SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- The city of Santa Fe is rethinking a proposed rewrite of its animal control ordinance that would have required dogs to wear seat belts in cars.

The city's public safety committee voted Monday to strike a section of the proposal that said any animal confined in or on a vehicle shall be restrained to prevent it from reaching outside the vehicle.

Santa Fe city councilors said they were flooded by complaints about the proposed "doggie seat belts" from residents as well as people in other cities.

Sponsors of the proposal said they never intended to require restraint devices on dogs in cars -- only in the backs of pickups.

Michael Trujillo, vice chairman of the committee, said the section on restraining dogs inside cars was deleted not only to eliminate the possibility of seat belts on dogs, but because some people want their dogs to be able to hang their heads out of car windows.

Trujillo said the proposal had been intended to keep dogs in parked cars from lunging at people walking nearby.

Lost Dog Gets Reunited Today with Mississippi Family After Pinellas County Animal Services Uses Microchip to Trace Home; 10-year-old Lhasa Apso Gets Loose, Found in St. Petersburg--Nov. 1, 2003.

A 10-pound female Lhasa Apso dog found on the side of I-275 in Pinellas County is going home to Jackson, Mississippi, this afternoon after Animal Services used the dog’s microchip to locate its worried family.

After taking custody of the dog – which a citizen picked up Thursday after seeing it on the side of the busy interstate – Pinellas County Animal Services staff discovered its microchip during a physical examination. The microchip led Animal Services officials to Jackson, where the 10-year-old dog ran away from home a week ago. The animal did not have a collar tag upon fleeing its home when a child opened a door, officials were told.

The dog’s family, headed by Jackson veterinarian Michael Watson, told officials they searched for their beloved pet for the last week and did not have any idea how it ended up stranded in Pinellas County.

The silver and black dog appeared stressed but overall is healthy and is ready to be reunited with its Mississippi family.

While the mystery continues as to how the Lhasa Apso arrived in West Central Florida, it will be reunited with its family today after catching a 2:40 p.m. Delta flight from Tampa International Airport. The dog was scheduled to arrive at 10:30 a.m. today at “Air Animal,” a Tampa veterinary clinic which specializes in transporting animals.

Want to meet new people? Get a dog!

By Patricia Reaney--LONDON, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Are you shy? Can't make small talk or start a conversation? Get a dog.

Apart from being man's and woman's best friend and a loyal companion, British psychologists have found that a dog is a wonderful social ice-breaker that can help the shy and retiring meet new people.

``Dogs don't involve any feelings of social discomfort,'' said psychologist June McNicholas.

``We live in a culture and society that is very restrained in terms of talking to each other. Britain, in particular, but in any western culture strangers do not talk to each other easily,'' the psychologist at the University of Warwick told Reuters.

Dogs are a safe topic of conversation and can help spark a rapport between total strangers.

To prove just how socially helpful dogs can be McNicholas and her colleague recorded the number of social interactions of a woman doing the same daily outdoor routine with and without a dog for five days.

When the woman was accompanied by her canine friend 65 people started conversations with her compared to just three when she was without the animal.

``They always commented about the dog and then they would start a conversation,'' McNicholas said.

In a second experiment the researchers showed a dog improved social interactions regardless of how scruffy or well dressed the man was or how vicious or friendly the dog appeared.

Even if both looked unfriendly, the man was approached more often with the dog than without it.

``The dog is the ice breaker,'' said McNicholas, whose study is published in the British Journal of Psychology.

In addition to improving social contacts, research has shown that pet owners are healthier than people without animals. But researchers are not sure if healthier, happier people tend to own pets, or if owning a pet can improve health by providing more opportunities to increase social contacts and a sense of well being.

``We know in medical psychology one of the best prognoses for good physical and psychological health or recovery from an illness is good social support,'' said McNicholas.

Want to Live Longer? Get a Dog

STOCKHOLM, Jan 10, 2000 (Reuters)-- If you want a healthy dog that lives longer, choose a terrier or a poodle, according to a Swedish study on dogs' health that claims to be the first of its kind internationally.

The five-year survey of 200,000 dogs by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala found smaller dogs lived longer while boxers and Irish wolfhounds had the highest veterinary fees and were sick most often.

Irish wolfhounds were found to have the shortest lifespan followed by Great Danes, then Dobermans.

Agneta Egenvall, doctor of veterinary medicine at the university, said the survey calculations of life span and sickness were largely based on information from animal insurance companies who provide cover to half of the 800,000 pet dogs in Sweden.

The results were expressed in percentages for each category of dog, not in the number of years or amounts of illness.

Egenvall said the results confirmed what many vets and dog owners have believed for a long time but without proof -- that certain kinds of dogs fall ill more often and certain breeds are more affected by different illnesses.

``The survey confirmed that no really big dog is totally healthy and that generally they die earlier than smaller dogs,'' Egenvall told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

``But the survey does not give the answers for what this depends on -- breeding, genes, or lifestyle.''

While bigger dogs tended to be affected by more life-threatening illnesses, some of the smaller dogs were rather sickly.

Cocker spaniels often came down most often with run-of-the-mill illnesses -- the human equivalent of coughs and sneezes -- followed by King Charles spaniels and Alsatians.

The dogs found to live the longest were Siberian huskies followed by Finnish Spitz, poodles, golden retrievers and crossbreeds.