This month in canine science – May 2026

Two publications map the canine gut microbiome

Two teams of scientists from the Dog Ageing Project and Waltham Petcare Science Institute (a research facility of Mars Inc.) have recently published extensive characterization
of the canine gut microbiome. Among others, they were able to show that:

• gut bacteria allow dogs to digest carbohydrates, a macronutrient they are not well equipped to digest themselves
• dogs’ gut microbiome changes with age
• the microbiome of dogs fed with home-made food differs from that of those fed commercial kibble

These findings will allow scientists to develop food better suited to the needs of our companions in all life stages.

Sources:

Bamberger, T., Muller, E., Algavi, Y.M. et al. Mapping the canine gut microbiome: insights from the Dog Aging Project. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-73193-y

Castillo-Fernandez, J., Gilroy, R., Jones, R.B. et al. Waltham catalogue for the canine gut microbiome: a complete taxonomic and functional catalogue of the canine gut microbiome through novel metagenomic based genome discovery. Microbiome 14, 25 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-025-02265-w

Pet owners are not adept at assessing their dogs’ attachment to them

In a recent study, researchers compared owners’ evaluations of their dog’s attachment to what they could observe in a laboratory setting. It turns out that observable canine behaviour was weakly correlated with the owners’ responses to standardized questionnaires. In contrast, dogs that their owners perceived as more trainable exhibited more of the behaviours that are typical of securely attached dogs in the laboratory.

Sources:
R.E. Wray et al. Assessing canine attachment: divergence between C-BARQ scores and observed behavior in a laboratory test. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 299(2026). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2026.106959

New genetic analysis confirms that dogs were human companions during the Ice Age

New genetic evidence recently published in Nature proves that dogs were indeed a distinct species already 14’000 to 16’000 years ago. Two teams of researchers were able to demonstrate that the DNA of canid remains from archaeological sites in Switzerland and Turkey was distinct from that of wolves. Until now, the oldest dog finding confirmed by DNA analysis was from 11,000 years ago.

Sources:

Marsh, W.A., Scarsbrook, L., Yüncü, E. et al. Dogs were widely distributed across western Eurasia during the Palaeolithic. Nature 651, 995–1003 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10170-x

Bergström, A., Furtwängler, A., Johnston, S. et al. Genomic history of early dogs in Europe. Nature 651, 986–994 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10112-7