Latest news with #petdogs
Yahoo
06-08-2025
- Yahoo
Two boys, 7 and 9, mauled by family dogs
Police have issued a warning to families after two children were mauled by pet dogs in the space of four hours. Both incidents took place in South Yorkshire on Monday night (August 4), with two primary school-aged children injured in the attacks. The first took place at 8pm, when officers received reports that a seven-year-old boy had been injured by a family dog, which was a registered XL bully. READ MORE: 'I never thought for one minute the fire service could do that to my house' READ MORE: Mum 'traumatised' after dog walker pushes her in canal as she cycled to work South Yorkshire Police understands that the dog attacked the little boy in the kitchen of their home, causing injuries to his neck, which required surgery. Never miss a story with the MEN's daily Catch Up newsletter - get it in your inbox by signing up here At 11.36pm, the force received a separate call about a nine-year-old boy who had been mauled by the family dog, which was a shih tzu. The child suffered injuries to his ear and required hospital treatment. Both dogs were seized by officers, South Yorkshire Police says. Those incidents were two of 15 calls made to the force on Monday, requesting assistance for emergency dog bites, or making police aware of dogs which were either dangerously out of control or posing a risk in the community. A South Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: "You are more likely to be bitten and injured by a dog within your home, known to you, than anywhere else. "We understand the joy that pets bring to a home, and a child's life, but as the school holidays are underway and children are spending more time at home and visiting friends, family and local parks, we are continuing to urge parents and owners to act. "Any dog of any breed can bite and cause harm or fear. "It is important that you understand your dog, it's behaviour and ensure it has a safe space where it can be alone... Please don't think it won't happen to you, or your child, or that your dog wouldn't attack. "Simple changes can be the difference between life and death." Join the Manchester Evening News WhatsApp group HERE South Yorkshire Police has issued the following advice: Dogs, no matter how long you have owned them for, are animals and can show signs of aggression no matter their previous history Dogs can't communicate to us - if they're in pain or experiencing stress and anxiety it can influence their behaviour, acting in ways that may be unusual for your pet Never leave children and dogs unattended As your family grows and your children become older, changes in your house may need to be made As children become more mobile, consider stair gates to separate your dog and child Make sure your dog has somewhere safe and comfortable to go to when you have visitors.
Forbes
05-08-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Love Your Pet? Edison Deng Has Some Smart-Tech Ideas For You
The global population of pet dogs (500 million) and pet cats (220 million) exceeds the human headcount in all but a handful of the world's nations and is growing, according to reports. Chinese entrepreneur Edison Deng is out to find new ways to tap that sprawling market by combining the warmth of a raising pet with the convenience of cutting-edge consumer electronics. Helping pet owners with smart-tech items also makes good business sense, Deng recently told Forbes China. 'It's an attractive consumer tech niche characterized by high price points, steep R&D barriers, and strong potential for building premium, tech-forward brand value,' he said A member of the Forbes China 30 Under 30 list in 2024, Deng developed a love of pets through his family. Shenzhen-based Xing Risheng Group, founded by his father, supplies aquatic products and pet food to chains such as Walmart and PetSmart. Deng himself has raised more than a dozen pets – mostly dogs -- over the years, including Ragdolls, British Shorthairs, Devon Rexes, Persians, Akitas, Giant Poodles, and his favorite, a Maltese. Their companionship helped to spark his entrepreneurial vision, he said. After earning an undergraduate degree from the University of California at San Diego and a graduate degree in marketing from Boston University, Deng was ready to take the plunge as an entrepreneur himself with an eye to coming up with new tools for 'reimaging the relationship between humans and their pets,' he explained. The result: PetSnowy. Deng struck upon a company name that references his dog 'Snowball' while in California in 2020. Later that year, he returned to his hometown of Shenzhen in China and assembled a team of hardware and electronics talent with the mission of creating smart pet products. Though chairman and CEO, Deng emphasized that he works with his team in a flat, collaborative workspace on product development and brand-building. PetSnowy's first big hit: 'Smart litter boxes' that simplify one of the least pleasant parts of cat ownership. PetSnowy's SNOW Smart Litter Box comes with a unique deodorizing system and trash bins with odor-blocking sealing. Instead of cheaper PP plastic, PetSnowy's box is made with ABS, which he said has better anti-bacterial, anti-mold, and easy-to-clean properties. In 2023, PetSnowy became the top-performing pet-related campaign in crowdfunding platform Indiegogo's history, raising nearly $2 million and setting a new category record, Deng said. The brand's official website, has since become its largest sales channel, shipping products directly to customers in the U.S., Europe, the U.K., Canada, Australia and Japan. PetSnowy's latest success: A 'SMILE Smart Pet Dryer Box' that helps dry wet pets. Sales last year doubled to $40 million, with 85% coming from international markets. Deng anticipates revenue will double in 2025, regardless of tariff uncertainty, driven by continued momentum in core markets -- especially in the U.S. and Japan, significant expansion in China, new products, upgrades of existing products, and increased investment in AI-driven innovations and digital marketing. Global growth in pet-raising won't hurt, either. Deng looked back over his career and credited his dad for 'invaluable lessons about meticulous operational management, quality control, and maintaining strong international client relationships.' His father's decades of experience in manufacturing pet products for global retailers also helped to shaped young Deng's emphasis on consistent product quality, Deng said. There's more than admiration involved, though. Deng's been able to tap into his father's group for help with manufacturing and personnel support. PetSnowy is able to access plants in Huizhou, Shenzhen, and Hanoi, along with additional facilities in Chaoshan and Guangzhou. Deng still has positions in the father's group company, though he spends most of his time on PetSnowy, Deng said. PetSnowy's focus on dogs and cats, rather than aquatics, is apparent in its logo. A cloud shape mirrors the bottom of a cat's or dog's paw while a snowflake perched in the corner nods to the 'Snowy' name and the brand's design, Deng said. Together, the images aim to express PetSnowy's values of 'comfort, cleanliness, and human-pet harmony,' he said. Besides his dad, Deng credits part of his business approach to 'first principles' thinking that dates to ancient Greece but that has been embraced by the likes of Elon Musk, Apple and Dyson. To Deng, that means 'starting from the fundamental needs of users and building solutions based on physical truths and objective logic, rather than simply adding features onto existing products and labeling them as 'innovations.' Real innovation means solving real users' pain points through thoughtful, original ideas that deliver tangible value.' Looking ahead, Deng aims to generate new products and service improvements in an AI Lab he formed last year, such as personalized pet health monitoring that leverages user data to detect potential health issues. He is also looking into AI-powered behavior recognition systems that automatically adjust product settings, such as airflow or deodorization intensity. Geographically, Deng also sees a potentially big market at home in China to tap in new ways. He has focused on international markets so far only because of better profit margins and faster interest in new items. 'Although pet spending in China is indeed growing rapidly, PetSnowy has initially prioritized the more mature pet-care markets of the U.S. and Japan due to their quicker adoption of premium, tech-driven pet products. As Chinese consumer preferences evolve towards premiumization and intelligent pet-care solutions, PetSnowy expects significant future growth domestically.' He's already thinking long-term his supply chain by strategizing about how to integrate the PetSnowy brand with his family's established supply network to unlock greater innovation and operational synergy. In his view, the biggest hurdle to cross-sector breakthroughs for companies with a more traditional supply chain lies in 'an outdated mindset and technical inertia.' To overcome that, Deng believes in 'bridging generations' -- combining the 'deep manufacturing experience of legacy enterprises with the agility, ambition and digital fluency of next-generation entrepreneurs.' He gained experience with that last year as project director of SAP digital transformation across six manufacturing entities under the Xing Risheng Group. The project was successfully launched in five months, making Deng one of the youngest SAP implementation directors in China, he said. One niche you won't find PetSnowy in: pet food. When asked whether PetSnowy would ever enter the competitive pet food market—a common path for many pet brands—he joked: 'If we ever get into pet food, we'll probably just buy a farm in New Zealand or Australia, and produce for our own users. We won't join the race to the bottom.' Why bother, when there's a big and growing market out there for innovative ways to link up pets, pet lovers and new technology?
Medscape
19-05-2025
- Health
- Medscape
How Pet Dogs Are Helping to Advance Lymphoma Breakthroughs
Back in 2018, nine pet dogs suffering from various types of cancer participated in the clinical trial of an immunotherapy treatment that was developed by engineering a livestock virus called vesicular stomatitis virus. The best response to the novel drug — which was designed to stimulate the immune system to attack cancer cells — occurred in two boxer dogs with T-cell lymphoma, both of whom went into temporary remission after a single infusion. The results from the dog trial were submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration as part of a safety package, and the agency later approved the launch of a study of the drug in people with T-cell lymphoma. That study was part of a collaborative effort among veterinarians and cancer researchers known as 'comparative oncology.' The goal of this effort is to leverage a little-known but important fact about dogs: They are susceptible to many of the same cancers that affect people, including some blood cancers. They develop these cancers naturally, unlike lab animals such as mice and rats, which have to be engineered in some way to have the disease. That makes dogs much more realistic models of many human cancers. What's more, including pet dogs in clinical trials can be a win-win: The dogs get early access to cutting-edge treatments, while the developers of those drugs gain important insights and data that they can carry over into human trials. Some types of blood cancer are nearly identical in dogs and people, including the B-cell and T-cell forms of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). On the human side, the prognosis for patients with NHL has greatly improved in recent years, thanks to the development of the antibody treatment Rituxan (rituximab) and immunotherapies such as chimeric antigen receptor T cells that are engineered to recognize and attack cancer cells. Still, interest remains high in recruiting pet dogs for a wide range of studies aimed not only at developing new drugs and combination treatment strategies but also at understanding the genetic and environmental drivers of lymphoma. 'When we see what's happened in human medicine, it certainly fills us with hope that we can develop additional tools that can make a difference in lymphoma,' said veterinarian Nicola Mason, professor of medicine and pathobiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine in Philadelphia. 'The veterinary, immunology, and oncology communities are getting together to find even better treatments.' Dogs Drive Insights Into Cancer Genes and Biomarkers Despite advances in the treatment of NHL in humans, hematology researchers are still searching for new insights that will help to improve methods of therapy and prevention, including genetic abnormalities and other biomarkers that drive development, progression, and response to treatments. Dogs continue to play a major role in this effort. Understanding the genomic landscape of lymphoma is one goal of comparative oncology studies. For example, earlier this year, an international team of veterinarians and genomics researchers published a study revealing that a specific mutation in the gene H3K27M may be associated with poor survival in dogs with diffuse B-cell lymphoma. While this mutation isn't often seen in people with NHL, it is common in children with some types of glioma, an aggressive brain tumor. The H3K27M abnormality is especially interesting because it's a 'hotspot' mutation, meaning it always occurs in the same base pair position and causes the same changes when it's translated into a protein, explained study co-author Maja Louise Arendt, a researcher in the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology at Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden. She added that some researchers are pursuing experimental vaccines designed to target hotspot mutations, and she believes research in dogs could help inform this effort. 'Even when the mutation that's found doesn't play a role in the same type of cancer in dogs and humans, the dog is still a valuable comparative model,' she said. 'And translational research will benefit both species because if a therapy that's developed from the research benefits one species with a mutation, there's a high likelihood it will also benefit another species.' Some comparative oncology studies are aimed at understanding side effects of cancer treatments. One such study, led by veterinarians at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, examined the impact of the chemotherapy drugs vincristine and prednisolone on the gut microbiota of dogs being treated for lymphoma. The drugs are part of the mainstay NHL treatment known as CHOP, which typically causes stomach upset in both dogs and people. The researchers identified changes in several populations of gut microbiota in dogs that experienced gastrointestinal complications following a week of chemotherapy. Further studies could help inform efforts to control side effects of cancer treatments. 'Owners of dogs that are going through chemotherapy often ask us if there are any changes they can make to minimize side effects,' said Kristen Weishaar, a veterinarian and clinical trials director at Colorado State University's Flint Animal Cancer Center. 'If we can link microbial changes to significant side effects and then restore those microbes to mitigate the effects, that's something we could potentially translate to people.' Learning From Golden Retrievers One of the most important resources for scientists studying lymphoma in dogs is the Golden Retriever Lifetime Study, a longitudinal research effort led by the Morris Animal Foundation (based in Denver), which is collecting health, environmental, and behavioral data on more than 3000 golden retrievers. In 2023, the foundation announced it had recorded more than 500 cases of cancer in the golden retriever cohort, with lymphoma being among the four most common types of the disease diagnosed. Dog owners who participate in the study agree to have biologic samples collected from the pups yearly. They also fill out annual questionnaires that reveal details about their pets' diet, lifestyle, and environment. The data have been particularly useful for researchers who are studying the impact of environmental factors on lymphoma risk. 'We are able to look at dogs with lymphoma the year before they developed the disease to see if there are any specific exposures or DNA damage markers that could have increased their risk,' said veterinarian Lauren Trepanier, professor and assistant dean for Clinical and Translational Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. Trepanier has participated in studies using data from the Golden Retriever Lifetime cohort to examine the link between lymphoma and exposure to herbicides, fracking wells, benzene, and other chemical sources. One study published last year found that all dogs studied had measurable amounts of the herbicides glyphosate and 2,4-D in their urine and that 4 of 30 golden retrievers with lymphoma had been exposed to 2,4-D at concentrations shown to be potentially damaging to lymphocytes. Trepanier said that while additional studies in larger cohorts of dogs will be necessary to confirm associations between environmental exposures and lymphoma, she has no doubt the insights gained will benefit people. 'Dogs have higher exposures than people do because they walk on grass without shoes on, they lick their feet, they roll around in household dust. And we know that lymphoma happens earlier in dogs,' she said. 'So, if we can show an association between specific chemicals and lymphoma in dogs, that might help us understand how nonsmoking people who don't have other risks for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma might be at risk from environmental exposures.' The scientists managing the Golden Retriever Lifetime Study have genotyped all 3000 enrolled dogs and performed whole genome sequencing on a subset of the dogs, said veterinarian and principal investigator Julia Labadie. 'Now researchers are using that data to do genome-wide association studies,' she said. They're also looking for cancer biomarkers in blood and urine samples that are collected from the dogs each year. 'Then we can look back in time to see how early we can find those biomarkers in the dogs,' Labadie said. The findings could lead to new strategies for early detection of lymphoma in both dogs and people, she said. Improving Immunology for Both Dogs and People Veterinarians are eager to include dogs in research aimed at developing new immunotherapy strategies for treating lymphoma and other cancers, but some obstacles will need to be overcome. Lymphoma treatments like Rituxan, which targets the protein CD20 on B cells, are human antibodies. Therefore, they can't be given to dogs because their immune systems would reject them. Efforts are underway to develop an anti-CD20 drug for dogs. And the National Cancer Institute is leading a trial of three novel drugs designed for dogs that target cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated protein 4, a protein on cancer cells that can be blocked to stimulate an immune response to cancer. The drugs are similar to Yervoy (ipilimumab), which is approved to treat several forms of cancer in people. If those antibodies are approved to treat dogs with lymphoma, they could open the door to a wide range of comparative oncology trials that combine immune-boosting drugs with other immunotherapies, chemotherapy, or targeted therapies, Mason said. 'We need to develop the antibodies for dogs first, and then we can start looking at novel combinations that could also inform human treatment.' While the current funding environment for preclinical cancer research is challenging for veterinarians engaged in comparative oncology studies, most are optimistic that canines will continue to play an important role. 'Dogs have normal immune systems, and they're exposed to the same environment that people are,' Trepanier said. 'The dog is a very effective sentinel of cancers that occur in both dogs and people.'
