Top pet experts make a winning team
Would you like the freshest, most cutting-edge information about pets for your newspaper, publication or Web site? Contact the sales department of the Universal Press Syndicate.
PetConnection.com has developed its own following (especially the Web log), but this Web site originally was launched to go along with the Pet Connection weekly newspaper feature, which is carried in newspapers around the country.Here's the history:
Gina Spadafori has been writing the Pet Connection since 1984, when she started her weekly pet-care feature in The Sacramento Bee. Her column originally distributed by the McClatchy News Service (now defunct), then Scripps-McClatchy (now defunct) and finally picked up in 1996 by the Universal Press Syndicate, the newspaper industry's most prominent syndicator and long-time home to other popular features including "Dear Abby" and "For Better or For Worse."
Dr. Marty Becker started writing a weekly pet-care column for the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, and was soon picked up by the Knight-Ridder syndicate, which later became McClatchy Knight-Ridder. (Yes, well ... it's difficult for us to keep track sometimes, too!)
After Marty and Gina wrote their first two books, they decided they made a pretty good team. So Dr. Becker allowed himself to be wined and dined by Gina's editors at Universal Press and then signed on in the fall of 2006. Their new, combined feature -- an entire page of information on pets and their care, or a text-only column newspapers can use as they wish -- launched in 2007.. (Lots of Web sites purchase the syndicated feature as well!)
The Pet Connection weekly feature is further enhanced by the contributions of Christie Keith (a top pet-health writer who is also the Pet Connection's book reviewer) and by pet behavior experts Susan and Dr. Rolan Tripp. Additional pet-care experts will soon be joining the team.
Morgan Ong is the Pet Connection's Director of Photography.
More on all members of the Pet Connection team can be found on our About page.
The most recent column can alway be found on the Universal Press' UExpress Web site. A complete and completely searchable library of articles from the last decade can be found here on the PetConnection.com Web site.