Pet Monologues

Helmsley’s dog gets $12 million in will.

NEW YORK (AP)—Leona Helmsley’s dog will continue to live an opulent life, and then be buried alongside her in a mausoleum. Read the rest of this entry »

When kids go back to school, pets can get lonely.

With children all over the area heading back to school, what happens to pets once their playmates are gone for the day? Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine returning to your home after a long vacation. You pick up your pets from the kennel, unload your luggage and head to bed to recover from the long drive. But your sleep is anything but restful. All night, you’re plagued by tiny pinpricks and incessant itching. It doesn’t take you long to figure out that you’re being attacked by a seemingly infinite mob of hungry fleas.

An Adult Flea
Photo courtesy CDC/Vector Ecology & Control Laboratory, Fort Collins, Colo.

What happened? Did your pets pick up an infestation at the kennel? Did the vampire-like insects hitch a ride on your luggage? Or did a swarm of them decide to move in while you were gone?

It’s a creepy idea, but the most likely answer is that the fleas were waiting for you. Fleas are parasites—or life forms that feed on hosts—often harming the host in some way. Fleas use their hosts’ blood as food. They generally prefer the blood of four-legged animals to human blood, so before you went on vacation, the fleas fed on your pets, not on you.

Although newly emerged fleas need to find food within a few days, adults can go for a couple of months without a meal. Flea pupae can also stay in their cocoons for up to a year, waiting to sense the body heat and vibrations that signal the presence of nearby hosts. So when you go on vacation, the fleas don’t starve to death — they simply wait for you and your pets to come back. Read the rest of this entry »

Too much puppy ciao.

The perfect dog for busy urbanites will sit, fetch and roll over — but won’t stay. At least, not for long. That’s the idea behind FlexPetz, a new California rent-a-dog service that provides doggies on demand, for a fee. Read the rest of this entry »

The first article I read on this topic was dated March 2005 from Fairfax County Virginia, so this is not exactly a new idea. Two years later we have the following article revisiting this issue…

Dangerous dogs in Virginia get online registry.

RICHMOND, Virginia: Bear is a golden retriever-shepherd that attacked a bicyclist. Dee Dee, a pit bull mix, killed a cat. Cody, a Labrador mix, bit the neighbor.

Their mug shots, misdeeds and home addresses went online last week at Virginia’s Dangerous Dog Registry, a new Web site modeled after the state’s sex offender registry. It lets residents locate dogs in their county that have attacked a person or animal, and that a judge decided could cause injury again.

Created after dogs killed a toddler and an 82-year-old woman in separate incidents over the last two years, Virginia’s registry is part of a growing effort by states to deal with canines deemed dangerous. Thirty-one states now make owners legally liable if their dogs maim or kill, and in 2006 Ohio became the first state to ban some breeds outright.

In the last two years, nearly 100 municipalities have taken similar steps - banning pit bulls, Rottweilers, English bull terriers and American staffordshire terriers, or passing regulations that require owners to use muzzles or short leashes in public, according to the American Kennel Club. Read the rest of this entry »

by Odessa (?)

Hi my Friend,

Oreo, I’m so sad to have to tell you this: Barney, one of our pet apple snails, died this Christmas eve. We were all very sad. Mom even cried. Barney and Mom were very close you know.

After Mom removed Barney from her home aquarium and put her to rest, Mom dried her eyes, pulled up a chair and started to tell us all about Barney’s life.

It was not a sad story Mom told us, Oreo, and it wasn’t not only about Barney’s life. This story of Barney’s life could be the story of millions of other pet apple snail lives all rolled into one story. I decided that I wanted to shareher story with you Oreo as I know you will be as interested init as I and my mates were.

Barney’s life was not at all like our lives. Barney was an amphibious snail. Where as you and I will live all our life on dry land, amphibious snails like Barney live their lives in water but they must come up to the surface of their aquariums, streams or ponds to breathe. They also lay their eggs just above the water’s surface. The rest of the time they spend under water. Read the rest of this entry »

Dead pets for sale.

(ARCHIVE) Remember being aghast to find your pet goldfish mysteriously floating upside down in a fishbowl? Or cringing at the sight of your cat mashed along the roadside? Read the rest of this entry »

PM wishes to keep dialog open and alive with regard to the pit bull terrier. That’s because, when people are talking, remedies for polarizing issues come easier.

We have an adult family member with no children who adopted two such dogs and they are great dogs. However, one afternoon when we were packing to go home, it was a cold January afternoon, a jacket with a hood was zipped up and the dogs clearly became agitated at the site of the hood. The jacket very quickly came off and the dogs led to another room. The dogs are one-year-olds and the owner, who is in his fifties, is an experienced dog owner who lives in a neighborhood with plenty of space and no children. So far with conditions as they are everyone is optimistic. We have become very fond of these two dogs and we also handle them with care.

That said, the following article is about finding homes for dogs who may have been exposed to dog-fighting. These dogs who are saddled with “issues” really require evolved sensibilities.

Here is a recent story found in the Chicago Tribune.

by Bill Hageman, Chicago Tribune

Catherine Hedges says she gets a lot of e-mails from people who want to help Michael Vick’s pit bulls.

“We can’t,” she says. “But we can save these South Holland dogs.”

Photo: Chicago Tribune

Hedges spent nearly a decade in pit bull rescue before stepping aside for health reasons. She has been busy lately, though, working behind the scenes with American Animal Rescue Society in an effort to find homes for the dogs that were seized in that big July raid in South Holland. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s start with this. If the pit bull terrier ever needed good press (think PR) now is the time to write something positive about this pooch. The reason? Life is about “balance” and there are few “positive” pit bull stories that we are aware of. PM is happy to publish the following article from the Chicago Tribune…

by Gerry Smith, Chicago Tribune

“Trainer aims to reprogram public’s view of pit bulls: Pit bull olympics.”

Head, a 6-month-old pit bull with tattered ears and a passive demeanor, learned to sit on Saturday, a small but notable achievement for a dog once bred to fight.

Photo by Julia Fishkin

On a sidewalk in Humboldt Park, Head was part of a small group of neighborhood pit bulls participating in a dog obedience class taught by Tony Gordon, whose mission is more than just turning around a few hostile canines.

Gordon, a disciple of Pavlov’s theories, said he also hopes to educate pit bull owners and transform public perception about a breed that has been maligned by the media in high-profile attacks on children. Read the rest of this entry »

CHESHIRE, Conn. (AP) Woman kills raccoon with her bare hands.

Talk about a tough lady! A woman killed a raccoon with her bare hands Thursday when the animal attacked a young boy. Officials with Cheshire animal control say the woman was walking in the woods around 11 a.m. with a group of children when the animal bit the 5-year-old son of a friend. Read the rest of this entry »