Pet Monologues

Known foods poisonous (toxic) to dogs AND cats.

Also foods you should not feed them.

Chocolate
It is not chocolate itself that is poisonous, it is the theobromine, a naturally occurring compound found in chocolate. 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 »

An endangered animal story by Nina, age 10.

I, Sara, a squirrel monkey, was hunting for my daily meal in the rainforest’s canopy: bugs, berries and leaves. I suddenly heard this noise that was so loud, it almost broke my eardrums! The tree I was in started to shake and I practically fell off! I quickly jumped into another tree, and the one I was in fell to the floor of the rainforest. After that exciting moment, I looked down, and saw a human with what I think was a chainsaw!

Illustration by Nina using Kid Pix.

I quickly called all the animals, (yeah, even that pesky ocelot that kept on chasing me). We had a meeting to come up with a plan that would stop the human from cutting the canopy, and make him go back where he came from. “How about we tie him up with vines and send him down the Amazon!” Jaguar exclaimed. Read the rest of this entry »

A “campfire” story taken from writing.com

[Introduction] Greetings!

note: Hooves of Fire! = author, WRITEING = Demon Squirrel

I, Hooves, have risked life and limb to travel to the deepest recesses of evil for this exclusive (and I hope Emmy winning) interview with the one and only Demon Squirrel. Due to the extreme evil of his countenance, I cannot look directly at him. He will be behind a curtain, speaking through the voice of Ercole who has kindly volunteered to channel the horrible demon’s answers to all of us.

This campfire will consist of me asking the questions (one at a time) and His Evilness answering through the Writeing of ercole, keeping his responses to 5 sentences or less if possible.

And now for the first question as soon as the campfire invitation is accepted. Read the rest of this entry »

Scrapper arrived with Kitty I in 1988. He was a big tough ex-feral trapped and snipped aged 10. He had beaten up other cats in the area, but was now down on his luck. He must have been a pet originally and been allowed to stray and go wild. Neutered, cured of fleas, ringworm and a variety of fight and bite wounds, he had sat in the cat shelter for many months awaiting a person who looked beyond his mangled features.
He was a black cat but rather dusty and motheaten. Scrapper sat forlornly in a cat basket for several days, unwilling to leave it while we were there. After a week he suddenly decided that enough was enough and came to watch Blue Peter with me on the sofa. From then on he was my little black shadow and walked to heel! Read the rest of this entry »

What’s the Big Deal?
Ah, the pitter patter of four-legged feet as they whip through your living room at overclocked speeds or uproot your prize gladiolas with manic fervor. But Snookiepuss and Mrs. Fluffypants are practically family, right?

So why should they settle for anything less than top drawer when their health and wellbeing are at stake? Throw the planet a bone while you’re at it; we’ve got the goods on how to reduce your pets’ carbon paw prints—without making your wallet roll over and play dead. Read the rest of this entry »