Pet Channel

The dogs are now following me, hoping I’m going somewhere that includes them. I’m leading a furry parade. I step on Watson’s tail. He yelps. Zelda sits down and I almost fall over her. She’s biting her ass. I can hear my husband snickering. I give up my experiment and return to my office.

So you are looking to buy a pet or adopt a pet on the Internet. You see an ad that is advertising free puppies, or a pet for adoption, all you need to do is pay the shipping and this beautiful little darling is all yours to love and give a wonderful new home to, just send a three hundred dollar money order to Africa.

I will be puppy proofing our bedroom this weekend and taking her for walks in the evening!

This afternoon, Mom decided it was bath day for me. Let me just say, I hate baths; I was NOT pleased with this news. But Mom said I smelled like a dog, so there was no hope of a reprieve.

During the day they keep me in the kitchen with a child gate blocking the entry to the front room. I am making it thru the day with no accidents now but I know they are still reluctant to let me have the run of the house while they are gone. I don’t think they’re ready for that, not to mention the house! I can’t wait!!!

Please take a moment and help out my unfortunate friends! Not only must we remember our human friends this time of year — but also the furry one’s as well.

Yesterday morning I heard the dogs barking outside. Not their ordinary, “hey, there’s the Fedex truck bark,” but a “holy crap what the hell is that and why is it so close to our food” bark. I went outside to investigate. The dogs had a raccoon, tree’d next to the garage. So I went out and took the obligatory “look, a raccoon” picture and brought the dogs into the house. Then I went back oustide and scared the little bandit away. I took an available measure by throwing a yard tool at him just to let him know that I meant business…AND DON’T COME BACK!

*eating dog food and then letting the dog get the remains from his mouth

When you buy, find, or adopt a dog, it should be for life, right? They are part of the family. They are intelligent, living breathing creatures with feelings. That’s why it makes my heart ache when I see good-intentioned, yet poor choices made by some pet owners.

Granted, the dog is mostly deaf, nor is she particularly fluent in English, so my words meant nothing to her. But D came downstairs and said, "Did I just hear you threaten Jelly with the pound?" He was surprised, and a little amused, that the daily occurrence of Jelly stomping on Rocky, then barking like an idiot, pushed me to those melodramatic words. And me? I just felt guilty.

I am in awe of the magical, silent communication between man and beast in situations like this. What draws a normally bitchy goose to a man whose days are slipping so fast? There is no way to know, exactly. Recent studies show that dogs can smell cancer on patients’ breath.

My dogs and the UK postal service. Cooper the short fat bastard decided it would be fun to bark at everything that walks past the house between 0230 and 0630. Nice, thanks bud. It’s not as if I’ve got trouble sleeping right now anyway. I have a chesty cold and every time I move during the night I cough. It’s not very pleasant and it keeps my wife awake too.

I used to be a bit disappointed about the lack of any meaningfull tropical animals roaming the streets in Thailand…tends to be all soi dogs, cats and the occaisional jingjok climbing my walls of an evening.

Whilst this is an extreme case of cruelty, mistreatment of dogs is commonplace in Cyprus. At this time of year hunters abandon the dogs they have used. They wander the countryside searching for food until they inevitably end up under the wheels of a car. A Dead dog in the road is a common sight at this time of year.

Dogs - Yep, dogs. Not only do we have one dog, named Silas. We now have another dog, named Lucy. Keep in mind that these are electronic dogs on the Nintendo DS playing the game Nintendogs. Honestly though, it’s a lot of fun. I can see why this game has sold over a million copies and continues to sell like hotcakes. If you ever want a demo let me know. One result of this I didn’t expect: all the pre-teen and teen girls are talking to me at church about my “dogs.” Weird.

To make the experience more interesting the mix is enhanced by liberal doses of meatware: dogs, sleeping cows, ducks, goats, herds of sheep, hopping crows, nearly blind kittens, abandoned puppies, lumbering elephants, dashing school children, women descending from buses, porters ferrying huge loads of greenery atop their heads. They enter and leave the roads with little concern or awareness of the passing traffic, perhaps guided by a sense of pre-ordained destiny.

Well, let’s see. We saw a shooting star tonight, as we took Wishy out for her evening pee. We consider it a fitting memorial to a beautiful Star of our own. Ten years, we loved that dog. Two days, the vet staff loved her too. She was so patient and kind and loving. The very saddest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life is my husband going out to the back yard and gathering wood chips from the dogs’ “nest”, and grass & leaves & dirt from THEIR lawn, and putting them in his upside-down baseball cap to carry in to the clinic when we said goodbye. She got to smell “home”, and be held and petted by us both, as she went to sleep. Our poor baby.

Medieval men admired the courage and faithfulness of their dogs. Each lord had a dogboy who lived with the hounds in their kennels, learnt their characteristics and looked after them in every way. The page too had to know the ways of dogs so that he could get the best out of them when hunting.

Thousands of dogs and cats suffer and many die each year by accidental ingestion of household poisons, including pesticides, popular houseplants, medications and common foods. As a pet owner please be aware of that many household products can be dangerous and even deadly to your four-legged family member.

2. Never marry a woman who likes cats but does not like dogs. You may marry a woman who likes both, or who likes dogs alone, or even who likes neither, so long as she likes children. But never marry a woman who likes cats but does not like dogs.

- We had Chewy, our Cockapoo, shaved. He spent the long weekend with my mother while we vacationed in Big Bear, and he came home with three-quarters of the twigs in the county mangled in his fur. Now he’s shaved, and the cats don’t recognize him…so this place is a fiasco.

This section contains important information about our ongoing emergency shelter for evacuated animals. PLEASE READ the information below before you call or email. Most of your questions will be answered by reading this section. Thank you!

Aside from the one "casualty" pictured in the set of photos on the site, the animals look to be pretty well taken care of to me. The dolphin has his own swimming pool, the cat has more shelter than many of the people in New Orleans, and the dogs don't appear to be wading through the dirty water, unlike the people who are carrying them.

I finally got nintendogs...and it totally rox my sox ^_^. I simply love this game (even though I am a 13 year old guy that loves death metal and happy tree friends.) from the adorable puppies and the amazing revolutionary gameplay that features amazing A.I. that reacts to what you say into the mic. I've tought my husky things like rolling over when I say "Coldplay sucks" or jumping when I say "holy crap!" and cool stuff like that. I mean, taking care of dogs like this is SO much more fun than real life (I mean...picking up poop in this game is actually FUN...unlike real life.) and your dogs can learn alot faster that real dogs (could a real dog learn to sit in 2 minutes?) which is alot more enjoyable. My dog's name is......fred. Yes, fred. It was my sister's idea and, well.... it was the only name it liked.

We’d been waiting for this couple to arrive for two hours now, they’d telephoned earlier to say they would be arriving around 12:00, if that was ok, we’d said yes it was ok as their room was ready for them. (normally when booking we ask guests to arrive between 4 and 7 pm and if they are to arrive outside these times then they are to telephone to let us know) anyway, they arrive at the door and as normal we are both there to meet them, however they have a dog with them, probably dog is a bit too strong a word for what the woman had in her arms, I’d call it a rat but there you go, anyway we say to them that we are very sorry but we don’t accept animals in the rooms, they are quite welcome to leave it in their car or in the stable block opposite the car parking area, they are horrified at this thought and said that when they had booked they had heard a dog barking in the back ground and had assumed that dogs were accepted, we said that we have dogs of our own which never come into contact with the “guests” or the guest areas. The old man is getting quite upset now “you accept children don’t you ?” he snaps “Yes we do“

A half hour later, Freckles is trying to get Pepper to play with her, so she’s baring her teeth a little bit. She does this all the time, it’s really no big deal, so I went back to watching Battlestar. All of a sudden I hear Freckles bark loudly, then Pepper barking like she was going to kill Freckles. I whip around to the left and I see Freckles on her back trying to defend herself, and Pepper bearing down on her, going for her throat. I yell, break it up, but Pepper doesn’t calm down instantly, it’s kinda like a subsiding rage. I’m trying to separate the dogs, but Freckles thinks I’m mad at her, and now all of a sudden Pepper acts like nothing’s wrong.

In other site news, if you have not visited The Dog lately to find out why cats will never rule the world you better go have a look. Because of it's size the little movie will not stay up for long.

So its official - Charlie does not like swimming. And I honestly DO NOT think he has a hearing problem, at all. I think he has some sort of mental problem. He acts like a dog that was abused severly. He has a lack of trust in other human beings and is afraid of ANYTHING that moves or touches him. Now I love him and would never be able to get rid of him but its really stressing me out. I am the only person he will come to and let him pet and stuff without freaking out. But.. ugh. I don’t know. With dogs who were abused, they flinch to raised hands and such. Charlie doesn’t do THAT. I don’t know. It’s weird.

As he's said before, he thinks a healthy dose of "paternalism" is in order. Naturally the problem here is the dogs and how their managed, not the owner. The solution to them seems obvious: regulate the dogs. It's like regulating guns or insurance companies or hamburgers or other potentially harmful things.

I know it's a crazy idea, but if a dog owner willfully lets his/her viscious dog run wild or be loose enough to harm a neighbor, there are laws in place to punish them for their crime. "Manslaughter" comes to mind for more extreme cases.

On my last trip, the train was packed, this being June. There wasn’t a spare seat to be had and, to my dismay, as I neared my seat I got a look at my companion. She was a nice enough girl but she had a huge bag at her feet and an even larger golden retrever. I was supposed to take an aisle seat and she tried to squeeze her dog and her huge bag over in the one seat area. The bag and the dog both were well onto my side. For a brief moment I hoped to get another seat, and had even sat there, but someone came to claim it and I trudged back to my original place. She gave me the window seat which was much better and the dog sat in the aisle blocking access to anyone trying to get to the bathroom or dining car. Except for a few dirty looks, no one said anything, just tried to squeeze by or take a giant step over him. I love dogs but I wondered at this. The lady who checked our tickets didn’t say a word, so I guess it is standard although I thought all animals had to be in some sort of holder.

Earl, Earl, Earl! The lamb was center stage today, beating out the chickens, chicks, dogs, cats, even the computer and telephone with friends. DD was a girl with a mission. Generally not one to get up early unless prompted, she was up and dressed, ready to deal with Earl and his needs.

I noticed that AFI's television programming, which began with such gravitas, with shows like "The AFI Awards," and the defensible "100 Greatest Movies," now is issuing forth great gaseous poots like, "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines." Greatest to whom? Doesn't that totally eliminate some of the greatest films made, i.e., silent films? What's next, "The 100 Greatest Movie Dogs," with London bookies making odds between Rin-Tin-Tin and that dog that kept mauling James Belushi in the K-9 series? ...

Today I was coming home and I when I got off the J I saw three animals tied up outside the Indian restaurant by my house. You would assume its just three dogs right? I mean there are tons of dogs in my neighbor and two of the animals did turn out to be goats. But the third one was a goat o_O Weird.

I was actually quite intimidated by some of the dogs though and it surprised me. I have been used to dogs my whole life, even at the Humane society but I have always been scared to be alone with a dog that I don’t know. The ladies took me over to where there was a pitbull..I jumped back..even though he was said to be very sweet, I knew I would run for the hills if I had to be alone with ANY dog. Right then and there the lady said, “Honey you are not right for this job” and I told her, “No kidding!”. She told me that I would have to learn ways of being on good terms with the dog and handling them if they become aggressive.

All dogs are animals. All cats are animals. Therefore, all dogs are cats.

At the dog park she actually raced with the other dogs to catch a ball (I’m still only able to get about 50-60 yards on my throws, that worries me). She never would race with them because she always lost badly. Today she out ran them and then RAN back to me fending off the other dogs and showing me she had the ball. She was very proud.

Using syzygy and other factors—such as the number of cats and dogs listed in the lost and found in newspaper classified advertisements—Berkland said he accurately predicted several earthquakes, including the October 17, 1989 earthquake in San Francisco, California. Berkland said the number of cats and dogs reported missing goes up prior to an earthquake. The numbers went up significantly prior to the 1989 San Francisco quake, he said.

When your wife, on account of her being a responsible dog owner, coats your dogs in toxic flea-and-tick-disolving chemicals — it is perfectly alright to pet them. I had no problems during or even immediately after I gave my smaller, angrier poodle scratches and tummy rubs. It is not, however, recommended that post-pet and pre-handscouring you rub your eyes. Aggressively. On account of your allergies. Seeing as how you didn’t know about the chemicals.

We walk to school holding hands and Olle chats away. I often think to myself that I should write down what he says, though written down they may lose some of their impact. Here are some fragments from this morning's walk.

"When I grow up, I'm going to have four dogs. A sexed Jack Russell and..."

"Sexed? what do you mean by sexed?"

"Sexed is the opposite of desexed. So I'm going to have a sexed Jack Russell and I'm going to sell its puppies - and a sexed Spaniel and two German Shepherds".

Cosmetic surgery. It’s not just for people anymore. Mika Brzezinski reports on owners of neutered dogs who opt for Neuticles - testicular silicone implants - that make Butch look butch again.

Something I was very happy to hear recently--fox hunts usually don't end in success. With horse back riders and hound dogs giving chase, the fox must be a pretty clever animal.

Liberace had the cast removed from his little tiny leg, and continues to prove himself the shrillest, nippiest, most unpleasant of yippy little dogs. The guys took him to pool therapy, where a well-paid woman in a wetsuit helped him swim around the pool. (Seriously, who knew there was such a wide range of pet pampering services in Seattle?) Ryan made us crack up: Liberace refrained from biting the physical therapist, so Ryan complimented him by saying "Bravo, Chachi!" and then announced that telling him "bravo" was part of teaching the dog Italian.

I have never before watched one of these dog show TV shows. As a dog, other dogs interest me little beyond the smell of their nether regions.

As a human, I’ve scoffed at the little I’ve seen of these shows. I deemed them contrived and random and the product of people who a)project WAY too much humanity onto dogs and b)clearly have no children. Well here I am. I’ve watched 3 hours of the Portland Rose Classic, round 1 in the Eukanuba Big Deal National Dog Show Series. I’ve paid close attention and learned a lot. I’ve concluded that these shows are contrived, random, and the product of people who a)project WAY too much humanity onto dogs and b)clearly have no children.

A billboard advising dog owners to not chain their dogs will rise in this rural community where a 4-year-old boy was fatally attacked by his family’s chained mixed-breed dog.

The message from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals will read: “To keep your family safe, chain your door, not your dog.”

Some animal advocates say chaining a dog makes an animal more aggressive.

Sunday, Robbie Shafer was fatally mauled by his family’s Rottweiler-shepherd dog, which was chained in the family’s yard.

Dan Paden, a cruelty case worker in PETA’s Norfolk headquarters, said Thursday the group is mindful of the family’s pain.

The death of 5-year-old Daniel Jorge Munoz underscores the dangers of the island's wild dogs - estimated at more than 150,000 - roaming the streets, where they attack more than 2,000 people per year, public-health officials said. This year alone, 531 people have reported being attacked by wild dogs.

There are a lot of people that say dogs aren’t that bright, and give some rather convincing arguments sometimes. But that doesn’t hold true if you spend a lot of time with them. Ziggy for example, has grown used to being taken for a walk by Jan in the morning (anywhere from 8.30am to 10am). As such, whenever she walks close by the door, he stands there wagging his tail, or whining because he wants to go out. So clearly, he knows that usually, he will go for a walk, and has got used to it and now WANTS to go for a walk (rather than just...

A treatment that has helped paralysed dogs to move could also help people, researchers have claimed.

Mr. Csányi’s team has been studying canine cognition for the past decade and, in the process, has built a body of experimental evidence that suggests dogs have far greater mental capabilities than scientists have previously given them credit for. “Our experiments indicate a high level of social understanding in dogs,” he says.

Although I've categorized this post as "Understanding Islam," it probably goes better under the "Why don't you tell us how you really feel" department. I've been aware that women were treated as lesser citizens in the Muslim world, especially after all the events and commentary surrounding the Theo van Gogh murder in Holland, but worse than "cats and dogs?" In the Memri article we hear that:

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Arab Feminists Speaking Out On Women's Rights: Cats and Dogs in the Developed World Have More Rights than Women in the Arab and Muslim World:

Myth #9: Dogs' mouths are like 20 times cleaner than ours, or whatever.

Paris Hilton to (pay someone else to) design line of jewelry for dogs. Because sometimes even regular people want to dress their dogs up like whores’ dogs.

I'm just "beat". Groomed two smallish dogs and one very large golden retriever today. I really don't know how other groomers can groom 6 to 8 in a day, even WITH a dog bather!

I didn't get any potting done today, and I have already two dogs to groom tomorrow. One is a matted cocker spaniel, and one is a little fox terrier cross.. cute as can be.