There’s a difference between rescuing a dog from a hot vehicle and saving the animal’s life. Which are you prepared to do?
Read more →A few weeks ago I read an article in the local paper touting the value of home-grown food that incomprehensibly segued into a tirade about laws that prohibit the keeping of chickens and other farm animals in suburbia. That surprised me because keeping farm animals in more complex suburban and urban environments isn’t a good idea for multiple reasons. It’s not good for the farm animals and it’s not good for the area’s companion animals and wildlife, to say nothing of the people who live in those areas. But while the reasons for this seem pretty obvious to me
Read more →The nice folks at Veterinary Technicians Schools On-line recently published an article, Top 100 Websites for Pet Ownership Advice, that included my podcasts on the list. Because my approach to all things animal tends to be so different from that offered by other sources, such recognition always brightens my day.
Read more →After several months thoughts of Whittington the cat become part of my memory mosaic with memories of the good times replacing the difficult ones at the end. Concurrently, the awareness that there was a cat-sized vacuum in this house increased and about a month ago I put out the word that I was looking for a new cat. My request was pretty specific. I wanted a short-haired mackerel tabby male with enough presence to tolerate dogs and kids. I also wanted a barn kitten or one from roots that would suggest good hunting potential because the basement of this
Read more →The Animal Talk Naturally interview I did last week is available for your listening enjoyment here.
Read more →After disappearing months ago, the yellow alien made a surprise appearance during my New Dog Dawning Seminar here last weekend. I had taken the big puffy dog bed from upstairs down to the living room and placed it on the floor beside the chair where I would be sitting. Rather than get into the gory details here, Ollie and Bee were NOT on their good behavior which we know can be marginally good at best. And benign neglect periodically lost out to the cute factor or, when it wore thin, the pain-in-the-butt one. Anyhow, somewhere along the line, we
Read more →Last Tuesday Whit had his staples removed and I’m pleased to report that he did very well. In fact, his behavior was fantastic. For him, that is. As you recall, being anywhere outside his home turf appeals to Whit about as much as being put on a rack and tortured. When a diabolical poltergeist knocked his crate off the end of the exam table on which I was holding him and it hit with a crash that caused anyone of any species within earshot to jump, all he did was shoot out of my arms like a cannonball and
Read more →Originally I was going to post this after a related podcast, but some phone and other challenges really messed up my schedule so the two are out of order. It doesn’t matter contentwise, except that I make a reference in the podcast to posting more details about Whit at some later date. Yeah, I know: more evidence of how anal I am! Having once again proven that, let me begin by saying that Whit had his surgery last week and did extremely well. Even though neither picture is that great, the pre-opt Whit on the left and the post-op
Read more →Wednesday I saw a client at the clinic and while I was there I decided to make an appointment to take Whit in. My thinking was that I wanted the first appointment in the morning when we’d be less likely to have to wait and the waiting and exam rooms fresh and clean and about as free of possibly threatening other animal scents as a veterinary clinic possibly could be. Because the practice is a busy one, I also thought it could be several weeks before such an opening would be available. Wrong. As it turned out, a quirk
Read more →Whit and I are more or less in a holding pattern. I continue to leave Ollie’s crate out and open for him–Whit–to use in hopes of getting him more accustomed to it. He’s been using it more as the evenings get cooler so I plan to get him to the clinic with minimum trauma for some bloodwork soon. His appetite blows hot and cold, but when he’s not interested in eating his canned food, he wants to go out. And when he goes out, he hunts and eats most of the rodent he catches. I think I could make
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