{"id":44507,"date":"2025-12-12T21:40:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T21:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/?p=44507"},"modified":"2025-12-12T21:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T21:40:09","slug":"top-dog-news-of-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/top-dog-news-of-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Dog News of 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><p><strong>In this article:<\/strong><\/p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"#a-dog-and-a-crow-became-best-friends\">A dog and a crow became best friends<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#researchers-found-that-dog-breeds-started-taking-shape-a-long-time-ago\">Researchers found that dog breeds started taking shape a long time ago<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li id=\"researchers-found-that-dog-breeds-started-taking-shape-a-long-time-ago\"><a href=\"#scientists-found-that-dogs-may-protect-against-childhood-asthma\">Scientists found that dogs may protect against childhood asthma<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#other-scientists-found-that-dogs-can-ease-pain\">Still more researchers found that dogs can ease pain<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#dog-ownership-kept-climbing\">Dog ownership kept climbing<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"#the-farmer-s-dog-helped-bring-back-one-very-special-and-big-senior-dachshund\">The Farmer&rsquo;s Dog helped bring back one very special (and big) senior dachshund<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div><hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"><div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div><p>As always, dogs made a lot of headlines in 2025. These were some of our favorites.<\/p><h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"a-dog-and-a-crow-became-best-friends\">A dog and a crow became best friends<\/h4><p>After a Portland, Oregon woman named Autumn Buck rescued a baby crow that fell out of a tree, the bird and her border collie, Meeko, became pals. Buck said that the crow, naturally named Russ, even &ldquo;knocks on the door&rdquo; looking for Meeko. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/border-collie-crow-best-friends-2098582\">What more do you need to hear<\/a>?<\/p><h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"researchers-found-that-dog-breeds-started-taking-shape-a-long-time-ago\">Researchers found that dog breeds started taking shape a long time ago<\/h4><p>Scientists examining dogs&rsquo; skulls discovered that, more than 10,000 years ago, some dogs showed qualities&mdash;and variations&mdash;that resembled those in the modern dog breeds we know today. For details, and what this means about the human-dog relationship, read <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iflscience.com\/when-did-dogs-become-dogs-familiar-forms-started-to-arise-over-10000-years-ago-81553\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">news coverage<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.adt0995\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">full study<\/a>.<\/p><p>In other dog-evolution research, scientists told us that dogs may have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/dogs-may-domesticated-themselves-because-140000560.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&ldquo;domesticated themselves&rdquo;<\/a> because they liked eating humans&rsquo; food scraps.<\/p><h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"scientists-found-that-dogs-may-protect-against-childhood-asthma\">Scientists found that dogs may protect against childhood asthma<\/h4><p>Researchers determined that babies who grow up with a pet dog are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-ph\/news\/other\/the-surprising-reason-why-growing-up-with-dogs-and-not-cats-can-be-good-for-your-health\/ar-AA1Njs0O?apiversion=v2&amp;domshim=1&amp;noservercache=1&amp;noservertelemetry=1&amp;batchservertelemetry=1&amp;renderwebcomponents=1&amp;wcseo=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">half as likely to develop childhood asthma as those without a dog<\/a>. Cats did not seem to deliver the same benefit.<\/p><h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"other-scientists-found-that-dogs-can-ease-pain\">Other scientists found that dogs can ease pain<\/h4><p>Study participants who submerged their hands in cold water reported less pain&mdash;and showed fewer signs of it&mdash;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/canine-corner\/202503\/can-dogs-ease-our-perception-of-pain\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">when their dog was in the room with them<\/a>.<\/p><h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"dog-ownership-kept-climbing\">Dog ownership kept climbing<\/h4><p>The most recent American Pet Products Association survey found that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.petfoodindustry.com\/pet-ownership-statistics\/article\/15747936\/chart-cats-and-dogs-lead-us-pet-ownership-growth-20232025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Americans own around 68 million dogs<\/a>, up from 65.1 million in the 2023&ndash;24 edition.<\/p><h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-farmer-s-dog-helped-bring-back-one-very-special-and-big-senior-dachshund\">The Farmer&rsquo;s Dog helped bring back one very special (and big) senior dachshund<\/h4><p>After a 13-year hiatus, the iconic Fredia took another W-A-L-K down the streets of Manhattan for the 99th Macy&rsquo;s Thanksgiving Day Parade&reg;&#65039;. She is 22 feet long and generally spectacular. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/freida-the-dachshund-returns-to-macys-thanksgiving-day-parade\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">We wrote all about her on <em>Digest<\/em>.<\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The year\u2019s top stories included a dog and a crow who became best friends, and one very special senior-dog balloonicle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":44511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[202],"tags":[395,184,443,433],"class_list":["post-44507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dog-people","tag-dachshunds","tag-dog-food","tag-health","tag-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44507"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44520,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44507\/revisions\/44520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefarmersdog.com\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}