The canine influenza virus, first identified in 2004, had been circulating in the greyhound population for at least five years prior to its discovery and may have been responsible for numerous outbreaks of respiratory disease among dogs at racing tracks during that period, according to research presented today (March 18) at the 2008 International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, Georgia.

Sinisa Grozdanic, assistant professor of veterinary medicine at Iowa State University, has identified and named an eye disease not previously known. The disease, Immune-Mediated Retinopathy, or IMR, causes loss of function in retinal cells and, in some cases, blindness in canines.

Like us, our canine friends are able to form abstract concepts. Friederike Range and colleagues from the University of Vienna in Austria have shown for the first time that dogs can classify complex color photographs and place them into categories in the same way that humans do.

Dogs that bite children have often not bitten kids before, but they tend to have underlying behavioural or medical problems, indicates research in the journal Injury Prevention.

One of the major issues associated with longer life expectancy in man and his best friend is an increase in the incidence of cancer. Even though they cannot talk it seems dogs might be able to tell us why and how certain cancers develop. In turn that could lead to better treatments for both canine and human cancer patients.