake Deseret News] (the better care centers offer more than just a bed... they'll offer a range of services, including visits from pets, massage therapists, classes, etc... )

Doctors protest medical experiments on live dogs CA Dozens of doctors plan a rally this week to protest the use of live dogs as lab subjects for first-year medical students at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine... [NBC San Diego, KGTV TheSanDiegoChannel.com]

Dogs as chemicial detectors: vulnerable to simple sabotage techniques... This article details simple, effective means of preventing sniffer dogs from doing their work. Such techniques are well-known and highlight the need for real vigilance: not to become complacent in counting on just one technology (dog sniffing) for drug and bomb detection. [Doing Freedom Magazine] Related:  Trained honeybees better than dogs, Pentagon sniffs for a sniffer machine Sniffer dogs can detect people by their odor, but the Pentagon wants to build a machine to do the same thing:  'A £2 million fund has been earmarked for the weird science project to produce a machine to  identify people by their genetically produced odor. Some scientists say it can't be done because people change in odor all the time (due to diet, clothing, environment and health conditions.) 'It would be like trying to detect an individual's fingerprints through a pair of gloves...' [Ananova.com],  Army research on odor detection - (Adobe pdf file), Daytona 500 beefs up security