Pet Monologues

Owning a dog can be a lot of work. Among the main tasks involved in caring for your dog are feeding, bathing, grooming, and exercise.

Feeding Dogs

* In general, dry dog food is more nutritious than moist dog food. Any time you get a new pet, however, check with your veterinarian for dietary recommendations.

* Never offer your dog pork chop bones, chicken bones, or fish bones. These can splinter into sharp pieces and catch in your pet’s throat.

* If you must give your dog a bone, give only marrow or knuckle bones that have first been boiled to remove fat and grease that might cause diarrhea. Take the bone away as soon as it starts to splinter.

* If moist pet food is not eaten within two hours, refrigerate it.

* If you’re going to change your pet’s diet, do it gradually. A sudden change may be a shock to the animal’s system.

* Don’t feed a dog milk. It will probably give it diarrhea.

* On a hot day, be vigilant about your dog’s water supply. Fill your pet’s bowl with cold tap water and freshen it often. 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 »

It’s the word that I long to hear my husband say, but he has so much trouble uttering it - it begins with an “L” and he’s just too shy and self-conscious to say it aloud in public, but in the privacy of our home he’s not afraid to say “Labradoodle.”

I first noticed this at the park. When a woman asked what kind of dog was attempting to strangle itself at the end of our leash, I began to say “labradoodle,” but my husband steamrolled over me and said, “Oh, he’s a mutt. Some kind of lab mix. We aren’t really sure.” Her curiosity satisfied, she went on her way and I gave my husband an inquisitive look, which he shrugged off.

Next our neighbor, who isn’t exactly a dog person, asked where we got the blond wookie. A big strapping guy who spends way too much time polishing his Harley Davidson and too little riding it, he first remarked that we needed another dog “like Iraq needs sand.” Ha-ha. Then he pointed out that the dog looked like a big poodle. My husband bristled a bit. “Hey, he’s a lab. Well, he’s mostly lab. He’s not a poodle.” Read the rest of this entry »

My cat is missing the litterbox. The first question to ask yourself “is this cat healthy? Emotionally as well as physically.” Some cats can deal with change (such as moving) but many cannot. Read the rest of this entry »

House training a dog. Assuming there is no medical issue—follow this plan, and you should be able to dependably house train your dog within few weeks, max. 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 »

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 »

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 »

MOSCOW Crocodile falls 12 floors third time in escape bid. A crocodile survived a fall from the 12th floor of a Russian apartment block after making an escape bid through a window, emergency services said on Wednesday.

Diving out of the window has become a habit for the crocodile, called Khenar, with concerned neighbors saying it was the third time he had used that method to flee, Moskovsky Komsomolets daily reported. Read the rest of this entry »

This week PM was vastly entertained by several couples who are expecting the birth of a child and witnessing the naming process, if that is what it could be called. Naming a child may be more challenging than naming a pet. Or is it? Well, animals may have more options to choose from and maybe an interesting story behind it. It reminds me of a dog named PD which translated into poor dog because the dog had reached what we describe as rock bottom. Now here is an article to kick this can down the road and see if we can provoke more stories…

By Linda Goldston.

A rose is a rose is a rose—but a pet name? That can be almost anything.

Every year, names like Max, Jake and Buddy show up on many lists of Top 10 names for dogs, while Max, Smokey and Shadow make it on the cat names list. Read the rest of this entry »