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Penn in the News
A round-up of Penn mentions in local, national, and international media.
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Penn In the News
Can dogs detect the novel coronavirus? The nose knows, scientists hope
Cynthia Otto of the School of Veterinary Medicine and A.T. Charlie Johnson of the School of Engineering and Applied Science spoke about how trained dogs and electronic sensors can use scent to detect illness.
Penn In the News
Tired of the people in your family? Some are teaching their dogs to talk
Carlo Siracusa of the School of Veterinary Medicine weighed in on teaching dogs to communicate by pressing buttons assigned to human words. “People can do it, it’s fun, but I think it’s much more important from the dog welfare standpoint that we make an effort to understand the dog’s language,” he said.
Penn In the News
What does the COVID-19 summer surge mean for your cats and dogs?
Shelley Rankin of the School of Veterinary Medicine spoke about pets and COVID-19 transmission. “If you are not taking precautions … you are putting both yourself and your animal at risk,” she said. “If you are a responsible pet owner, then it is probably safe to say that your animal’s risk [of infection] is lower than yours.”
Penn In the News
How old is your dog? New equation shows how to calculate its age in human years
Margret Casal of the School of Veterinary Medicine offered advice for promoting longevity in dogs and commented on a new equation to measure how dogs age. “It will be interesting to look at different breeds," she said. "We know that some smaller breeds live longer and some larger ones don’t live quite as long.”
Penn In the News
USDA confirms that Winston the pug, believed to be first dog with coronavirus, was never infected
Shelley Rankin of the School of Veterinary Medicine said there may have been discrepancies in how labs have tested pets for COVID-19. “Samples can be positive initially but can be degraded with specimen handling,” she said, and false positives “can also occur if the original specimen had a very low number of organisms.”
Penn In the News
Can dogs sniff out COVID-19
Cynthia Otto of the School of Veterinary Medicine spoke about efforts to train dogs to sniff out COVID-19. “We need to first confirm that there is an odor associated with the virus and that we can detect it in the samples,” she said.
Penn In the News
Penn is training dogs to sniff out COVID-19 in humans
Cynthia Otto of the School of Veterinary Medicine spoke about the Working Dog Center’s efforts to train dogs to detect COVID-19 in humans. “Basically, we are looking at urine samples. We are hoping to look at saliva and breath samples as well,” she said. “We are going to tell basically if there is an odor excreted in these samples.”
Penn In the News
Telehealth for dog behavior problems during COVID-19
Carlo Siracusa of the School of Veterinary Medicine spoke about the School’s new telehealth program for dog behavioral issues and offered advice for pet owners.
Penn In the News
Researchers experiment to see if dogs can detect COVID-19
Cynthia Otto of the School of Veterinary Medicine spoke about the potential use of scent-detecting dogs to identify COVID-19 in humans.
Penn In the News
Can dogs be trained to sniff out COVID-19 in patients?
Cynthia Otto of the School of Veterinary Medicine spoke about the Penn Working Dog Center’s new program to learn if dogs can detect COVID-19. “I like to think about dogs as seeing the world through their noses,” she said.