https://doges.co/blog Stories, science, and small joys from the world of dogs. Wed, 01 Jul 2026 02:00:26 GMT https://doges.co/blog/gaja-poland-hospice-pets-law-2026 https://doges.co/blog/gaja-poland-hospice-pets-law-2026 Wed, 01 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT When Ewa Lutka-Krawczyk was admitted to a palliative ward in Warsaw with gallbladder cancer, her shelter dog stopped eating at home. Now a physician at the Medical University of Warsaw is asking Parliament to make sure no dying patient has to be separated from their pet. https://doges.co/blog/apollo-shih-tzu-florida-1000-miles-new-york-2026 https://doges.co/blog/apollo-shih-tzu-florida-1000-miles-new-york-2026 Wed, 01 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT In April 2026, a 13-year-old Shih Tzu named Apollo slipped through a gate in Marion County, Florida, and disappeared. Two months and more than a thousand miles later, a shelter in Long Island scanned his microchip and called his family. https://doges.co/blog/after-ten-years-cyprus-decided-to-let-the-strays-live https://doges.co/blog/after-ten-years-cyprus-decided-to-let-the-strays-live Wed, 01 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT The Mediterranean island's parliament has voted 24 to zero to ban the euthanasia of healthy stray dogs — ending a decade of debate and reshaping what the country owes the dogs living at the edges of its towns and villages. https://doges.co/blog/tsunami-border-collie-final-mission-venezuela-2026 https://doges.co/blog/tsunami-border-collie-final-mission-venezuela-2026 Wed, 01 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT An 8-year-old Border Collie named Tsunami was pulled from the streets of Caracas as a malnourished, abused puppy. Last week, in what authorities confirmed as his final deployment before retirement, he located thirteen people buried alive in Venezuela's earthquake rubble. https://doges.co/blog/vcu-dogs-on-call-25-years-therapy-research https://doges.co/blog/vcu-dogs-on-call-25-years-therapy-research Tue, 30 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT A 2025 randomized trial — the first of its kind — compared therapy dog visits, handler-only visits, and standard care for psychiatric inpatients at VCU. Loneliness improved with the dog present. It didn't improve when the handler came alone. The center running that trial has been building toward that answer for 25 years. https://doges.co/blog/beagles-cancer-detection-lucid-ai-upgrade https://doges.co/blog/beagles-cancer-detection-lucid-ai-upgrade Tue, 30 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT The Rainbow Study — more than 1,400 participants, published in Scientific Reports in 2024 — found SpotitEarly's beagles detected breast, lung, colorectal, and prostate cancer with 95% sensitivity in early-stage cases. A new AI platform means they can now run tests at the scale of 1.7 million per year. https://doges.co/blog/skye-rescue-golden-donnas-alzheimers-guardian https://doges.co/blog/skye-rescue-golden-donnas-alzheimers-guardian Tue, 30 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT A golden retriever named Skye—rescued from a commercial breeding facility ten years ago—has quietly appointed herself caregiver since her family's Alzheimer's diagnosis. Science is beginning to explain the mechanism behind what Michael and Donna already know from living with her. https://doges.co/blog/k9-havoc-returns-home-columbus https://doges.co/blog/k9-havoc-returns-home-columbus Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT On June 23rd, a two-year-old German Shepherd named Havoc was shot while helping Columbus police stop a homicide suspect. Four days later, four law enforcement agencies escorted him home from the hospital. https://doges.co/blog/st-bernards-still-patrolling-alpine-pass https://doges.co/blog/st-bernards-still-patrolling-alpine-pass Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT The St. Bernard dogs who made the Great St. Bernard Pass famous in the early 1800s no longer carry out mountain rescues — but they still walk the 8,100-foot pass above the Swiss-Italian border, and the Barry Foundation that cares for them just had its biggest year yet. https://doges.co/blog/rescue-dog-hazel-wakes-owner-house-fire https://doges.co/blog/rescue-dog-hazel-wakes-owner-house-fire Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT A nine-month-old rescue dog from New Zealand, surrendered twice before finding her home, bit her sleeping owner awake during a house fire in Whakatāne. He survived; the house did not. https://doges.co/blog/how-to-walk-your-dog-safely-in-summer-heat https://doges.co/blog/how-to-walk-your-dog-safely-in-summer-heat Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT When temperatures climb, the rules of a dog walk change completely — from timing and route to what to carry and what never to do if your dog overheats. Here's what vets and the RSPCA say actually helps. https://doges.co/blog/cairo-hall-gold-suit-waylon-adoption https://doges.co/blog/cairo-hall-gold-suit-waylon-adoption Sun, 28 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT Cairo Hall had been waiting for a dog since he was three years old. On adoption day, he showed up to the PAWS shelter in Kyle, Texas wearing a gold tuxedo. He had been ready for a long time. https://doges.co/blog/howie-mets-service-dog-2026 https://doges.co/blog/howie-mets-service-dog-2026 Sun, 28 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT An eleven-week-old yellow Lab just arrived at Citi Field for the longest training of his life. The name he carries belongs to a man who gave forty years to the game. https://doges.co/blog/pepper-table-mountain-erwin-search-cape-town https://doges.co/blog/pepper-table-mountain-erwin-search-cape-town Sun, 28 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT When his dog Pepper went missing near Cape Town's Table Mountain, Erwin drove from Stellenbosch every single day to search. What followed was eleven days of grief, an assembled community of strangers, and a rope rescue in the dark. https://doges.co/blog/giant-dog-breeds-lifespan-rvc-study-2026 https://doges.co/blog/giant-dog-breeds-lifespan-rvc-study-2026 Sun, 28 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT A new UK study of 28,000 giant breed dogs finds they die more than three years before the average dog, and cancer is usually why. The findings reshape what owners of Great Danes, Irish wolfhounds, and Saint Bernards should expect. https://doges.co/blog/gorda-found-in-the-world-cup-crowd https://doges.co/blog/gorda-found-in-the-world-cup-crowd Sun, 28 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT For nearly a month, Alejandra Garcia searched for her six-year-old dog Gorda in Ciudad Victoria, Mexico. It was a live football broadcast that finally brought her home. https://doges.co/blog/the-puppy-they-found-in-caracas https://doges.co/blog/the-puppy-they-found-in-caracas Sat, 27 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT When two earthquakes leveled neighborhoods in Caracas, Venezuela, rescue crews combed through the debris. In the Pinto Salinas neighborhood, one of the first survivors they found was yelping. https://doges.co/blog/boris-put-his-paw-over-jenkins https://doges.co/blog/boris-put-his-paw-over-jenkins Sat, 27 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT When Humane Society staff arrived at work one June morning, they found a six-month-old puppy and a two-year-old cat sitting together in the parking lot, abandoned. The image of what the puppy did next reached millions of people within days. https://doges.co/blog/twenty-five-years-of-dogs-in-hospitals https://doges.co/blog/twenty-five-years-of-dogs-in-hospitals Sat, 27 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT The Center for Human-Animal Interaction at Virginia Commonwealth University has spent 25 years studying what happens when a dog walks into a hospital room. The answer, measured in more than 200 peer-reviewed studies, keeps pointing in the same direction. https://doges.co/blog/the-step-that-shrinks-before-dementia-takes-hold https://doges.co/blog/the-step-that-shrinks-before-dementia-takes-hold Sat, 27 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT NC State researchers tracked 88 senior dogs on a five-meter walkway, twice a year, and found something specific: when a dog's front-leg stride gets shorter, the brain may be the reason — not the joints.