Some Puppy To Love

I was stressed last week. It was one of those days when I had a million things to do in about an hour, and everything was going wrong. I was running late, forgot to make my son’s lunch, was further held up by the mounting ice forming on our front walk, and the phone was ringing off the hook. “Calm down, mom,” my daughter said. “You’re making Django nervous.” She was right. Our black lab,  Django , didn’t want to be near me and walked around with her head down. It was something I had noticed before. You know how when someone comes into the room frazzled, and you can feel their nervous energy? Well, Django does the same with me. She knows my tones, and when I’m stressed or feeling sick, she knows it. Dog owners have long known this to be true. How many times have we told our friends and family that our dogs sense when we are feeling sick or down in the dumps? Fellow pet owners understand right away, but non-pet people sometimes look at us as if we’re crazy. But now, we have s

Owner Keith Sutton from Redruth wants e-cigarettes labeled as controlled substances after his 12-week old Staffordshire Bull Terrier puppy died just hours after biting into a liquid nicotine capsule. Sutton says the capsule fell on the floor and his spunky pup, Ivy, quickly bit into it. Within seconds, she started reacting badly, “frothing at the mouth and vomiting” and he called his vet who said to get her to the animal hospital ASAP. Sutton says they got there within ten minutes and according to Sutton, the  vet did everything he could : ‘He gave her an injection of steroids, then put her on a drip and promised to phone us every couple of hours through the night. They said the first 12 hours were critical and we received a call after 12 and a half hours saying she had passed away. Her lungs and heart had given up.’ The grieving owner blames himself for the pup’s death and advises that these e-cigarette devices  need to be kept far away from children and pets .  Red the f

On our snow-laden streets of Brooklyn (with more snow to come this week!), the local squirrels have been busily running around trying to find food. My son and I watched them on the way home from school yesterday as they frantically attempted to search for buried nuts. Two of them busily dug through gray snow, back and forth with their little paws. Another sniffed around the base of a tree. A fourth, lucky squirrel was happily perched up on a branch chewing on a found acorn. We wondered if the family of squirrels would ever locate all the food their stored up last fall, which is now buried so far below the dirty, icy snow. The crafty squirrel in this viral video may have had a better idea, or not. He tries his best to bury his food but the place he selected is not quite ideal either.

This cold and snowy winter hasn't only left us with less exercise and more comfort food, but extra pounds. And not just for us, but also our pets. Those long, summer night walks around the neighborhood just haven't happened around here especially with the mounds of gray snow and sheets of ice that blanket most streets and just doesn't seem to go away. Also, my dogs have been more hungry than usual. I know that dogs are supposed to eat more in the winter, particularly dogs that are kept outside most of the time (I hate that this still happens). I haven't increased the food intake of my dogs but I have splintered out their daily meals. I have been trying to feed them smaller meals three times a day, instead of just two larger meals. I'm not entirely sure this is working. Hayley, our chihuahua/eskie mix is getting a bit chubby. When we first rescued her, she was very overweight because she had been with an elderly owner who let her have free food all day long

Django enjoying her favorite biscuit We "saw each across a crowded room" has never factored more into my life than when I first laid my eyes on Django. After being at North Shore Animal League for more than an hour, my husband, our kids, and I had pet and held a bunch of puppies. All were cuddly. All were cute. All needed a good home. It was not an easy decision. I really wanted to bring every dog home and take care of them. Ever since I was a child, I wanted to rescue every dog that needed it. We had two dogs for most of my childhood and my dogs always brought me love and companionship. I remember running home after school to let my dogs out in the yard and then give them a  Milk-Bone® biscuit, and play with them. I also remember seeing stray dogs on our street and feeding them and doing all I could do to help them along, but ultimately having to watch them go away. Thankfully, there are not many stray dogs around my streets anymore, but my heart will forever go out t

In recent weeks, hundreds of stray dogs in the city of Sochi, Russia have been killed in so-called preparation of the Olympic Winter Games. Russian officials have ordered all stray dogs found wandering the streets to be shot with poison darts. As a result, Russian citizens have  witnessed dogs suffering a painful death  as the poison darts causes the dogs to slowly suffocate. Even worse (if that’s possible), many of the dogs were pets in homes that were knocked down to make way for the Olympic festivities. The families who lived in the homes were forced to move into apartments where dogs are not allowed and were left behind. Now,  The New York Times  reports that a Russian billionaire is making a last ditch effort to save the dogs being killed for the Sochi Olympics. Read the full story at Babble Pets...

My beautiful mutt For the first time in the history of the prominent Westminster Dog Show, mutts will be allowed to participate in the competition. Up until now, only purebred pups were welcomed to this high status spectacle. (Interestingly the American Kennel Club has allowed mixed breeds to participate in agility, obedience, and other sports for years.) However, before you share the news with that sweet loving pup sitting next to you, let’s go over some of the specifics. Yes, mutts, or mixed breeds will be allowed to enter the Westminster Dog Show, but  only in a new agility category . For years, since the 1800s, in fact, only the purely purebred pups have been lucky enough to enter the competition. For many of those years, dog owners have claimed this was unfair because so many mutts are beautiful, stunning, loving creatures that surely deserved their day on the dais. Read more at Babble Pets.