Pet Monologues

Summer care tips for you and your pets. Summer is a time for both you and your pet to enjoy the sunshine and outdoors, but along with the fun, the season also offers up situations that can endanger your pet. By taking precautions, you can decrease the chance that disaster will happen. The HSUS offers these tips for pet owners to keep their furry friends safe this summer: Read the rest of this entry »

How to deal with controversy? Maybe talking about it will bring positive results. I just read in the morning Chicago Tribune how a three-year old pit bull had to be put down by the owner for killing a neighbor’s dog, an 11-year old lab. It reminded me of a jogger killed by ferel pits in Chicago two years ago. In my very brief research this dog has many support groups such as Pit Bull Rescue Central and there is factual evidence that this dog as a breed has a more positive temperment than a lab as cited in American Temperament Testing Society which comes as quite a shock to most of us.

I have met this dog up close on occasion via friends who own one or more. If you like large, powerful-looking dogs, you have got to like a pit bull. The owner’s will say that a pit bull with issues though raises a red flag. You might say the same thing about many people who can cause considerable damage to life or limb if you know what I mean.

But something is not right here. If you have a pit bull and wish to take it to the Humane Society, they will probably put the dog down, no questions asked. If you are lucky I guess, they will tell you so up front. And maybe we agree that most news reported today is of a tragic nature. If there is a dog in the story, this dog always seems to be in the vicinity of these stories. Stories about attacks, mauling, break-in by police, neighbor complaints, fighting, and death.

Is the pit bull to blame? Is the pit bull a loaded gun? A drunken driver? Can the pit bull live peaceably in our society?

Animal lovers flock to Dallas. DALLAS, Tex. – The world’s largest educational conference and tradeshow for animal sheltering professionals, hosted by The Humane Society of the United States, brings more than 1,400 animal sheltering professionals from across the U.S. and many foreign countries to the Hyatt Regency Dallas at Reunion Arena. For more information.

I woke up at 6:30 this morning to take my ex-roommate’s cat to the vet. I guess he’s my cat now. His name is Max and he’s a very skinny orange tabby cat. He came complete with a fifteen second memory span and he has only one facial expression, which is blank. I often wonder if he was somebody’s genetic cloning experiment. That or if he is suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome. He’s just a living cat with barely a hint of character.

I’m trying to give him a personality but it’s difficult. I wonder if my techniques are working. The first technique is to hold him tightly against my chest and speak nonsense to him, kiss his face really hard, and then let him jump out of my arms to freedom. This does not seem to have any effect on him. He just looks mildly bewildered. The second technique is to spank his rump playfully. Again, there’s not much response. Not even the cliché look of superiority most normal cats constantly wear. But I haven’t picked Max up in days and have hardly petted him. I’ve even locked him out of my room. I’m disgusted by him right now. To get my mind off him I think about today’s homework. My teacher wants me to write about something I know a lot about. I glance at a picture of Evan, framed and sitting on my nightstand, where I can see it every night before I go to sleep. I think about Evan’s life and its tragic ending. I wonder if I should write about him. Read the rest of this entry »

Heide Winings warms raw ground beef in the microwave, throws in shredded carrots, cheese and a fried egg and serves breakfast to her four dogs that surround her panting and whining for a bite.

Like a growing number of pet owners, she feeds her dogs a natural diet that she figures costs up to $400 a month compared with the roughly $250 she spent before going raw.

Photo: Tribune Terry Harris

Winings’ approach is among several alternative pet diets that have attracted new followers since the massive recall of contaminated pet food blamed for the illness and death of thousands of cats and dogs.

“It’s a difference in how they enjoy the food,” said Winnings, 53, who lives in the Barrington enclave of Tower Lakes with her husband and two children. “They just love it. It’s the excitement of choices.”

Winings recalled people buying leftover bags of meat at the butcher shops in her native Germany and decided to give it a try four years ago. It was an instant hit. Read the rest of this entry »