Pet Monologues

Here is a small secret a friend told me about the two rainbows he caught last summer.

“Have to admit that I caught them while fishing for Smallmouth.” Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a glimpse on pet literature today. One writer says that with all the attention from publishers, you’d think pets could read.

Dogs and cats have taken up residence in American homes in record numbers, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association. Its 2007–2008 National Pet Owners Survey found that 63% of U.S. households—71.1 million homes—own a pet. Households with dogs number 44.8 million, while felines can be found in 38.4 million homes. The cat populace, 88.3 million, outnumbers the 74.8 million dogs, that’s because pet parents with cats are more likely to have more than one. However, that in spite of the larger cat population, dog-related books still outsell any other category, the dog-related books outnumbered cat tales by about six to one. What are the books about? Here are 44 titles to think about:

Health and wellness

According to a 2004 American Animal Hospital Association survey, 94% of pet owners take their pet for regular veterinary checkups to ensure their pet’s quality of life. And animal medicine, like its human counterpart, the information and options available in terms of treatment and diagnoses have become vastly more complicated over the last decade. People are, therefore, looking for resources that will help them make sense of it all. Now it is becoming commonplace procedures for dogs as organ transplants, joint replacements and cancer treatments. There are also books, from home remedies to cutting-edge alternative homeopathic therapies.

There’s an author that offers practical strategies for keeping mature dogs young and healthy in mind and body. Among her findings is that only 20%–25% of a dog’s longevity is determined by its genes; the owner can influence the remaining percentage by how he or she cares for the animal. Read the rest of this entry »

Dog behavior training: aggression, biting, guarding problems.

Handling an Aggressive Dog

Aggression is probably the most common reason an otherwise healthy dog is euthanized (put to sleep). Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a thoughtful and compassionate article by Sarah Hartwell with regard to cats. Dogs, birds, elephants, horses, many animals for that matter, experience these feelings. Knowlege of the grieving process puts us in better touch with feelings, a good thing.

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When a cat dies, owners often notice behavioral changes in their remaining cats. Some of these are due to adapting to a changed hierarchy, but other behavioral changes are due to a sense of loss. Many cats grieve the loss of a close human companion and others show signs of loss when a canine companion ides or goes missing.

It is impossible to say exactly what emotions cats feel, but when a close companion goes missing they are certainly be aware of the absence. It is unlikely that they mourn in the human sense of the word, but there will be some behavioral changes as they adjust to the gap in their lives.

What is grief?

Grief is the result of abrupt or unexpected severing of attachment. Cats are aware that a familiar person or companion cat is absent and may search for that person or cat. The death or absence may change an established hierarchy as well as being the absence of a familiar companion. While this is not the ritualised grief of humans, the sudden absence of something familiar is distressing to many cats. Mother cats whose kittens were taken away and destroyed often looked for their kittens for many days, all the while pacing and crying out. As well as the physical pain of engorged mammary glands, the cats displayed mental pain. Read the rest of this entry »

I was a good boy. I loved my family and always looked out for them.

I always greeted them at the door and showed them my happy expressions.

We exchanged lots of kisses and hugs, especially with younger members of the family.

I was happy. I loved going to the park and run around.

I loved jumping of the docks to water and roll around in the grass.

We all had a lot of fun and we were happy.

That was until my family took me to the woods.

I was beaming with excitement and smelling the unknown, cool misty air and hoping we get to explore the new playgrounds. That would be so great!

As the car rolled to a stop and a silence filled the air, the door opened and I was ordered to jump out. Read the rest of this entry »

This product was just on CNN August 23. Now our site analyzer says we are getting many hits searching for this site.

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 »

An endangered animal story by Sabina, age 10.

It was a happy sunshine day on the northern coast of Florida, when Sara Hawksbill was told to come out to play with her friends. It is like tropical weather, with its humid climate and fresh smell. When she returned, her mother scolded her because she just finished cleaning the house and now she had more work. She told Sara to go take a bath while she cleaned Sara’s muddy mess.

Sara thought that her mother was just saying this, but with the look on her mother’s face she went anyway. Once Sara got there, she saw her friend, the fisherman, having trouble-catching fish. So she went to him and told him, “I will get some fish for you.” Then she went down in the water and grabbed some fish with her hooked beak. The fisherman was overseeing her with interest because under the water her body really looked like a hawk. She had a patterned shell and beautiful body that had two claws at the front flaps. When she returned and gave the fish to the fisherman, she realized that she had to take a bath. After her bath she came home and saw that mama did not return yet. So she went to get dinner ready for mama, papa, and herself.

Mama still didn’t return. Even though when papa returned home from work, Sara asked him, “Did you see mama while you came this way home?” Read the rest of this entry »

Dogs often seem to have limitless energy and robust constitutions, but don’t let this fool you: they are susceptible to all sorts of maladies, ranging from mild to life-threatening. That’s why it pays to have a relationship with a dependable, reassuring veterinarian (to ensure good treatment and quick treatment in an emergency), and to follow wise guidelines for dog-owners, which include regular checkups for your pooch and building your own store of knowledge about canine maladies, to catch treatable diseases early. Yes, dogs are energetic and robust by nature, but it’s your job to help keep them that way. In this article, you will find tips to help you do just that, including:

Choosing a Veterinarian

You don’t have to take Fido to the nearest vet, and you never have to use a vet whose manner doesn’t make you and your dog comfortable. Here are tips on finding the right veterinarian for both of you, including questions you can ask friends in order to get a strong word-of-mouth reference. We will also help you tell the difference between a problem with your dog that will clear up on its own and a major situation that needs to be seen by the vet right away.

Dog Disease Basics

Modern medicine has made dogs’ lives much more pleasant, and longer for sure. But there are illnesses that will always be part of dog life, and these are made more threatening because dogs often come in contact with other animals, which can transmit diseases to them. In fact, there are some diseases that can be transmitted from dog to man. So you need to be familiar with diseases such as rabies, distemper and others, in order to prevent them or catch them early in your own dog. 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 »