In Wellington, New Zealand brunch is a popular activity. We even have quite a few cafes where we can sit outside.

Dog at brunch.

Here dogs aren’t allowed inside shops or cafes, but it’s not too uncommon to see people at an outside table with a dog nearby.

In fact, when the Chocolate Fish cafe was round in Scorching Bay they provided bowls of water and even the occasional biscuit for client dogs.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports a law change in New South Wales to allow dogs to sit with their owners at outdoor cafes:

DOG owners say that new laws to allow allow canine companions in cafes and restaurants are a ”victory for commonsense”.

The [New South Wales] Government has introduced amendments to laws … Business owners will have the discretion to allow dogs in outdoor dining areas, but pets will still be banned from indoors and food preparation areas.… But any pooches panting for a puppychino will be disappointed — the laws state dogs cannot be provided with food, must be kept on a leash and can’t sit on tables and chairs.

[Via Dogs now welcome to join cafe society.]

I hope they’re allowed a bowl of water, even if they can’t have a biscuit!

If you’re in New South Wales take a look at the Dogs NSW website.

The University of New South Wales, Australia, reports some new research about the history and diversity of dogs:

Australia’s dingo and the New Guinea Singing Dog may be the world’s oldest dog breeds, according to a major new genetic study into the domestication of the animal dubbed man’s best friend.

Dingo.

The international study published in the journal Nature suggests that those two breeds are the most closely related to wolves and may be most like the original domesticated dog as it was across Asia and the Middle East thousands of years ago, according to one of the 37 authors of the study, Dr Alan Wilton, of the UNSW School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences.

“This paper examines the domestication of the dog from the wild wolf using genetic differences,” Dr Wilton says. “48,000 sites in the dog genome were examined in hundreds of wolves, almost a thousand dogs from 85 modern breeds of dog and several ancient dog breeds.

“The data suggest most dogs were domesticated in the Middle East, which was the cradle of agriculture 10,000 of years ago, rather than in Asia as had been suggested previously.

“It also shows dingoes, which have been separated from other breeds of dog in Australia for the past 5,000 years, are the most distinct dog group with most similarity to wolves.”

The dingo and New Guinea Singing Dog stand out as being most different from all other breeds of dogs and closer to wolves than other breeds.

Other ancient breeds include Chow — Chow, Basenji, Akita, Chinese Shar — Pei, Siberian husky and Alaskan malamute. They could possibly have arisen from a separate domestication event to modern domestic dogs, which were mainly developed in the early 19th Century in Europe.

“They can be divided into mastiffs (for example, bulldogs), gun dogs, spaniels, herding breeds, sight hounds, scent hounds, retrievers, small terriers, toy dogs and flock guard breeds,” says Dr Wilton.

To gather all of the results from many dog breeds and wolves from many locations, a worldwide effort was mounted.

Dr Wilton and Jeremy Shearman — from the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences and the Ramaciotti Centre for Gene Function Analysis at UNSW — have been working on dingoes and methods to differentiate between pure dingoes and crosses between domestic dogs and dingoes. They contributed the genetic data from seven dingoes, which is a small amount of data but makes a large contribution to the paper. The data from all samples was analysed together at Cornell University and UCLA.

[Article and photo from: Dingo may be world's oldest dog - News - UNSW - Science.]

While some of us keep dogs as pets and companions, others put them to work guarding, sniffing out items of interest, protecting, guiding, and generally working hard.

In Australia the University of Sydney is carrying out a survey to find out just what working dogs do, how they are trained, which breeds are best suited to which tasks, and just how many dogs are ‘employed’:

dogs of all shapes and sizes are under the magnifying glass for Australia’s first working dog survey, which aims to find how to get the most out of man’s best friend.

The data on various types of canines — from military mutts to sporting dogs — will then be passed on to the Federal Government’s Animal Welfare Strategy, which wants to make consistent national policies.

The study quizzes the owners of government, service and sport dogs about how they train, handle, house and care for their animals through an online survey.

Co-ordinator Nick Branson says the study will find out how many working dogs there are Australia-wide and why some training programs work better than others.

[Via : Working like a dog: spotlight on man's best friend - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).]

There’s no doubt that dogs play an important part in our society. It’s good to see this attempt to draw data together.