pet connection

It’s not often I can group together multiple instances of hopeful developments in the world of public policy, so today’s update is a good one.

Cleveland rocks: Brent Toellner at KC Dog Blog reports the best piece of news. After a dozen years on the books, breed-specific dog laws are being repealed in Cleveland. From now on, the decision on how to handle a dog will be based solely on prior behavior.

Owners of dogs at each level have different requirements to meet – -and if they do meet the requirements, they can get the designations lifted over time. You can get a lot of details on the ordinance here.

More and more cities are continuing to look at ordinances like the one in Cleveland because it allows the city to more efficiently use resources by targeted dogs (and dog owners) who have shown signs of being a threat to citizens and not focusing any resources on people whose dogs are not a threat.

Even better, the state of Ohio is considering following suit. It’s almost enough to make me do that arms in the air thing they’re so fond of. Almost.

Two rulings from the bench: Separate decisions were handed down that should put smiles on the faces of pet lovers across the country. Both are discussed in this SFGate article. In the first, an IRS decision that effectively penalized a feral cat rescue organization for their work was overruled. The second one went to the heart of the age-old legal axion that pets are nothing more than property. The California Supreme Court ruled for the first time that…

the owner of an animal victim of intentional cruelty may now sue the perpetrator for the costs of medical care and treatment of that animal. Historically, even someone found guilty of a felony animal abuse who ends up serving jail time will only be responsible to the animal’s owner for the cost of “replacing” that animal; back to that earlier point of animals as “property,” the concept is replacement of that property’s “market value.” Now, that has changed.

The first case is good, but the California decision could have much wider significance in the long term. Thanks to Susan Fox for the link.

Puppy millers lose huge in Los Angeles: One more sign of the times… puppy milling scum are no longer welcome to do business in the City of Angels. Details in the Examiner.

Who knows what’s really going on here? I had a conversation with Susan Fox after she forwarded this link from Yahoo News. While there’s definitely something bad going on in the area north of Spokane, Wash., it’s such a poorly reported story that frankly, I haven’t a clue what the truth of the matter is. Are there wolf-hybrids wreaking havoc? Perhaps. Certainly something is. Do we know much more than that? Honestly, no. I have a little more faith in KXLY‘s reporting, but not too much.

Heat is no joke: Every year the warnings go out about the lethal nature of overheated cars in the summer, and every year someone else finds out (tragically) how serious it is. The headline from the San Antonio Express-News says it all. There is ‘No such thing as a five-minute errand’ in heat.

Video of the week: The New England Aquarium in Boston is more than just a fun place to spend an afternoon. The aquarium staff also performs critical rescues, and is able to take advantage of the region’s health care technology. In this Boston Globe video, a Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle undergoes a CT scan. Great stuff.

Social media at work: Comedian Dane Cook lost his dog, and asked his Twitter followers to help out. The story had a happy ending, and when it was over, Dane took to Twitter to let his followers know all was well and to thank them. A high five to TMZ for the following line:

When you only get 140 characters, 13 exclamation points in a tweet means you’re REALLY happy.

Also, four instances of the word “so” has gotta count for a lot.

RIP The Cat Who: Lillian Jackson Braun Bettinger, the author of 29 best-selling “The Cat Who” novels, has passed away in South Carolina at the age of 97. The Washington Post had a kind remembrance with a quote from the late Ms. Bettinger.

Discussing the sleuthing abilities of her cat KoKo, Mrs. Bettinger once commented, “Of course when you’re writing about a cat solving mysteries, you can’t be entirely serious. He doesn’t speak English or leap tall buildings. But there are things he does that draw attention to clues that help solve the mystery.”

Pedicure time: Because you can never have enough icanhascheezburger, and definitely never enough lolcats. See you next week.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

I always like to hear from readers, especially if you have tips, and links for interesting stories.  Give me a shout in the comments, or better yet, send me an e-mail.
Photo credit: O-H-I-O, humorsoffice.com. Dane Cook tweet, TMZ.

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As everyone here knows, I hit the road last month with my dogs Kyrie and Rawley, to spend the summer in Michigan. Our 2,400 mile trip wasn’t without its challenges, many of them due to the fact that Kyrie, at 12 years old, is not handling stress the way she used to.

In my column today for SFGate.com, I talk about the lessons I learned from our trip, and what dog-owners can do to make travel easier on senior pets:

1. Listen to your dog

The biggest mistake I made was thinking I could set a schedule to exercise, feed, walk and give water to my dogs during our five-day journey across the country.

For example, I had planned to walk Kyrie every two hours, to help keep her from getting stiff in the car. This turned out to be a terrible idea, as she would no sooner get comfy in the back of the car than I was waking her up and dragging her out to stand in a grassy rest area while big rigs whizzed by on the Interstate.

She’d look at me as if to say, “Are you out of your mind? Can I go back to sleep now?”

By the end of the second day, I was keeping a close eye on her restlessness level. If she seemed uncomfortable, we stopped. If she was sleeping happily, we drove.

2. Keep things as familiar as possible

Old dogs do not get over stress as easily as young ones do, and things that Kyrie got over in an hour in her puppyhood can set her back for days now.

That’s why it’s important to bring your dog’s familiar bedding, blankets, food, bowls, treats and toys on your trip, as they help him feel safe, and reduce stress.

Every night when we got to the hotel, I left Kyrie and Rawley in the car with my friend Dawn, who’d come along for the ride and to give me a hand with the dogs. I would make the trek back and forth to the car, lugging dog beds, bowls, food and blankets. It was all worth it, though, to see Kyrie trot into the strange room, take a nice, long drink from her water bowl, then settle down on her orthopedic dog bed with a little sigh.

3. Protect their joints

Eight or 10 hours in a car isn’t good for anyone’s joints, as I learned every time I got out of the car at a gas station. So it’s a good idea to provide memory or orthopedic foam bedding for your senior dog while traveling, instead of a simple dog travel mat.

Like me, Kyrie was extremely stiff when she got out of the car at night, and I’d walk her slowly around the hotel grounds until she’d loosened up a little. This let her settle down more comfortably once we got into our room.

Kyrie spent most of the night on the same memory foam bed that was in the car, but she also got on the bed with me for an hour or two every night. This was a problem because jumping up and down was hard on her — especially down, when she’d usually give a little cry on impact.

I realized that being on the bed was important to her; it kept her close to the most familiar thing of all in her life, me, which she seemed to find comforting. So if I had it to do over again, I’d bring some kind of portable ramp or stairs to help her get up and down safely.

Read more, including the other five tips, here!

Photo: Kyrie on my hotel room bed. I have no idea which state we were in, LOL!

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This week’s Pet Connection newspaper feature was written by our own Kim Campbell Thornton:

Remember when you got that bundle of puppy love? Remember when you took him to training class, to the beach, on that road trip? Remember when he spent a whole week just snuggling with you in bed when you had the flu and he brought all his toys to help you feel better?

If you’ve ever loved an old dog or have one who is approaching his golden years, you have lots of “remember whens.” And you can have lots more with the help of “Good Old Dog: Expert Advice for Keeping Your Aging Dog Happy, Healthy and Comfortable “ (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26), a compendium of science, stories, myth-busting and more information than you might have known existed about the care and companionship of aging dogs. Compiled by veterinary experts at Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and edited by Tufts veterinary behaviorist Dr. Nicholas Dodman, the comprehensive tome covers everything from behavioral changes to expect and recognizing signs of potential problems to making health care and end-of-life decisions.

How long can dogs live? A lot longer than you might think, Dodman says.

“Here at the veterinary school, we see about 8,000 old dogs per year out of our caseload of about 24,000. The oldest one we had on record was 21, but I know dogs can make it to 22 or 23.”

Get the complete scoop on your old dog, and read what Kim has to say about “The Complete Cat’s Meow: Everything You Need to Know About Caring for Your Cat” by Pet Connection BFF Darlene Arden, too, right here.

Also in this week’s feature, Dr. Marty Becker and Mikkel Becker take a look at the feline skeleton:

No one can definitively say how many bones a cat has. A long-tailed Maine Coon cat will have more vertebrae than a Manx with no tail, or a Manx mix with just part of a tail. And a cat with extra toes — they’re called polydactyl — will have extra bones as a result. The range is usually between 230 and 250, with the average cat counting about 244 bones, if cats could or cared to count. Anyway you count it, the average cat has about 30 more bones than we have. But we have something cats don’t: collarbones. Not that a cat would consider that a disadvantage. Without a collarbone, a cat can fit his body through an opening the size of his head. Assuming he isn’t overweight, of course.

All this and more in the complete feature, here!

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We’re heading to the halfway point of our 29-city “Healthy Pets Visit Vets” tour for “Your Dog: The Owner’s Manual.” We started in Houston the last week of April and now, the cities are starting to blur just a little bit. Is today Wednesday? Is this Detroit? I love meeting people and pets, and I love sharing information to make lives better, so every day I awake with an “attitude of gratitude” and head for the first media interview of the day before dawn. Then I meet with colleagues, then I have a book-signing at a PETCO, then it’s off to the next city.

Yes, I’m loving it, but still … things start to blur a little after a while.

Until a single person stands out, and reminds you, really, what my life helping pets and people is all about.

Today, a woman named Marguerite Maddox reminded me, but good. And God bless her for it.

Marguerite told me she has been preparing to come out to our Detroit-area book-signing for a couple of months, after hearing me interviewed on PetLife radio talking about how the special relationship between a person and an animal can be life-changing, and how that’s never more true than when a trained service animal is paired up with a person living with a disability.

Like Marguerite.

“I heard you on the radio, talking about what dogs can do to help,” she said, “and I was determined to come out and meet you.”

Determination was exactly what it took, because getting around isn’t easy for Marguerite, not even with her service dog, Jello, to help.  The book-signing was miles away from her home in Detroit, and it took her a couple of buses and an hour and a half to get to the signing. But she wanted me to see what she could do, and she wanted to talk to me about it.

Jello is a Lab mix, and she is Marguerite’s first service dog. Jello helps by making her aware of her surroundings, by picking up dropped items and by helping alert to sounds Marguerite cannot hear.  She also, like many service dogs, helps to bridge the gap between people who don’t know what to say to a person with disabilities; “your dog is beautiful” is a natural place to start. And that’s where I started, with Marguerite, but that’s not where I ended. She told me how important it was to share her story, her love of photography, and how much she liked my books.

I do run into a lot of fans, but few are as determined to see me as Marguerite was, and I was very, very touched and grateful for her.

As always, our day in Detroit ended with a long drive to the next city.  I wanted to drive Marguerite and Jello home so they wouldn’t face another long and difficult bus commute, but I couldn’t. We had to hit the road for Chicago. But I never have to worry about caring people in a place full of animal-lovers, and another person at the signing immediately stepped up to drive them home.

I’ll long remember Marguerite and Jello, and how they reminded me why I do what I do.

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I have read a lot of cat care books in the almost three decades I’ve spent either caring for cats, working with cats, or writing about cats. When I picked up Darlene Arden’s “The Complete Cat’s Meow: Everything You Need to Know About Caring for Your Cat,” I honestly didn’t expect to learn anything new. I was wrong. Not only did I learn a few new things, but this guide truly stands out in the genre.

Darlene’s wealth of knowledge, thorough research, and engaging writing style come through on every page. Even more than that, it’s Darlene’s love for cats that makes this book special, beginning with the introduction’s closing phrase “The Complete Cat’s Meow will…help your feline companions live longer, healthier, happier lives. In return, you will reap a boundless bounty of love and affection” to passages such as “open your heart and your home to a kitty and watch the love flourish.” One only has to look at the photo of Darlene with her cat Aimee on the back cover to know that Darlene isn’t just an expert on all things cat, she truly loves cats.

Reading this book is like a conversation with a good friend who loves cats as much as you do, but knows much more about them than you do. The book covers newborn kittens, how to choose the right cat for you, how to prepare your home for your new kitty, understanding cat behavior, nutrition and health care. Darlene presents an extensive list of feline health concerns ranging from urinary tract disease to cancer to dealing with emergencies and surgeries. The book also includes a listing of popular breeds with detailed descriptions of their appearance and personality.

The two sections that really stood out for me are the ones on new kittens, and on how to choose the right cat for you. In the kitten section, Arden goes into great detail on how a responsible breeder raises kittens. At fist, I was a little skeptical about the emphasis on breeders in this section, because I’m not someone who would ever purchase a kitten (nor does the author advocate this as the only way to bring a kitten into your life). I quickly realized that the author uses the example of how a responsible breeder raises a litter of kittens to illustrate how kittens are raised in ideal circumstances, such as being handled and socialized from a very early age, and not being separated from their mother until they’re at least 12 weeks old.

In the section on how to determine which cat is right for you, the author carefully reviews all aspects that should be considered, from age to breed to coat length. This is the most comprehensive coverage of this topic that I’ve seen in any cat care guide, and should be required reading for anyone who is thinking about getting a cat.

This is not to say that the other sections aren’t covered with the same level of depth and attention to detail. Every section in this book provides excellent information, and Arden’s writing style makes for an entertaining and fun read. I particularly loved the author’s emphasis on cats’ need for human companionship and interactive play, dispelling a common myth that cats are solitary creatures who can be left alone for long periods of time.

The book is beautifully illustrated throughout with black and white photos and some absolutely stunning full color photographs in the middle. It also features an exceptional resource guide.

If you’re only going to buy one cat guide, this is the one to get. The Complete Cat’s Meow is not only a great book for those who are new to sharing their lives with cats, it belongs in every cat owners library.

Darlene Arden is an award-winning writer, lecturer and Certified Animal Behavior Consultant. She is the author of numerous books on pet care and  hundreds of articles and columns for all of the major cat and dog publications, as well as for newspapers and general interest publications. Darlene is passionate about helping animals live longer and better lives. For more information about Darlene, please visit her website.

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