Dog Safety Tips for Memorial Day

Like many Americans, you may be planning a festive Memorial Day, complete with barbecue and fireworks. It’s important to remember, fireworks and dogs don't mix. Unlike people, dogs won’t associate the noise, flashes, and burning smell of pyrotechnics with a celebration. Fireworks will often cause panic and anxiety in dogs. It’s important to remember that dogs panic at the sound of fireworks and flee into the night, often winding up lost, injured, or killed.

1. Keep your pet indoors at all times, if possible.

2. Use Pet Friendly Repellent.

3. Don’t give your pet table food. Source: http://tiny.cc/4x14ex

Top 5 Green Pet Tips

1. Adopt from a shelter
   Why buy when you can adopt one of the 70,000 puppies and kittens born every day in the United States?

2. Spay or neuter your pet
   Spaying and neutering helps dogs and cats live longer, healthier lives by eliminating the possibility of uterine, ovarian, and testicular cancer and decreasing the incidence of prostate disease.

3. Rein in your pets; protect native wildlife
   Always keep your dog on a leash when outside and confine your mangy feline indoors.

4. Swap out the junk food
   Most conventional pet-food brands you find at the supermarket consist of reconstituted animal by-products, otherwise known as low-grade wastes from the beef and poultry industries. Natural and organic pet foods use meats that are raised in sustainable, humane ways without added drugs or hormones, minimally processed, and preserved with natural substances, such as vitamins C and E.

5. Clean up their poop
   Scoop up your doggie doo in biodegradable poop bags so your buddy's No. 2 isn't immortalized in a plastic bag while deep-sixed in a landfill somewhere for hundreds of years. Cat owners should avoid clumping clay litter at all costs. Not only is clay strip-mined (bad for the planet), but the clay sediment is also permeated with carcinogenic silica dust that can coat little kitty lungs (bad for the cat). 

Source:http://www.treehugger.com/htgg/how-to-go-green-pets.html

Pets as Christmas Presents

Sometimes it may seem like a cute idea to give someone a pet as a Christmas present, but it’s important to give that some extra thought before you do it. Most pets that are given up lose their home because their owner loses interest in them or is unprepared for the responsibility of pet ownership. This is a huge problem seen among pet owners who receive their pets as “gifts.” Children especially are given the mistaken idea that pets are all fun and games, but they are not fully ready to take on the responsibility of feeding, walking, cleaning, and training their pet.

Instead of giving pets as presents, we recommend getting acclimated to the idea of bringing a new pet into your home. Bringing your children to volunteer at an animal shelter or babysitting the pet of a friend or family member can help. Children and potential pet owners (no matter their age!) need to be reminded that pets aren’t just cute; they are also hungry, need to exercise, and need to use the bathroom. They can be messy when they aren’t fully trained, and the training process can be difficult too.

Please, don’t adopt until everyone in your family is READY. 

Introducing New Breed: Cava-poo-chon

Imagine the ideal designer dog. It would be smart, healthy and hypoallergenic. It would have the yap bred out and longevity bred in. And, most important, it would never lose its puppy face.

 Enter the "cava-poo-chon."

The breed is the newest and latest in the decades-old search for the dog-face fountain of youth and perfect pet accessory. But the American Kennel Club does not recognize the new trend as an official breed, and one expert calls some specially bred small dogs expensive "gimmicks." "There's always been a market for these forever-ish young dogs," said veteran trainer Steve Haynes of Fidelio Dog Works in Austin who is working with 50 first-generation cava-poo-chons. "Until recently, specialized dogs like miniature Yorkies and miniature Maltese were the go-to dogs."

 The cava-poo-chon is a cavalier King Charles spaniel and bichon frise mix bred with a miniature poodle. With the help of a geneticist and reproductive veterinarian, the tribrid or "triple cross" was created by Linda and Steve Rogers of Timshell Farm in Pine, Ariz. With a price tag ranging from $2,000 to $3,500, the cava-poo-chon combines the best of the three breeds, Linda Rogers said. She added that there is no reason they can't live for 20 years.

The Rogerses offer a choice of color and two types of coat — curly or very curly, she said. So far, 58 families have returned to get a second cava-poo-chon, and 12 of the dogs have been certified to work in nursing homes and hospitals as therapy dogs, Rogers said. Amy Wolf of Austin says she found her perfect dog in the breed. "I can't tell you the number of times a day I look at her and say, 'You are so cute.'" Not only that, her 3-year-old named Callie has become the love of her husband's life — despite his allergies and enchanted all their new neighbors. She hired Haynes as a trainer. "Never have we had a more loving, sweet dog. She wants to say hello to everyone," said Wolf, who moved into a new home with her husband two months before getting Callie. "We've met tons of people while walking her. We feel much more connected with this neighborhood than the previous one, all because of her. She makes us more approachable, and we feel a lot safer."

 The popularity of the baby look for dogs started more than a half-century ago with mail-order teacup pups advertised in the backs of magazines. Yorkies, Maltese and Pomeranians were popular for a while, and recently there have been hybrid hounds "with cutesy names that end in '-oodle,' '-uddle' or '-poo' that come with thousand-dollar price tags," said author and certified animal behavior consultant Darlene Arden of Massachusetts. Arden said she was unfamiliar with the cava-poo-chon, though she applauded the use of a geneticist. But she condemned "gimmicks" that some breeders and groomers use to attract unwitting buyers. "There is no such thing as a teacup anything," Arden said. "It is a market term used by backyard breeders and commercial breeders so they can breed the smallest dogs that shouldn't be bred and sell them for a whole lot of money. These dogs usually end up having health problems and most veterinarians don't want to touch them because the organs are so small."

 The American Kennel Club does not recognize the cava-poo-chon.

 "AKC does not recognize cross-bred or mixed breed dogs as official breeds," spokeswoman Lisa Peterson said. "These dogs are the product of two purebred parents of different breeds, resulting in a litter of mixed breed puppies, not a new breed, according to our requirements." But Brande Bradshaw of Austin thinks Bridgette, her 6-month-old cava-poo (there is no bichon in her), is the perfect dog. "I have been blown away," said Bradshaw, who also hired Haynes as a trainer. "She is amazing, the cutest puppyI've ever seen." Bradshaw flies frequently for her job as a technology saleswoman, and she leaves Bridgette at day care, where the 10-pounder is a favorite. "Every time I log in, she is running around having a blast," Bradshaw said. She sometimes feels like Bridgette has forgotten about her until pickup time, when Bridgette spots Bradshaw and "runs full-speed ahead, her tail going a million miles a minute, right into my arms." © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

 Source: http://www.today.com/pets/forever-young-new-dog-breed-wont-lose-puppy-face-2D11624569

Make Sure They Can Get Home: Check Your Pet's Microchip

Is your pet's microchip up-to-date? If your pet were lost, would an animal hospital or shelter be able to contact you once your pet was found?

It's important to get your pet microchipped; but it's just as important to make sure that microchip contains the correct information in order for your four-legged friend to get home.

That's why the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) and the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) are teaming up to encourage pet owners to update their pet's microchip information on National Check the Chip Day, Aug. 15.

Almost 9.6 million pets are euthanized every year because their owners can't be found, according to the American Humane Association. While tags and collars are important, microchipping is a valuable method because the microchip won't wear out, tear, slip off or become lost.

How does a microchip work?
The microchip, which is about the size of a grain of rice, is injected by a veterinarian or veterinary technician just beneath your pet's skin in the area between the shoulder blades. This is usually done without anesthesia, and the experience can be compared to getting a vaccination.

Each microchip has a unique registration number that is entered into a database or registry, and is associated with your name and contact information. If your lost dog or cat is found by an animal hospital, shelter or humane society, they will use a microchip scanner to read the number and contact the registry to get your information.

Make sure you can be found, too
While it may be comforting to know the microchip won't get lost or damaged, and that it will probably last the pet's lifetime, the microchip is useless if you're not updating your contact information with the registry. If your pet has been microchipped, keep the documentation paperwork so you can find the contact information for the registry. If you don't have the documentation paperwork, contact the veterinarian or shelter where the chip was implanted.

Keep in mind there are more than a dozen companies that maintain databases of chip ID numbers in the U.S. By using AAHA's Universal Pet Microchip Lookup at petmicrochiplookup.org, you can locate the registry for your chip by entering the microchip ID number. If you don't have your pet's microchip ID number, have a veterinarian scan it and give it to you.

Only about 17% of lost dogs and 2% of lost cats ever find their way back to their owners. Prevent the heartache and ensure your pet has an up-to-date microchip.

Originally published by Healthy Pet.

Summer Treat for Dogs

Want to give your pet a cool summer treat? Try stuffing their Kong and freezing it! It’s like a doggie popsicle, and they’ll love it.

Dog House Repairs Month

Does your dog have his or her own house? It's Dog House Repairs Month! Make sure that it’s in good shape this summer! Check the interior corners for beehives, and make sure to repair leaks and splinters in the wood.