Book Review: “Playing With My Dog Katie. An Ethnomethodological Study of Dog – Human Interaction.” by David Goode. Purdue University Press, 2007, pp. 228

The book by David Goode gives us a possibility to take an extraordinary excursion to unremarkable and inscrutable world, so common for us that we do not usually notice it, although we participate in it everyday. It is a reconstructed world that shows us methods that we use in mundane life to establish an order in it and to live with others going through concrete situations. Our live consists of just these situations that we live by (as playing with a dog, talking with others, lining up the store, etc.) and not of socio – demographic data from the end of sociological questionnaires and of many other abstractions used by sociologists. What is observable and analisable not always becomes a topic of the sociological research. Ethnomethodology, a perspective used in the book, wants just to go into details and to extract them to the surface. We should not rest our analysis on the “shadows” of reality, that are cast by still available and analyzable empirical phenomena, although difficult to analyze because of sociological methods and common sense perception used by sociologists.

Demographics and outcome of dogs and cats enrolled in the PetSafe program at the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine: 2004–2019

OBJECTIVE To determine the number and species of animals cared for by the PetSafe program at the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine (a community service offered to meet the short-term housing needs of pets, especially pets owned by victims of intimate partner violence) from 2004 through 2019 and collect information on duration of stay, outcome, health problems, and expenses. ANIMALS 229 animals cared for by the PetSafe program. PROCEDURES Medical records were reviewed for information on species, breed, age, duration of stay, outcome of stay, client referral source, whether the animal had been cared for previously, health problems, medical interventions, and expenses incurred. RESULTS There were 124 dogs, 95 cats, 6 ferrets, and 4 sugar gliders; 187 of the animals were returned to their owners, 37 were rehomed, and 5 were euthanized because of medical conditions. The most common health problems were dental disease and dermatological complaints (eg, flea infestation and resulting fleabite dermatitis). None of the animals had physical evidence of abuse. Mean duration of stay was 22 days (range, 1 to 93 days), and mean ± SD cost per animal was $368 ± $341. CLINICAL RELEVANCE Over the 16-year period of the study, the number and species of animals cared for by the PetSafe program at Purdue and the health problems encountered in those animals were relatively stable, and the program was able to meet the relatively predictable financial costs incurred through existing sources of funding.

The people behind the papers – Donald Ready and Henry Chang

ABSTRACT Coordinating contractility across tissues is key for maintaining the fidelity of morphogenetic processes. A new paper in Development explains how cytosolic calcium waves in the interommatidial cells, the pigment-secreting cells in the Drosophila eye, lead to remodelling of the retinal floor, by activating contraction of the basal actomyosin stress fibres. We caught up with the authors, Professor Donald Ready and Associate Professor Henry Chang, both from Purdue University, to find out more about this story.