Revista

Children Should Not Be Left Unsupervised With Dogs, Say Experts.

Norma Beatriz.
Dog bites and mailings’ are a worldwide problem, particularly in children, writes Marina Morgan and John Palmer. Every year 250,000 people who have been bitten by dogs attend minor injuries and emergency units in the United Kingdom, and half of all children are reportedly bitten by dogs at some time, boys morethan girls.

Accurate death figures are difficult to obtain, but in the past five years, two to three cases a year have made news headlines.
Based on the latest medical evidence, they advise doctors how to examine and treat a patient presenting with a dog bite. They discuss the risk of infection and when to refer to specialist care. For travelers bitten abroad, they suggest assessing the risk ofrabies.

In terms of prevention, they suggest that children should be taught to treat dogs with respect, avoid direct eye contact, and not tease them. They should be taught not to approach an unfamiliar dog; play with any dog unless under close supervision; run or scream in the presence of a dog; pet a dog without first letting it sniff you; or disturb a dog that is eating, sleeping, or caringfor puppies.
Dog owners also need to change their behavior, writes Rachel Besser, a children's doctor and lifetime dog owner, in an accompanying article.
It is clear that not all dog owners appreciate that children should not be left unsupervised with a dog, she says. Just as some parents are obliged to take parenting classes, she would like to see equivalent mandatory classes for expectant dogowners to teach them about the responsibilities of dog ownership. Educational programmers for children are also needed to instill precautionary behavior around dogs.

Finally, she would like to see vets advising dog owners about bite prevention, and doctors promoting bite prevention when treating patients who have been bitten by dogs.


LILIGERS.
Eva Idalia
Geographic News
PublishedSeptember 21, 2012
You may have heard of a liger—the lion-tiger hybrid is, after all, Napoleon Dynamite's favorite animal—but now a Russian zoo has released photos of a so-called "liliger" named Kiara, the offspring of a liger mother and a lion father.
The cub, born last week at Novosibirsk Zoo, may be the only liliger in existence. But charming as the cuddly cub appears, ligers, liligers, andother mix-and-match felines raise serious concerns for advocates of big-cat conservation.
Ligers are the result of a male lion mating with a female tiger. Craig Packer, director of the Lion Research Center at the University of Minnesota, said he hasn't heard of a liliger before but is "not surprised" that it exists.
All ligers are born in captivity, Packer said, because this animal simply does notexist in the natural world. Not only are wild lion and tiger populations separated by geography, there are certain behavior mechanisms in place that would prevent the two species from mating.
"If a tiger tried to mate with a female lion it would be chased away by the other lions pretty fast, and vice versa," said Packer, who is also a National Geographic Society/Waitt Foundation grantee.
Liligers"Irrelevant" for Conserving Big Cats
That can change in captivity. Given no other options, lions and tigers may breed. "Lions and tigers are separated by about seven million years of evolution," Packer said, "but they are still closely enough related that they can hybridize."
In the wild, an animal like Kiara would "probably be very mixed up," Packer speculated. "Lions are geneticallypredisposed to be very sociable and cooperative. Tigers are genetically predisposed to be very ornery and solitary."
While zoos in some countries do cross-breed cats (probably for the publicity value), U.S. zoos typically do not. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), the accrediting body for zoos in North America, does not approve of ligers, said spokesperson Steve Feldman, and no AZA zoos breed...