1st Census For Dogs To Shed Light On Breeds

3MTA3 · #1 03-22-2010, 05:50 PM

Mutt Census To Shed Light On Breeds
1st Census For Dogs Takes 10 Minutes To Fill Out

POSTED: Monday, March 22, 2010
UPDATED: 3:48 pm EDT March 22,2010

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Many should have already received their census forms in the mail by now, which ask citizens to account for everyone living in their household. But for many people, the census excludes one very important member of the family -- their dog.

One local dog, named Maya, spends her days being cared for at Pet Paradise. And now she'll have to find time to make herself count in the first national mutt census of it's kind.

Just like the real census, the doggy census only takes about 10 minutes to fill out. That's unless pet owners try to have their dog fill it out itself.

The mutt census wants to know about the dog's weight, height and feeding and exercise habits.

While having a doggy census may sound strange to some, its purpose is to help researchers learn more about the different breeds of dogs.

The breed is the most important box that the owner checks. The mutt census is trying to get a snapshot of America's mixed-breed population, and that's not easy.

"There are so many new breeds that are coming now," said Fernando Acosta-Rua, the owner of Pet Paradise. "All these hybrid breeds where people are mixing different breeds, which is a fairly new thing, and it's very popular."

Acosta-Rua he sees a lot of different breeds all the time.

"Just like people, they have different characteristics," he said. "Some are more social than others."

The findings may give researchers a better understanding of the types of diseases and health risks for certain breeds of dogs.

There are an estimated 38 million mixed breed dogs in the U.S., and at last check, just more than 1,000 had been counted.

To participate, go to http://www.muttcensus.com.

http://www.news4jax.com/news/22911172/detail.html

kg420 · #2 03-23-2010, 03:45 PM

That's cool Thanks for the link

Amber · #3 03-25-2010, 04:51 PM

That's cool, but if I owned a breed on the BSL hit list, I'd personally be a little worried about publically declaring that.

Interestingly, I'm just back from a short stint working in a vet clinic in Rarotonga where we were invovled in doing a dog census of the island. We weren't interested in breeds though! Just in whether the dogs were healthy and speutered.