🐾 Dogs + Science = Discoveries

Our dogs aren’t just best friends…they can be our research partners! This week's projects celebrate pups everywhere, letting you fetch fun discoveries about how dogs think, feel, and live alongside us. With National Dog Day on August 26, it’s the perfect time to join in.



⚠️ But here’s the serious side: Ticks are spreading into new regions, carrying diseases that threaten both pets and people. In fact, rising rates of tick-borne infections in dogs serve as an early warning for human health.

Projects featured in this edition of the SciStarter newsletter put you on the front lines—helping track tick risks, protect communities, and keep tails wagging safely.

Cheers!

The SciStarter Team

What really keeps ticks away: yard treatments, DIY fixes, or just long pants and repellent? If you live in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, or New York, you can join over 6,700 participants already helping track which tick-control strategies work best through Project ITCH.

If you’re in New Jersey, help Rutgers map tick species and diseases by mailing in ticks you find for free disease-causing pathogen testing through NJ Ticks 4 Science!

And if you’re anywhere else in the world, you can document tick sightings (and all kinds of biodiversity) with iNaturalist.

Remember: observe safely. The last thing you want is to get a tick bite!

Is your dog fearless, shy, or somewhere in between? Share your pup’s history and behavior in two short surveys to help researchers uncover how life experiences shape canine personality.

Location: Global

Ever wished that your pet would live forever? Fill out a health and lifestyle survey about both you AND your dog (with optional follow-ups) to join the Dog Aging Project. It's a nationwide study exploring how dogs age, as well as how both pups and humans can live healthier, longer lives.

Location: USA

Answer fun surveys about your dog’s behavior and, if you’d like, even send in a DNA sample for a fee. Get genetic and ancestry info about your dog while contributing to one of the world’s largest open databases on canine genetics and personality.

Location: Global

Here's a project that also includes our feline friends! Take a quick survey for the researchers at C-BARQ and Fe-BARQ about your dog’s and/or cat’s temperament and behavior. Your input helps researchers improve pet welfare and strengthen the human–animal bond.

Location: Global