Dogged Blog

Help shelter pets take over Facebook!

What if you could reach out to 500 million people and tell them just how great shelter pets can be -- without spending a penny or even getting up from your computer?



That's what The Ad Council's  Shelter Pet Project is doing tomorrow, Tuesday, Nov. 30, with "Celebrate Shelter Pets Day" on Facebook, the social media network with so many users that, if it were a country, it would be the third largest nation in the world.

Every year, millions of people consider adopting shelter dogs or cats, but many don't follow through because they assume there’s something wrong with shelter pets.



Those of us who share our lives with adopted and rescued pets .... know that shelters and rescue groups are full of great pets – dogs with one ear up and one ear down, senior dogs content to cuddle on the sofa and watch TV with you, and frisky young kittens with a passionate interest in your computer keyboard.



So on Nov. 30, we're asking you to do something very, very simple: Post to Facebook telling the world about a great shelter pet who shares, or has shared, your life:



- Post the pet's name and story.

- Share your favorite memories.

- Tell everyone the best story of all: How you met and fell in love.



You can post any way you like:



- Make a status update.

- Share a photo.

- Link to a blog post or website about the pet.

- Send a Tweet to your followers (suggested Tweet below!)

- Just be sure to tag The Shelter Pet Project in your post, or come over and post it to our wall, or both.

The Shelter Pet Project doesn't accept donations and isn't asking for anything more than a few minutes of people's time to let their friends and fans know about a wonderful shelter dog or cat.



There's a lot more information, including sample Tweets and ways you can help spread the word about the event. Please help get the message out by clicking here!



Note: I do freelance consulting for The Shelter Pet Project.

When Kyrie met Rawley: What this dog mom is thankful for

When Kyrie met Rawley, she wasn't impressed. She asked me repeatedly to send him back to wherever it was I'd gotten him in whatever insane lapse of judgment had caused me to bring a Scottish Deerhound puppy into her quiet existence.



Oh, she'd gotten along just fine with every other Deerhound I'd ever owned during her lifetime, but at 11 years old, she felt she'd done her duty and it was time for a little Kyrie time.



But my heart was sad and sick over my mom's long illness and death, and I'd lost Rebel, my last Deerhound, a month before I lost my mom. I didn't really know who I was without a Deerhound. So despite my feelings of guilt for ruining Kyrie's only-child fantasies, I kept him.



I won't say she loves him, but seeing this when I walked into the bedroom yesterday was definitely something I'll be giving thanks for on Thursday:

No forgiveness for Vick, says sportswriter

There are plenty of dog lovers who don't care how great a football player Michael Vick is; he's never going to get a pass for what he did to his dogs. And there are plenty of football fans who really don't get why we still care, and some who don't know why we ever did.



Los Angeles Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke isn't one of them.



Plaschke is a National Sports Columnist of the Year, a Big Brothers/Big Sisters Man of the Year, and an Olympic torchbearer. He's also a panelist on the daily ESPN talk show, "Around the Horn." But his column yesterday wasn't about a pro sports team, or a big game; it was about a little dog named Mel:

While Michael Vick was running for glory, Mel was cowering toward a wall.



Every time the 4-year-old dog meets a stranger, he goes into convulsions. He staggers back into a wall for protection. He lowers his face and tries to hide. New faces are not new friends, but old terrors.



While Michael Vick was officially outracing his past Monday night, one of the dogs he abused cannot.



"Some people wonder, are we ever going to let Michael Vick get beyond all this?" said Richard Hunter, who owns Mel. "I tell them, let's let Mel decide that. When he stops shaking, maybe then we can talk."



[....]



Hunter and his wife quickly saw Mel's scars. The dog wouldn't bark, wouldn't show affection, and would spend nearly an hour shaking with each new person who tried to touch him.



It turns out that Mel had been a bait dog, thrown into the ring as a sort of sparring partner for the tougher dogs, sometimes even muzzled so he wouldn't fight back, beaten daily to sap his will. Mel was under constant attack, and couldn't fight back, and the deep cuts were visible on more than just his fur.



"You could see that Michael Vick went to a lot of trouble to make Mel this way," Hunter said. "When people pet him, I tell them, pet him from under his chin, not over his head. He lives in fear of someone putting their hand over his head."

I'm not sure that the dog at the top of this post is Mel, but I think it is. I got that photo from Donna Reynolds at Bad Rap, and she said she wasn't sure what had happened to that individual dog, but that his eyes haunted her. They haunted me, too, and I've used that photo on many of my articles, posts and columns about Vick.



Compare the photo from Plaschke's column, taken by photographer Richard Hunter, at right. It shows Mel hiding behind his new family's other dog, Pumpkin.



As much as my heart breaks at the fear and sorrow that still live in those eyes, I like to think the two dogs are the same, and that some of his scars are aching less these days.



And yeah, don't sign me up for the Michael Vick Comeback Express any time soon.



Or ever.



Plaschke says thatVick's success -- and as he points out, his performance on the field might send his team to the Super Bowl -- "is raising one of the most potentially costly and difficult perceptual questions in the history of American sports."



It's a question his column does a pretty damn fine job of answering. Read it.

Bah! Humbug! The holidays will kill your pets! Run for the hills!

This holiday season, be sure to lock your pets in a sensory deprivation chamber so they don't accidentally consume anything other than their scientifically formulated, industrially-produced processed diet, or they'll seriously die.

That's the message for pet owners from the Los Angeles NBC affiliate -- a message refreshingly free of any interviews with experts, citations supporting its absolute statements of "fact,' or anything remotely like "evidence" for, well... anything.

I mean, did you know that just one single bite of a "butter-coated vegetable" can kill your pet? Kill them, dude. As in dead. Or at least cause them terrible disease and suffering, and cost you a grand in veterinary ER costs.

Why must you resist the temptation of giving even a few giblets of turkey to your pet? Because there is a good chance you will end up in the vet’s office or, worse, the emergency room with a $1,000 bill and a suffering pet.

[....]

Owners must abstain from feeding any table foods to their pets. Even a small piece of butter-coated vegetable can cause a life-threatening pancreatitis in certain pets. And don’t even think about adding a ladle of gravy to your pets’ kibble. Don’t risk it. Strange foods and diet changes are hazardous to your pets’ digestive system and can lead to vomiting, diarrhea, and a very sick animal.

If you can’t say no to those big brown eyes staring up at you while you savor your incredible meal, simply put your pets in another room with some of their favorite toys and their regular food and water. That way, you will resist the urge to share your holiday feast and your pets won't think bad thoughts of you while you ignore their pleas for a little table scraps.

Our old friend pancreatitis gets the blame for these digestive woes, and can you imagine how amazed I was to learn that the disease is  "caused" by eating fatty foods? I now need to forget the truth, which is this: while an episode of pancreatitis can be triggered by the consumption of excess fat, the pet has to have the underlying condition in the first place.

This is what the Veterinary Information Network's VeterinaryPartner.com has to say about the causes of pancreatitis:

-Reflux of duodenal contents into the pancreatic duct. The pancreas has numerous safety mechanisms to prevent self-digestion. One of these mechanisms is the fact that the enzymes it creates are stored in an inactive form. They are harmless until they are mixed with activating enzymes. The strongest activating enzymes are made by duodenal cells, which means that the digestive enzymes do not actually activate until they are out of the pancreas and mixing with food in the duodenum. If duodenal fluids backwash up the pancreatic duct and into the pancreas, enzymes are prematurely activated and pancreatitis results. This is apparently the most common pancreatitis mechanism in humans, though it is not very common in veterinary patients.

-Concurrent hormonal imbalance predisposes a dog to pancreatitis. Such conditions include: diabetes, hypothyroidism, and hypercalcemia. The first two conditions are associated with altered fat metabolism that predisposes to pancreatitis, and the latter condition involves elevated blood calcium that activates stored digestive enzymes.

-Use of certain drugs can predispose to pancreatitis (sulfa-containing antibiotics such as trimethoprim sulfa or chemotherapy agents such as azathioprine).

-Trauma to the pancreas as from a car accident or even surgical manipulation can cause inflammation and thus pancreatitis.

Note that "eating a single piece of butter-coated veggies" is not mentioned.

The fact is, dogs and cats evolved eating extremely high-fat diets, and healthy, normal pets do just fine on them as long as they're made with wholesome and appropriate foods and not crap like pizza or Happy Meals -- which aren't good for you, either.

Which brings me to a larger issue. Any pet who can't handle a varied diet, who is so unhealthy that adding a freaking green bean in butter to his or her laboratory ration leads to an ER visit or even excessive flatulence, has one of two things: some kind of horrible disease that should be diagnosed, treated and, if possible, cured, or a diet so harmful and so restrictive that no living creature should eat it in the first place.

I try not to get too evangelical about homemade diets, because I do truly understand that commercial foods are here to stay and will be the choice most people make when it comes to feeding their pets. But really, seriously, people... a lifetime diet of nothing but processed foods is not good for you, and it's not good for your pets.

Yes, not everything on your Thanksgiving table is good for your pets. Yes, you should avoid over-feeding them to the point of making them sick. (That goes for yourself, too.)

But to seriously suggest that giving a few scraps of turkey to your dog will send him to the ER? And run a whole piece on veterinary medicine without quoting a single veterinarian? Give me a freaking break.

Also, did no one tell these people about the ban on calling pets "Fido" and "Fluffy" in news stories? Get with the program, guys!

For those who'd like some sane, solid advice on holiday pet safety, check out this piece by our own Dr. Tony Johnson, a boarded veterinary emergency medicine specialist.

 

 

Cat, meet dog: Handling the introductions

Gina Spadafori's household is a place of inter-species harmony now, but it wasn't always that way. From this week's Pet Connection newspaper feature:

When Ilario arrived as a kitten, he spent more time puffed up and ready to run than purring. Once he realized he wasn’t in any danger from his new four-legged family, he was able to relax and eventually even warmed to their company. Some nights I even catch him grooming my gentlest dog, 14-year-old Drew.Some cats and dogs are never going to get along, but most can at least come to an agreement about sharing space. The trick is knowing the basic steps to handling the introductions.



Under no circumstances should dogs and cats be introduced by throwing the animals together and letting them work out things on their own. That method is far too stressful even in the best of conditions. It’s also important to keep in mind that introductions can be dangerous, usually for the cats. Some dogs see cats as prey, and even those dogs who are generally easygoing may react instinctively to a cat on the run by attacking the smaller animal.



Introductions must be supervised and handled with planning, care and patience.



Read More…

Dr. Becker and Mikkel Becker report on yet more benefits of pet ownership:

Dogs make us better people. An Australian study reported in USA Today showed that people with dogs were more likely to gain trust, meet new people and help out neighbors than did people without pets. The same article reported that a different study of 128 children in New Mexico found that pre-teens who help care for dogs have higher self-esteem and empathy than those who did not have pet care responsibilities.

Read this week's entire Pet Connection here!

Dumb things aunties say

This is my favorite story about my nephew, Ronan, who is 5 years old.

He has this theory that only Santa Claus or some other magical creature can go to heaven and visit people, and he frequently mentions that Santa has gone to heaven to visit his grandmother (my mom), as well as my dog Rebel, who died a month before she did.

One day, I had picked him up from kindergarten and we were hanging out at my house for a while. He announced that in addition to Santa, "A magical airplane could fly to heaven."

I agreed that it was so.

"Also," he said, "a magical helicopter."

"Yes," I said. "Or a magical bird!"

He gave me a look of pure disgust. I believe he actually rolled his eyes. "There's no such thing as a magical bird, Auntie Christie," he said, moving me several ranks down in his estimation of my intelligence and credibility.

I guess you gotta draw the line somewhere.

The healing power of pets at the ' Rally to Restore Sanity '

I met up with David Greene, Heather Houlahan, and a few non-Pet Connection friends to attend the Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington DC a couple of weekends ago.



You know how our Dr. Marty Becker is always talking about "the healing power of pets"? Seems at least one of the 300,000+ folks who attended has heard about it, too.

Pet odors get steamed

I have a little trick for getting rid of pet odors, and it's 100 percent safe for birds and other pets as well as babies and people with chemical sensitivities.  It's something I've talked about here more than once, and if you've ever heard me, you know I think it's a miracle.



It's steam. And it's what I wrote about in my column this week on SFGate.com:

I'm not talking about hot water, even if the machine that delivers it is sold as a "steam cleaner." I'm talking about the kind of steam that comes out of an espresso machine.



Most of the machines people think of as "steam cleaners," like the carpet cleaning machines you can rent at the supermarket or that we see spinning their brushes on the soiled wall-to-wall in television commercials, don't use real steam.



Instead, they saturate the floor with warm or hot water and detergent, then use brushes to loosen dirt, then suck up the dirt, water, and detergent. They leave your carpets wet, and leave a soap residue behind that will attract dirt to your carpets sooner than if they were truly clean. The carpets stay wet long enough to promote the growth of mold and mildew -- not the best thing for allergy sufferers.



Worst of all, they do little to eliminate pet odors; by the time your carpets and upholstery dry, those smells are usually back, or at best, masked by a scented deodorizer.



Steam, on the other hand, comes as close to being a miracle cleaner as anything I've ever tried. Because true steam vapor contains only 10 percent moisture -- which is actually less than normal room air -- it leaves behind a slightly damp surface that dries almost immediately.



Steam completely eliminates the organic residues that cause pet odors to linger, as well as many allergens including dust mites, mold, mildew and pet dander. It kills most bacteria and viruses. It even kills fleas and flea eggs.

Read the whole thing here -- including how to know what kind of steamer to buy. And yes... that's two photos of Kyrie in a row from me!

Since we ' re talking about where dogs sleep...

Apparently it's "where do your dogs sleep?" day on Pet Connection. And Miss Kyrie Borzoi is looking down her very very long nose at all of you and your dogs and saying, "Dog beds? DOG BEDS? Try king-sized Tempur-pedic, thankyouverymuch."

Coming home to a haunted city

I've been gone for ten days, a combination of business and pleasure. I even took three days of real vacation while I was away, and didn't take any calls or do work-related email or social media. I saw tons of friends I love and had a total blast everywhere I went.  I got back last night to have my brother, sister-in-law and darling nephew, Ronan, meet me at the airport. I got home and had a joyful reunion with Kyrie and Rawley, and  fell asleep in my own bed.

I forgot about the re-entry thing.

It hit me when I was driving to the dog park this morning, and I passed the street to my old house, where I lived with my mom. I felt my stomach clench.

I felt it again at the market where she and I used to shop. And it's haunting me now, how much I miss her. How many things I see and do every day remind me of her.

I think I need to get out of this town.