For more on this go tohttp://www.1st-guide-to-pet-health.com/pets/pets_and_overweight.htm 

In May of 2005, the crying of a human baby became the clarion call that saved both the life of the baby and perhaps the life of an amazing dog. Two children, living in a poor forest compound in Nairobi, Kenya, heard the sound of a crying baby near their wooden shack. The elders they alerted located the source of the cries, and saw something beyond belief.

for the rest of the story go to

 http://www.naturescornermagazine.com/savior.html

Ask yourself the following questions.

1. Does your dog know the spelling, Latin root and French translation of the word “walk,” yet is unable to grasp the meaning of the word “come”?
2. Does your dog immediately leap on a cat, bunny rabbit, or child upon hearing the words “Don’t worry he LOVES cats, bunny rabbits and children”?
3. Is your dog shameless, graceless, without dignity and extremely in touch with his inner puppy?
4. Does he wake you up in the middle of the night to warn you of the dangers of a kitchen chair, then sleep through the theft of all your valuable possessions?
5. Does he develop a tragic and profound deafness at the sound of “It’s time to go home,” yet possess bionic hearing at the sound of a can opener?If you answered “yes” to most of these questions.

Relax, your dog is normal

Like a child, the dog came with his own idiosyncrasies. He will only sleep on the bed, on top of the covers, nuzzled as close to my face as he can get without actually performing a French kiss on me. Lest you think this is a bad case of ‘no discipline,’ I should tell you that Perry and I tried every means to break him of this habit including locking him in a separate bedroom for several nights. The new door cost over $200. But I digress.

Five weeks ago we began remodeling our house. Although the cost of the project is downright obnoxious, it was 20 years overdue AND it got me out of cooking Thanksgiving for family, extended family and a lot of friends that I like more than family most of the time. I was, however, assigned the task of preparing 124 of my famous yeast dinner rolls for the two Thanksgiving feasts we did attend. I am still cursing the electrician for getting the new oven hooked up so quickly. It was the only appliance in the whole darn house that worked, thus the assignment.

I made the decision to cook the rolls on Wednesday evening to reheat on Thursday morning. Since the kitchen was freshly painted you can imagine the odor. Not wanting the rolls to smell like Sherwin Williams latex paint #586, I put the rolls on baking sheets and set them in the living room to rise for 5 hours. After 3 hours, Perry and I decided to go out to eat, returning in about an hour.

An hour later the rolls were ready to go in the oven. It was 8:30 pm. When I went to the living room to retrieve the pans, much to my shock one whole pan of 12 rolls was empty. I called out to Jasper and my worst nightmare became a reality. He literally wobbled over to me. He looked like a combination of the Pillsbury dough boy and the Michelin Tire man wrapped up in fur. He groaned when he walked. I swear even his cheeks were bloated.

I ran to the phone and called our vet. After a few seconds of uproarious laughter, he told me the dog would probably be OK, however, I needed to give him Pepto Bismol every 2 hours for the rest of the night. God only knows why I thought a dog would like Pepto Bismol any more than my kids did when they were sick. Suffice to say that by the time we went to bed the dog was black, white and pink. He was so bloated we had to lift him onto the bed for the night.

Naively thinking the dog would be all better by morning was very stupid on my part. We arose at 7:30 and as we always do first thing; put the dog out to relieve himself. Well, the darn dog was as drunk as a sailor on his first leave. He was running into walls, falling flat on his butt and most of the time when he was walking his front half was going one direction and the other half was either dragging the grass or headed 90 degrees in another direction. He couldn’t lift his leg to pee, so he would just walk and pee at the same time. When he ran down the small incline in our back yard he couldn’t stop himself and nearly ended up running into the fence. His pupils were dilated and he was as dizzy as a loon.

I endured another few seconds of laughter from the vet (second call within 12 hours) before he explained that the yeast had fermented in his belly and that he was indeed drunk. He assured me that, not unlike most binges we humans go through, it would wear off after about 4 or 5 hours and to keep giving him Pepto Bismol.

Afraid to leave him by himself in the house, Perry and I loaded him up and took him with us to my sister’s house for the first Thanksgiving meal of the day. My sister lives outside of Muskogee on a ranch, (10 to 15 minute drive). Rolls firmly secured in the trunk (124 less 12) and drunk dog leaning from the back seat onto the console of the car between Perry and I, we took off.

Now I know you probably don’t believe that dogs burp, but believe me when I say that after eating a tray of risen unbaked yeast rolls, DOGS WILL BURP. These burps were pure Old Charter. They would have matched or beat any smell in a drunk tank at the police station. But that’s not the worst of it. Now he was beginning to fart and they smelled like baked rolls. We endured this for the entire trip to Karee’s, thankful she didn’t live any further away than she did.

Once Jasper was firmly placed in my sister’s garage with the door locked, we finally sat down to enjoy our first Thanksgiving meal of the day. The dog was the topic of conversation all morning long and everyone made trips to the garage to witness my drunk dog, each returning with a tale of Jasper’s latest endeavor to walk without running into something.

Of course, as the old adage goes, “what goes in must come out” and Jasper was no exception. Granted if it had been me that had eaten 12 risen, unbaked yeast rolls, you might as well have put a concrete block up my behind, but alas a dog’s digestive system is quite different from yours or mine. I discovered this was a mixed blessing when we prepared to leave Karee’s house. Having discovered his “packages” on the garage floor, we loaded him up in the car so we could hose down the floor.

This was another naive decision on our part.

The blast of water from the hose hit the poop on the floor and the poop on the floor withstood the blast from the hose. It was like Portland cement beginning to set up and cure. We finally tried to remove it with a shovel. I (obviously no one else was going to offer their services) had to get on my hands and knees with a coarse brush to get the remnants off of the floor. And as if this wasn’t degrading enough, the darn dog in his drunken state had walked through the poop and left paw prints all over the garage floor that had to be brushed too.

Well, by this time the dog was sobering up nicely so we took him home and dropped him off before we left for our second Thanksgiving dinner at Perry’s sister’s house. I am happy to report that as of today (Monday) the dog is back to normal both in size and temperament. He has had a bath and is no longer tricolor. None the worse for wear I presume.

I am also happy to report that just this evening I found 2 risen unbaked yeast rolls hidden inside my closet door. It appears he must have come to his senses after eating 10 of them but decided hiding 2 of them for later would not be a bad idea.

Now, I’m doing research on the computer as to “How to clean unbaked dough from the Carpet.”

“We truly believe we can make pet insurance mainstream,” said David Goodnight, president and chief operating officer of PurinaCare Insurance Services.

Americans spend about $9.8 billion a year on veterinary services and billions more on health supplies and over-the-counter drugs for pets, Nestle Purina said, citing outside research. The company sees the potential for growth in pet insurance, saying only about 1 percent of pets in the U.S. are currently insured.

Veterinary Pet Insurance, the country’s largest pet insurer based in Brea, Calif., says it has about 465,000 pets enrolled. Oakville, Ontario-based Pethealth Inc. is second largest, with about 175,000 pet policies issued in the U.S. and Canada under names like PetCare and ShelterCare insurance.

Pethealth spokesman Glen Tennison said he believed the addition of Purina’s new pet insurance will help to raise awareness of the industry as a whole.

PurinaCare will offer two types of plans with four annual deductible levels, ranging from $100 to $1,000. Both plans cover medical costs related to illness, injuries, accidents, surgery and prescription medication. There is a 20 percent copay once the deductible has been met.

One of the plans focuses on preventive care by also covering costs like annual physicals and routine lab tests and preventive flea and heartworm medications.

Goodnight said the costs of a plan varies by age of the cat or dog, the region of the country, the breed of the pet and the deductible level a pet owner chooses.

As an example, he said the owner of a Labrador retriever under age 5 in St. Louis would pay $46.88 a month for the preventive plan with a $250 deductible, or $31.43 a month without the preventive coverage. A cat owner in the city who opted for a $1,000 deductible might pay as little as $4.17 a month, Goodnight said.

Tobie Stanger, a senior editor of Yonkers, N.Y.-based Consumer Reports magazine, hasn’t researched the new Purina offering but has examined pet insurance policies previously and said, for the most part, the magazine has not recommended them.

Instead, it suggests that people set aside funds, perhaps the $50 a month they might spend on pet insurance, toward medical care. “Pet care should be part of your budget,” she said.

Stanger acknowledged in some cases the pet insurance might help provide peace of mind, but she said if people started saving for possible pet costs when the animals are young, they could have several thousand dollars set aside if a pet should later need surgery or other costly care.

Bill Broun, director of business development for Nestle Purina PetCare, pointed to three trends that made the company think it was the right time to offer pet insurance: the increased “humanization” of pets, where people consider a pet as a best friend; an increased interest in wellness; and advances in veterinary medicine, where more specialized treatments are available for care.

Original Article

The second man replies “This is my seeing-eye dog.” The bartender says, “No, I don’t think so. They do not have Chiwauas as seeing-eye dogs.” The man pauses for a half-second and replies “What?!?! They gave me a Chihuahua?!?”
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The situation repeated itself at other celebrations until O’Dierno realized her dog had a fireworks phobia: “His eyes would pop open, and you could see the fear when the fireworks go off.”

Experts haven’t figured out why some pets are extremely sensitive to fireworks, but some believe the smell of gunpowder may add to jitters caused by loud explosions.

“Fireworks have many stimulus qualities that are inherently aversive to pets,” said Mary Lee Nitschke, an animal behaviourist and psychology professor at Linfield College. “The volume and suddenness of a firecracker elicits a startle reaction in most species.”

Cesar Milan, dog trainer and host of the National Geographic Channel’s “Dog Whisperer” show, says getting a dog ready for fireworks can take months.

At Behave Canine Solutions, a company that offers dog training classes in the Portland area, dogs in the Puppy Preschool program spend a day training for fireworks. The process involves integrating sound, smells and visual displays into activities such as playing or eating.

“What a dog is or isn’t exposed to, especially in the first 16 weeks, can affect their behaviours for the rest of their lives,” said Denise Mullenix, one of Behave’s trainers. The class moves puppies to different stations that play sounds of fireworks, expose them to small smoke balls and burning charcoal, and bring them near sparklers and bright flashes.

Each step, Mullenix said, is designed to “minimize stress and anxiety in situations of exposure to fireworks.”

Owners can also train their dogs at home. Milan plays recordings of fireworks at a low volume during an activity that the dog enjoys. Nitschke said she uses a toy similar to Roll Caps that produce an explosive noise and smell similar to gunpowder used in fireworks. You can also pop a paper bag, she said.

Continue introducing sounds of explosions for several weeks, increasing the volume with time. “Involve the sound into positive activities such as eating, at a low sound, or walking with your dog, so the dog becomes familiar with the sound while doing an activity that he enjoys,” Milan said.

The dog is conditioned when it stops exhibiting signs of anxiety - panting, drooling, pacing - and it’s comfortable when the recording can be played loudly, said Pam Reid, who works with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to educate pet owners and professionals.

If owners don’t have months for training, veterinarian Dr. Robert Raider says other help is available. Take the pet for a checkup at least a week before the big day, and then return to the vet for sedatives if the dog is given a clean bill of health.

Raider, who works at Maspeth Animal Hospital in Queens, N.Y., recommends getting the pills a few days early to avoid a mad rush to the doctor.

Some experts - including Milan - consider sedatives an option of last resort. But those who own particularly anxious pets shouldn’t hesitate. “The kindest thing you can do is get them on medication,” Pam Reid said.

If owners find themselves unprepared on a festive holiday, they should forget the fireworks and concentrate on the dog, Milan said. If you’re in a park or an open area, keep the dog calm by remaining calm yourself.

“Just make sure you have very good control of your dog,” said Reid. “You want your demeanour to be calm or confident. Dogs can pick up on your demeanour, and they’ll panic if you start to panic, too.”

Reid suggests getting the dog indoors as quickly as possible. If you drove, get into your car and sit with the dog. “Get them to calm down, then mask the noise. Turn on the air conditioning or the radio,” Reid said.

If you’re indoors when the dog panics, Reid suggests giving it a hollow chew toy filled with cheese spread or peanut butter. “Some dogs are OK as long as they have something to lick or chew,” she said, likening the effect to a baby’s sedation from pacifiers.

Milan also said scared pets - not animals that already have been traumatized by fireworks - can be calmed with pheromone-mimicking scents. These products release smells similar to the ones naturally produced that signal comfort or relaxation. Nitschke, who recommends DAP, or Dog Appeasing Pheromone, for canines, and Feliway for cats, said the scents helped keep her pets calm during a home remodelling.

“Medicine is great, but if you can do it without it - you can do it with good exercise,” Milan said.

For instance, if you normally walk a dog for 20 minutes, you could walk the dog for an hour and a half on a special occasion that will include fireworks, he suggested.

“And you drain the energy so your dog is more tired. That is just like a sedative. But it is a more natural sedative, no side effects.”

Original Article

The trouble started when Mr. Hearn first turned on his Roomba automatic cleaner. When the device started scooting around the floor, Mr. Hearn’s dog, Argos, attacked it.

Seeking help, Mr. Hearn found an online forum dedicated to the hundred-dollar Roomba buzzing with similar stories of pet assailants. Owners were offering advice. Among the most popular: Chastise the vacuum in front of the dog.
WSJ’s Adam Najberg reports that dogs exhibit a curious dislike for technology, which they often attack. Watch as he negotiates a truce between Sunshine, a Heinz 57 hound, and a Roomba, the robot vacuum cleaner.

And so, with Argos looking on, Mr. Hearn shook his finger at his gadget and sternly called it “a bad Roomba.” Argos appeared to be mollified. “After that, he never tried nipping at it again,” says Mr. Hearn, a software engineer in San Carlos, Calif.

Such hijinks have found a place on YouTube, where robots and pets face off on camera. In January, Rob Sheridan, 28, posted a video titled “Puppy vs. Robot! Epic Battle for Territorial Domination!” It features a new Roboquad, a crablike robot toy with adjustable “aggression” settings made by WowWee, and an excited Lola, Mr. Sheridan’s two-year-old Chihuahua-terrier mix.

“The first time I turned on the Roboquad, she went nuts,” says Mr. Sheridan, a graphic designer in Los Angeles. “She would bark at it like crazy.”

The video has been viewed more than two million times. “Now she’s come to recognize Roboquad as just another thing in the house she can safely ignore, like the TV,” he says.

Animal-rights groups aren’t fans of these videos but stop short of calling them cruel. According to Daphna Nachminovitch of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, introducing robots into a pet household should be done with care. “There’s no way to explain to them that this is not a threat,” she says.
[robopets]
Stephanie Kesler
Stephanie Kesler’s new Pleo robot toy inspects her four-year-old, 100-pound Bouvier, Tyge.

Sympathetic owners sometimes just retire their new purchases. In other cases, the pets take matters into their own paws. Peter Haney, a university administrator in Lethbridge, Alberta, twice found his Roomba in pieces after letting it clean while his flat-coated retrievers, Macleod and Tima, had the run of the house. “No one is talking,” he says.

Craig Capizzi, who runs RoombaReview.com from his Staten Island, N.Y., home, says his Yorkshire terrier, Candie, ignores his Roomba but is scared of his new Pleo, a dinosaur-like robot made by Ugobe Inc. “She’s terrified of it. She bites it,” he says. “That dog really believes it’s another animal and, apparently, a frightening animal.” He sent Pleo home with his fiancée’s mother, who “fell in love with it and treats it like a pet,” he says.

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