So she walked across the room and slipped on a virtual reality (VR) headset. Suddenly, she could see a large picture of a dog's lungs and skeletal structure floating in mid-air in front of her.

Suddenly, she could see a large picture of a dog’s lungs and skeletal structure floating in mid-air in front of her. “I literally stood inside the rib cage,” Farthing said.

The anatomy of dogs varies tremendously from breed to breed, more than in any other animal species, wild or domesticated. And yet there are basic physical characteristics that are identical among ...