Talks about additive summation. Used Pres. Obama asking everyone to call congressional reps last week, they call — and crash the phone system — but they also post to reps’ Facebook pages, protest outside of their offices, etc. Hit them everywhere, they’re more likely to budge.

Same for us if we want to mobilize people we know. Reach with Twitter, Facebook, signage, talking in coffee shop, house parties, dog-washing parties. Bring people together, spread the message. We know repetition works with messaging. When we hear from more than one source, there’s this thing called “source amnesia,” they may not remember where they heard the message, but they remember the message.

Social media. “Here Comes Everybody.”

The way things were: Talks about email lists of the past. Email is a closed communication loop.

The way things are now: Eg, Congress can’t ignore FB, Twitter, etc. on social networks is because the world can see. Because the reason most people are there is to share what they find.

Social is not intrusive. It’s not in your email box. It’s just in your news stream. That is the nature of the platform. It’s there, then it’s gone, you don’t have to do anything about it if you don’t want to.

Members of Congress may not care to hear from non-constituents by email, phone, via web contact, but they have to care that people from anywhere can shut down their Facebook page with posts, or organize to raise money for their opponent.

You can’t target everyone. You have to focus your message and pick key people. (I AGREE!!!!)

A 9-second sound bite = around 140 characters, Twitter limit.

He’s never found a haiku longer than 80 characters, and they can describe the universe. “Imagine what you can describe with 140.” But he says stay at 120 if you want people to re-tweet — 80 percent RT manually, so they can add their own comments or hashtags.

Discussion of hashtags. This conference is #nkc2011, but people on #nokill don’t seem to know. Need to announce a new or event-specific hashtag by announcing to more widely-used hashtag what the new hashtag is. Eg, tweet to #nokill and mention that #nkc2011 is the hashtag for this conference.

Long discussion about using “Facebook page takeovers” and the “etiquette” of removing posts on your wall and comments that you don’t like. Your shutting down your critics can hurt you. Big time.

The movement of sophistication on these platforms is different from old time PR (how to make you LOOK good, not be good) to new PR, where they’re really being told they have to  BE good, DO good, to walk the talk.

I just noticed David is reading this liveblog while he’s sitting next to me listening to it in real time. I AM DEAD OF THE META.

Interesting that most interest at this presentation from the audience is about Twitter!

Question from audience: Do hashtags have RSS feeds? Answer: Yes.

Q: How to find someone’s Twitter name? A: He recommends searching on Google with the person’s name and the word Twitter rather than searching on Google.

Twitter reaches INFLUENCERS, Facebook better for grassroots.

Experts are more trusted than the most trusted institutions, so not just your organization should be on Twitter and FB, YOU and YOUR PEOPLE should be on FB and Twitter.

Better to have a few influential followers than many more who aren’t.

To get more followers:

Step one: Make a connection. Fan or friend them, follow them.  Talk with them on social media — it’s SOCIAL. wefollow.com. listorius.com. keyword search or location search on search.twitter.com.

Step two: Engage the people you want to get in your audience. Share their stuff with your audience. Ask them for their expertise so they can help you, which massages their ego.

Step three: Recommend them. #followfriday or #ff. Create lists who are influencers in your field, then rec the list. On FB, like a post, or comment, and share on your wall. Once they follow you, keep repeating “engage” and “recommend.” The more you give the more you get.

Web is altruistic. We draw people to us to send everyone to other places.

I received a text message first thing in the morning about a police dog whowas being brought to the Purdue Veterinary Teaching Hospital for treatment that morning. I had few details at that point, but as I drove into the teaching hospital (I have about a 90-minute commute) I caught several news reports on what had happened the previous night. I had never before heard about one of my patients on the radio prior to meeting them. It was a strange feeling, and a bit of a portent for the media blitz that would follow.

Shadow was accompanying his handler, officer Brent Long, on an arrest warrant call. This was no usual warrant mission: along with officers of the Terre Haute Police Department, where Shadow and Long had been serving for several years, were agents of the US Marshals and several other law enforcement entities. They were looking for a very bad man, indeed, and they had found him at home.

As the day unfolded, and police surrounded the property, the man they were looking for hid in a closet and then shot both officer Long and Shadow. Long received two shots to the head, and Shadow took a bullet to the face.  The perpetrator was killed in the ensuing firefight, perhaps by Officer Long returning fire. Tragically, Officer Long died of his injuries at a nearby hospital soon afterwards.

Details on exactly what went on inside the house are still sketchy, but when the gunsmoke cleared two men were  dead or dying and a dog was critically wounded and bleeding.

Shadow was taken to a local animal hospital, where he was stabilized before being brought to the Animal Emergency Service at Purdue for definitive care. He was being accompanied by other officers of the Terre Haute PD, and had been brought on the two-hour journey in a squad car with an escort.When we got the call that Shadow was almost there, we prepared for the worst. Oxygen, gurney, bandages all were at the ready in case he should arrive in rough shape. When he walked out of the car and into the hospital under his own power, we breathed a collective sigh of relief. He looked remarkably good for having been shot in the face and having just lost his best friend and handler.

Police dogs are trained to be loyal and fierce. They exist to protect their handlers, take a bullet for them if needed, and to get the bad guy by cunning, cornering or chomping. For all their positive and potentially life-saving attributes, they are not the most cooperative of patients. We need to do things to patients that can be uncomfortable, and we are utter strangers. To a police dog, a stranger could just as easily be a bad guy out to get the handler as a well-meaning doctor out to dress their wounds. We knew we would have our work cut out for us, and we were at a disadvantage in that we didn’t have Shadow’s handler there to tell him it was OK. Luckily, officers (especially K9 officers) are a tight-knit group, and we had one of officer Long’s friends on the force there to help us with Shadow. Shadow knew and trusted him, and he was of great help in assisting us in the task of getting Shadow back together.

In the exam room, Shadow looked around warily, uncertain of the new folks in white labcoats. He had been shot on the right side of his face, and had bled into the space below his jaw, causing a pocket of blood (called a hematoma) to form. The bullet had entered just below his jaw and traveled upward. What it hit along its trajectory was anybody’s guess at this point. The fact that he had not met with the same fate as officer Long was miracle enough for us, but the possibility of serious injury was still present.

We took Shadow to the anesthesia induction room. We decided that a CT scan of his head would give us the most information about what had been damaged, and what we needed to do to fix it. The area under the jaw has some major nerves and blood vessels running through it, and the possibility that his jaw had been shattered and would require surgery meant that I had to coordinate lots of different specialists that day.  Anesthesia, dentistry, orthopedics and soft tissue surgery all had a handle in the plan. Trying to coordinate all of these doctors and services on a moment’s notice was a stressful and herculean task, but each one did their part and did the best they could to make themselves available for Shadow. Things moved with a greater than usual ease, likely because of the high degree of emotion surrounding the  case. I was also lucky enough to have one of our best interns with me that day, as well as two bright and highly capable veterinary students on “Team Shadow.” It is asking a lot for students to be thrust into the middle of a big and high-profile case (not to mention the unanticipated TV appearances that would crop up later), but they all performed admirably, and I am proud of all of them.

In order to get an animal under anesthesia, a process known as induction, an IV catheter needs to be placed. This requires close proximity to the patient, and about 5 or 10 minutes of time. For animals who are likely to bite us during this process, we will often use a muzzle. For Shadow, we felt a muzzle would not work out as his injury was exactly in the area where a muzzle would fit over his snout. This put is in the precarious position of having to handle a dog who was trained to bite, without the means to protect ourselves. This was one of the first of several technical hurdles we would have to face during Shadow’s time with us. Luckily, the anesthesiologist was able to devise a plan that involved an intramuscular injection to render Shadow unconscious, followed by placing the IV catheters and hooking up monitors soon afterwards.  There would be a short window where we would not have IV access if we needed to give drugs, but with the help of one of the officers we were able to give the injection and Shadow was safely asleep a short time afterwards.

As we were working on diagnosing the extent of his injuries, a media presence slowly built up outside the teaching hospital. The whole incident, from the tragic loss of Officer Long to the efforts to save Shadow, was becoming a major local story and we were right in the center of it all. There is always a lot at stake when an animal or person is critically injured, but the high emotional toll that the deaths had taken on all involved, coupled with the scrutiny and intrusiveness of the media, made the stress level in the hospital soar that day. We were able to keep our cool and function as a team, however, as we knew that that was the best way to ensure a good outcome for at least one member of the police team.

We are lucky enough to have a very capable and adept media handler and coordinator at Purdue, and he was able to keep the media noise down to a dull roar so we could get on with what needed to be done for Shadow. We did not allow the news crews into the hospital, but made the concession that a Purdue videographer would be there to film the events for later use by the media.

Once anesthetized, Shadow was hooked to all the whirring and beeping machines that monitor life signs. We were also then able to pull blood for lab analysis, to get a better picture of his overall health and how much blood loss had occurred. Once we were satisfied that he was stable under anesthesia, he was wheeled into the CT room for imaging of his jaw.

CT stands for computed tomography. It is sometimes called a CAT scan; it used to only be able to produce images along one plane of the axis of a patient’s body, hence the extra “A” for axial. Technology has advanced such that we can now reconstruct images at any angle we like, so the A has been dropped. CT scanning uses X-rays to produce images, known as slices, that have a far better ability to see through patients when compared to plain X-ray images. They are quick to perform, and within about 15 minutes we had lovely images of Shadow’s head, including the path of the bullet.

The news was better than we had dared hope. The bullet had entered the underside of his jaw, hit the bone at the angle of his jaw, and broken apart. There was damage to the area of his jaw just below the joint; the bone had shattered into hundreds of fragments in a small area. There were two larger bullet fragments; the rest was a constellation of little blips on the CT readout. After confirming that the authorities did not need the fragments for evidence, the decision was made to leave them in. The body would efficiently wall them off, and they were unlikely to cause future problems for Shadow. About the only levity that day was when someone reminded us that, in order to conform to Hollywood stereotype, if we did need to remove the bullet, time-honored tradition required us to drop it into a metal bowl for the requisite “ping-plunk.”

The decision of what to do with his jaw was at hand. The surgeons and radiologists amassed and pored over the images. A 3-D computer reconstruction was made of the slices from the CT scan. As I watched from the control room, a spectral image of Shadow’s head appeared on the monitor as he slept inside the gantry of the CT scanner. I could only hope that he was dreaming of getting the bad guy. The reconstruction allowed us to flip and position his skull as we liked, so we could see the damage from all angles.  After a brief consultation, it was determined that the damage was not in a load-bearing area, and was not near enough the joint to require surgery. The second wave of relief spread through everyone that day upon hearing this. It was the same feeling you get when the Space Shuttle takes off without a hitch.

After attending to his entry wound and closing one small wound inside his mouth, Shadow was fitted with a muzzle while still asleep. The muzzle would keep him from opening his mouth too far and moving the fragments, but would allow him enough room to lap up the gruel that will be his diet for the next six weeks or so as the jaw knit itself together. My suggestion of a Hello Kitty muzzle was rejected in favor of a royal blue one more befitting an officer. The irony was not lost on us that one of our original concerns was of how we would be unable to place a muzzle on Shadow so we could handle him initially, but that same muzzle was now a major component of his recuperation plan.

As he recovered in a warm and quiet spot from his anesthesia, wound care and CT scan, we pulled some follow-up lab tests to assess his progress. We found that his hemoglobin count had dipped perilously low since arrival, probably as a result of blood loss and the fluids we had placed him on during anesthesia to support his circulation.  I ordered up two units of blood from our blood bank, and he was transfused without any problems as he woke up from anesthesia. His hemoglobin count stabilized overnight. He was placed on a continuous drip of weapons-grade painkiller (fentanyl, the same drug that is sometimes used in epidurals during pregnancy) as well as antibiotics.

He turned out to be a better patient than we thought, and the nurses were able to monitor him and check his vitals without danger to life or limb. True, he had a muzzle on and couldn’t really connect if he intended to, and it is a tad hard to land a good bite with a partially broken jaw, but the most we got out of him was a low growl, as if to say “I’ve had the worst 24 hours you could possibly imagine –  are you absolutely certain you want to put that thermometer there?”

The following day was a hazy kaleidoscope of interviews, phone calls and medical documentation and organization. From the officer who brought Shadow in, I learned that Shadow would most likely be retired from the police force and live out his days by the hearth of the Long family, where he had lived prior to the incident. Shadow walked around the hospital, seemingly enjoying his star status, and hopefully blessedly insulated from the horrors that had transpired to bring him to us.

We originally planned on releasing Shadow back to the family and the force the day after he came to us, but we elected to keep him another night to make sure he wasn’t continuing to lose blood. He started eating the morning after the CT scan, and once he started getting better he never looked back. We discharged him two days after he arrived, and he was met with a parking lot full of police cars and news media. Shadow’s story was on every evening news report that night, providing the positive counterpoint to the stories about officer Long’s upcoming funeral and memorial service. Most of the news reports that night made mention of the fact that Shadow seemed to be searching for his lost partner as he left the hospital and looked out at the sea of blue uniforms waiting there to take him home.

Shadow was able to attend the memorial the next day, partly because all those working on him helped him through the dark night of his injury, but mostly because he’s made of tough materials, and is a survivor as well as a fighter. I know that if he could, he would have saluted his fallen friend, handler and colleague as the procession carrying his remains rolled by under the scorching July sun.

The groomer, Holly Crawford of Sweet Valley, Pa., offered the kittens for $100; Judge Kate Ford Elliott wrote in a 19-page opinion that “metal protruded from the kittens’ small bodies, pierced through their ears and necks, and at least one of these kittens also had an elastic band tied around its tail, an attempt at docking, which is a procedure to stem the blood flow so that the tail eventually falls off.”

An investigator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals posed as a customer and met with Ms. Crawford in 2008 and reported her to the authorities. The kittens were seized, and a jury found Ms. Crawford guilty of animal cruelty; in April of last year she was sentenced to six months of home detention and electronic monitoring, followed by probation.

Ms. Crawford, who was described in the opinion as having “several facial piercings” and being “enthusiastic about piercing,” had admitted to piercing the kittens herself without anesthetic, though she did treat them with antiseptic after the procedure.

That’s the important part of the story, but my favorite section (and yours, I’m betting) comes at the very end…

Judge Elliott wrote, “Appellant’s claims center on her premise that a person of normal intelligence would not know whether piercing a kitten’s ears or banding its tail is maiming, mutilating, torturing or disfiguring an animal.”

The judge added, “We disagree.”

Paralyzed tornado dog is walking again: Debbie and Daniel Leatherman live in Joplin, Missouri. They thought they had lost their 10 year-old cocker spaniel, Sugar, after the catastrophic tornado tore their house apart last month. Luckily, Sugar wasn’t lost. He was discovered by a stranger and brought to Joplin Humane Society, and his injuries took him to the University of Missouri Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. Unfortunately, the diagnosis was grim: a traumatic rupture of Sugar’s spinal cord. He was paralyzed. The operative word of the last sentence is ‘was. ‘ Thanks to the veterinary staff in Columbia, Sugar is now walking again. Thanks, Phyllis.

Historic cancer breakthrough? A couple weeks back, Dr. Tony Johnson wrote a sobering post about the canine version of a heart attack, called hemoabdomens. As Dr. Tony explained, the root cause is often a ruptured mass on the spleen due to an aggressive malignancy called a hemangiosarcoma. A hemangiosarcoma is often considered a nearly universal death sentence…or is it? Research out of Oregon State University signals hope for a previously hopeless cancer.

No more goldfish in Baghdad by the Bay: San Francisco is pushing to enact some of the toughest regulations outlawing the sale of animals of any municipality in the nation. But they’re not stopping at outlawing trade in puppies and kittens. As SFGate reports, the city’s Animal Control and Welfare Commission wants guppies and goldfish to receive the same protections. Thanks to Susan Fox for the link.

Everybody’s got something to hide except me and my monkey: If you have a therapy animal, is he protected from seizure by authorities? Yes? Always? What if he’s a monkey? In certain places, not so much. And the authorities’ show of force can be a little over the top, too. Hat tip to Mary Cvetan.

The secret life of feral cats: Do you ever wonder what the lives of cats are like when they’re on their own? Where do they go? How far do they roam? Is there a difference between ferals and cats who have owners? Jeff Horn wondered, too. Jeff was a grad student at the University of Illinois. He put radio-tracking collars on forty-two cats, some owned and some unowned, and let them do what they do. The results are summarized in Science Daily:

One of the feral cats in the study, a mixed breed male, had a home range of 547 hectares (1,351 acres), the largest range of those tracked (red outline). A pet cat in the study, by contrast, stayed very close to home.
“That particular male cat was not getting food from humans, to my knowledge, but somehow it survived out there amidst coyotes and foxes,” Horn said. “It crossed every street in the area where it was trapped. (It navigated) stoplights, parking lots. We found it denning under a softball field during a game.”
The owned cats had significantly smaller territories and tended to stay close to home. The mean home range for pet cats in the study was less than two hectares (4.9 acres).
“Still, some of the cat owners were very surprised to learn that their cats were going that far,” Horn said. “That’s a lot of backyards.”
The pet cats managed this despite being asleep or in low activity 97 percent of the time. On average, they spent only 3 percent of their time engaged in highly active pursuits, such as running or stalking prey, the researchers reported. The un-owned cats were highly active 14 percent of the time.

Thanks, Ingrid.

Simon’s Cat: That’s right, it’s time once again for our favorite feline line drawing! Today, we’re in the kitchen.

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: Piercing, a11news.com. Sugar, munews.

McKenzie is taking a break here in the hotel room. She couldn’t be better behaved on this trip, but it’s clear to me that the constant travel and appearances, and all the new and very strange sights, sounds and smells are very stressful to her. I make sure she gets plenty of quiet time where she can sleep without feeling as if she has to entertain us all.

I gave her a little obedience brush-up before we left California, but I didn’t fully realize the two things she would need to do more than any other: First and foremost, hold a down-stay, and then, to a lesser degree, hold items for pictures. She does both pretty well, fortunately, although I have to ask people on the TV sets not to pet her while she’s concentrating!

Here’s a clip from WRIC-TV in Richmond, VA, with Amy Lacey, who is such a dog-lover she found it very difficult not to pet McKenzie during the segment!

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Good girl, McKenzie! I think you can probably tell where I was standing on the set — she never took her eyes off me!

Don’t forget the entire tour schedule is at DrMartyBecker.com. You can also follow Dr. Becker on Facebook and Twitter, and McKenzie on Facebook and Twitter.

Update: Here’s her holding something for pictures:

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Brewster belongs to Sandy Hall, a determined pet cancer awareness advocate from northern California. He is also the nephew of Hall’s previous famous Great Dane named Gibson, deemed the World’s Tallest Dog by the officials from “Guinness Book of World Records.” Gibson stood 42.2 inches high at the shoulders and soared more than 7 feet high when standing on his hind legs. Sadly, Gibson died from osteosarcoma two years ago.

In his memory, Hall is touring the United States with Brewster throughout the entire month of May in hopes of raising $1 million in donations to be made to the Morris Animal Foundation to fund research to find a cure for cancer. The tour is funded by Petco and Blue Buffalo pet food. Back to the backyard, though. The combined weight of my four pets (two cats named Murphy and Zeki and two dogs named Cleo and Chipper) barely tips the scales at 90 pounds. So all of them put together are less than half of Brewster’s weight. Despite being a mere 60 pounds, Chipper, my golden retriever-Husky, needed to do a parallel walk with Brewster and Hall down my street to silence what I refer to “doggy air guitar” and calmly transform into a polite canine host. The mutual side-by-side walk worked.

The biggest surprise meet-and-greet, however, occurred between Brewster and Zeki, my 9-pound Turkish Van mix. I adopted Zeki about a year ago after she survived a brutal knifing as a stray and then endured eye-related health issues in a foster home. She has every right to be a nasty, anti-social feline, but she has yet to meet a stranger, and that includes the many dog visitors who come into my home. Brewster’s only cat experience sparked a swat and hiss from a less-than-welcoming cat, according to Hall.

Zeki, relaxed and cradled in my arms, leaned over to a weary Brewster and delicately touched noses. Size wasn’t an issue for this confident cat. She was more focused on getting turkey treats than fussy about this giant canine in her backyard. Zeki has proven to be an excellent feline ambassador who is always up to meeting people and traveling to new places.

Brewster and Hall will be covering thousands of miles throughout the month of May inside a bus that gets a whopping eight miles to the gallon. I don’t even want to calculate that hefty bill at the pump, but you can’t put a price on the damage cancer causes. Cancer claims about as many dogs and cats at the same rate as people, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. The Morris Animal Foundation officials drive it home with the sobering statistic that one in every four dogs die of cancer.

May is Pet Cancer Awareness Month. You can help by rounding up your receipts at Petco or making donations online at Pet Cancer Awareness. If you want to learn more about Brewster, billed as the World’s Tallest Puppy (yet to be officially sanctioned by the Guinness guys), just dash over to his site.
Brewster’s arrival drew curious interest from my neighbors, many of
whom were wowed by his towering stature. The most heartfelt response came from my neighbor, Flo Frum. Nearly 87 and possessing the same energy and wit as another senior (Betty White), Flo lost her husband Frank to lung cancer just six months shy of their 60th wedding anniversary six years ago. Her home is now shared by a spirited miniature Schnauzer named Buddy. She eyed Brewster, gave him a big hug, dismissed the drool he deposited on her pant leg and then hugged Hall.

“I hate cancer,” she quietly told Hall. “I love dogs. Thank you for making this trip. I just wish Frank was alive to see it.”

Photo credits: Arden Moore

Those 4 a.m alarms for morning TV shows just aren’t getting any easier, especially after a day off.

Yesterday, I worked most of the day anyway. The weather was lovely, warm but not too hot or humid, and I spent most of the day typing madly away on my laptop on the hotel’s streetfront patio. I took three breaks to indulge in long walks through the neighborhood with McKenzie, enjoying the historic homes and daydreaming about calling the number offer a classic Midtown carriage house for rent. I thought about going to services at the historic First Presbyterian, so close I could hit it with a tennis ball, but in the end the house of worship I chose for my diversion was one built for art: The High Art Museum, also just spitting distance away.

But now, 11 hours into my Monday and still two hours from Raleigh, I’m thinking I would have been better off sleeping yesterday, even though I enjoyed the day very much.

I know I was tired, because I could see how tired McKenzie was. When I left her to go to the museum, she was flopped on the floor of the hotel room, sound asleep.  She lifted her head just a little when I told her I was leaving, and hadn’t changed position (as far as I could tell) in the time I was gone. She got more down-time than I did yesterday, but she was still reluctant to wake up for this morning’s TV appearance, at least until I picked up the leash.

She was wonderful, though. While I joke that this is her trip, of course it’s really not. During some media appearances she’s there to be a demo dog, giving Dr. Becker an easy-going dog on which to demonstrate everything from tooth-brushing to body-weight checking  to the back-ruffle of fur that IDs the presence of fleas. Other times, McKenzie’s just there to be part of the set, relaxing patiently while the cameras, news folks, producers, directors and floor managers whirl around her. She has been very good in both rolls.

This morning, she was in the “part of the set” mode, holding a down-stay for five minutes while Dr. Becker was inteviewed at the table above and behind her. Off-camera, I would occasionally flash her a “stay” hand-signal just to remind her of what I wanted. It wasn’t really necessary, since she was relaxed and happy, even as the cameraman kneeled down and moved in tight to get a close-up of her. Good girl!

McKenzie travels relatively light. For food she’s mostly eating something her breeder in Texas suggested (Mary’s a distributor), ZiwiPeak, alternating with Honest Kitchen and supplemented by Iams Prostora probiotics. Aside from the occaional homemade JillCookies treat from regular reader/commenter Jill Gibbs, McKenzie eats nothing else, since I’m trying to spare her (and me) the difficulty of dealing with tummy upsets along the way. So far, so good.

For “wardrobe,” she has three Doodie Pack vests — purple, red and blue — with her name embossed on them, and a couple of different bandanas. She wears the vests for media appearances, at the PETCO book-signings and in the hotels. I’m sure some people think she’s a service dog, but that’s not my intent; rather, I’m trying to telegraph that she’s a friendly, well-trained and well-mannered dog no one need fear. So far, it’s working:  Everyone loves her (and vice versa).

McKenzie is comfortable in crates, and when the bus is moving she sleeps in one of two. One is a soft-sided Petmate crate wedged in the gap between the bed and the back cabinets in the bedroom at the back of the bus. In the front of the bus, she has made a “crate” out of the area under the banquette — the tile is cool under the table, and the facing seats approximate the safety and comfort of a crate. She’s a smart girl: Both sleeping spots are safe for her, and neither leaves her dangerously underfoot

The rest of her gear: Poop bags, tennis balls and a Chuck-it. She’s generally well-mannered on leash, so she has a couple of comfortable flat collars and (comfortable for me) a couple of well-worn leather leashes.

She’s a very easy dog to travel with, asking for little and giving her all.

Image:  McKenzie, people watching on the patio at the Residence Inn in Midtown Atlanta.

Note: The Dr. Marty Becke BIG Bus Tour schedule is here. Come by and see us! We’re on the road for about five more weeks.

And so, too, is McKenzie. She now recognizes the bus as home, and trots happily to the door when asked to “Go to the bus.” She also, in just a few days’ time and never having been in an elevator in her life, knows to sit  to wait for one, trot in, turn around and sit inside when the doors open, and go left or right on request after exiting. (Her first impression of a high-speed glass elevator was  pretty funny, but while I thought I was recording it on my phone, I wasn’t, so you’ll have to take my word for it.)

Inside the bus, she also responds to “go to your room,” since the rockstar bedroom at the back of the bus is our default for when we need a safe place for her to chill out for a bit while the generators are keeping the bus air-conditioned. At the very beginning of the tour, I thought she and I would be spending a lot more time back there since we were thrown out of the first hotel room we’d checked into, owing to miscommunication between our agent, Marriott corporate and the local management at the no-pets-allowed Courtyard by Marriotts we had been told were accepting the dog as a condition of booking our national tour.

After she and I slept in the bus one night, got booted to another hotel the second and were facing doG-knows-what the third, I took things into my own hands and had McKenzie launch a “why don’t you like me, Marriott?” campaign on Twitter and Facebook, which was quickly threatening to go viral. That got Marriott’s attention in their NYC HQ, and within an hour or two a nice PR guy was asking our tour manager to please ask McKenzie to tell her fans that Marriott was working on it. Not long after, the hotel issue was resolved, and now McKenzie is greeted by name as she walks into the lobbies of the no-pet Marriott chains we’re booked into. (Me? I’m just the one holding the leash!)

Obviously, with a special arrangement for her to stay in Marriott’s two no-pet chains (Courtyard by Marriott and Fairfield Inn) I have a very serious responsibility to make sure McKenzie is well-behaved, quiet and doesn’t cause other guests any problems. Fortunately, she has been up to the job, and I’m very proud of her.

While every day has been a little different, the typical schedule is local TV at dawn, a VIP (Veterinary Important Person) event in late morning, more media and then the book-signings at PETCO. Then we all hit the road for the next city, which may be up to eight hours away. And we’re doing that six days a week — a grueling schedule, but I couldn’t be more happy I’m on board. We really do have the most incredible team, starting with Dr. Becker.

We’re rolling into Jacksonville now, so let me just share some tour-related links and call it a night:

The boys on the bus: Jimmy the tour manager and Phil the bus driver are the most incredibly skilled professionals imaginable. They have easily 40 years of experience between them in handling tours a lot larger than ours, and they have worked with Lady Gaga, Dog The Bounty Hunter, Whitney Houston and many more big-name acts. Mindy Valcarcel, the DVM360.com reporter who was with us for the first three stops, gave an overview of the team here. Be sure to follow the link to the clip of Phil from “Dog The Bounty Hunter.” Our “ground support” consists of Christie, David and Ericka from our PetConnection team, along with our publicist, Kathie Kerr, and our VIP event coordinator, Ellie Shaw.

Henry the cover dog: Handsome Henry, the cover dog on the book, has his own publicist, his Mom, Jill Gibbs. She scored him a feature in the Billings Gazette. Yesterday, I saw Henry’s pawtograph for the first time, as one of our mutual friends took the afternoon off to bring the book to be signed by me and Dr. Becker. There was barely any room left after Henry’s pawprint!

I’ll try to get more blogging done this week. Jimmy warned us that the first week of a tour is a period of adjustment, and he was sure right. But now most of the major problems seem to be ironed out, and we’ve all settled in for the long run as a great team.

Don’t forget the entire tour schedule is at DrMartyBecker.com. You can also follow Dr. Becker on Facebook and Twitter, and McKenzie on Facebook and Twitter.

Dr. Becker, in his witty and whimsical style, unleashes great pet advice, memorable pet tales and much more during his guest spot on my show. It is fitting that he has been the only three-time guest since the show took to the air two years ago and has features Betty White, Victoria Stilwell and yes, the always controversial Cesar Milan.

Dr. Becker is truly on a Mission from DOG – with only slight apologies for tweaking the Blues Brothers’ motto. He shares some must-know pet care facts plucked from the pages of his latest book, “Your Dog: The Owner’s Manual“ (co-authored by Gina Spadafori, of course). Listen as he shares a surprising but simple way to stop a wet dog from drenching you at bath time and a common item found in kitchens and purses that can be downright deadly to dogs. Catch his take on easing thunderstorm phobias in dogs and why he goes gaga over McKenzie, the canine tour ambassador.

If you’re new to Pet Life Radio, it’s the world’s No. 1 pet podcast network, featuring a lineup of more than 30 shows covering all things pets. You can tune in right from your computer, iTunes and countless other free methods and pick what show you want when you want to hear it. Think of it as TiVo for your ears.

To catch this show, simply click here:

A bill before the Iowa legislature would make it a crime to produce, distribute or possess photos and video taken without permission at an agricultural facility. It would also criminalize lying on an application to work at an agriculture facility “with an intent to commit an act not authorized by the owner.”

While the laws are meant to keep animal activists from revealing some farming practices (like shocking treatment of dairy cattle exposed in recent years), the proposals will also help keep puppy-mills behind the curtain of secrecy. They  could even protect poorly run shelters from being exposed (cough cough, Memphis, cough cough), argues the website care2.com:

The legislation proposed in Minnesota attempts to crack down on activists who have exposed repeated animal welfare violations. Among its provisions, the bill targets anyone who documents an “image or sound” of animal suffering in a sweeping list of “animal facilities,” including factory farms, animal experimentation labs, and puppy mills.

According to Will Potter, author of “Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege,” Minnesota’s House File No. 1369 goes even further.

The bill, introduced by six Republicans, also includes a number of other provisions that have popped up in “eco-terrorism” bills and “animal enterprise terrorism” laws over the years. Similar legislation has also been introduced in Florida and Iowa to target undercover investigators.

The Minnesota bill includes a number of dangerous parts. Among the most important:

1. “Animal facility interference.” This provision targets those who, without the owner’s consent, “produce a record which reproduces an image or sound occurring at the animal facility.” Even worse, it targets those who “possess or distribute a record which produces an image or sound occurring at the animal facility.”

Translated: Taking pictures and videos is illegal, but so is uploading them to YouTube for public consumption. Anyone else have a problem with this?

Community supported agriculture for pets! I have friends from Maine to California who participate in community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs. Perhaps you do it in your area. But here’s a new wrinkle: CSA for dog food. Kim Thornton sent me this link from the Village Voice, about Jake Dickson of Dickson’s Farmstand Meats in New York.

The new “dog-food program,” Dickson explains, “allows us to close the loop completely so we’re nearing zero waste.” The parts that he doesn’t have much use for, such as the 80 pounds of beef liver he receives each week, make ideal canine sustenance. But rather than just package and sell them as is, Dickson partnered with Stacy Alldredge, a dog trainer and canine nutritionist who, Dickson says, “is a big advocate of cooking real food for pets.”

Great idea. Use naturally-grown agricultural products that would otherwise go to waste, give dogs fresh, nutritious meals, and support local farms. Everybody wins. To see how this concept works already, check out the SFRaw co-operative, to which Christie and Gina both proudly belong.  It’s a little different in operation, but the local, sustainable and humane ethic is the same.

“I’m not asking you. You’re not nice.” Dogs beg people for food. Not exactly a news flash, is it? Here’s the kicker: it seems dogs know who to ask, by paying close attention to how people interact with each other. This article from The New Scientist article on the finding is frankly scaring me. (thanks, Patti S.)

Luxury in Boston for all: The Boston Globe spotlights the trend we’re developing here in the Boston area for creating –  and supporting –  ultra-luxurious vacation spots for pets. As a Red Sox fan, I found this next snippet irresistible.

At Fenway Bark, the best room in the house, the 72-square-foot Owner’s Box, costs $150 per night. True, that’s almost as much as the $155 average daily rate for human hotels in the Greater Boston area, according to the Massachusetts Lodging Association, but it does come with unlimited dog-owner Skype sessions, bottled water upon request, and custom-made beds with 6-inch orthopedic foam.

The Skype was a perk that Tara Philbin of South Boston could not resist. Before heading off to her bachelorette party in New Orleans Saturday, Philbin downloaded the Skype app so she could chat with her boxers Declan and Kiera.

I particularly like Fenway Bark‘s website. Check it out, unless you’re a Yankees fan, in which case you should just move on to the next paragraph.

Highlights from around the Pet Connection Blogosphere. Recent posts I particularly like from our distinguished blogroll:

A shout out to Ingrid: Our own Ingrid King‘s personal blog The Conscious Cat has a post I particularly like. This one is about World’s Best Cat Litter and how they’re supporting shelter causes in Texas.

Woo Woo! Photo essay posts from Three Woofs and a Woo always make me smile.

Happy Tax Day: Love this cartoon from SmartDogs.

Finally, speshal nom from icanhascheezburger.

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: Memphis Animal Shelter video snapshot courtesy of YesBiscuit.wordpress.com.

My first cat was a talkative Siamese named Corky who earned the nickname, Loud Mouth. My dad was fond of saying that Corky “purred like a Mack truck.” But Corky’s vocals would be considered whispers compared to a gray tabby named Smokey. This very content cat from Northampton, England is generating headlines, TV appearances and YouTube fans for reportedly possessing the world’s loudest purr.

Are you ready for this? Grab your ear plugs. Sound tests performed on this 12-year-old cat by a British community college team registered as high as 92 decibels – about as loud as a lawnmower or a hair dryer. The average happy, contented cat purrs at around 25 decibels.

We mentioned Smokey in a previous news wrap. Smokey’s owners, Ruth and Mark Adams, submitted an application to the famed Guinness Book of World Record to have their cat declared as the World’s Loudest Purrer. The couple rescued Smokey from a local shelter about three years ago and Smokey is now recognized as an honorary volunteer for Cat Protection’s Northampton branch.

On Smokey’s website, Ruth Adams proclaims: “Sometimes, she purrs so loudly it makes her cough and splutter. She even manages to purr while she eats.” In a recent news report, Diana Johnson, of Northampton Cats Protection, declared, “I have never heard anything like her purr in my life. It can drown out your conversation.”

So, how loud does your cat purr? Any competition for this Brit cat? If you want to hear Smokey’s purr machine, just click here for her audio performance on YouTube that has 210,000-plus visits.

Purring by a cat is comparable to happy tail wagging by a dog. But somehow, I find purring more magical. As editor of Catnip, a national monthly affiliated with Tufts University’s School of Veterinary Medicine, I work closely with top veterinarians and animal behaviorists.

In explaining the art of purring, Nicholas Dodman, BVMS, veterinarian and director of the Tufts’ Animal Behavior Clinic, reports that cats produce purring sounds by using the diaphragm to push air back and forth across vibrating nerves in the larynx. All domestic cats and most wild felines are born with the ability to purr. Cats, from young kittens to seniors, purr when they are happy, anticipating dinner or snuggling on a warm, cozy bed.

Mother cats purr when nursing their kittens, and kittens purr when nursing. But many cats also purr when they are afraid or in pain. That helps explain why some purr when being examined at a veterinary clinic or when they are recovering from an injury. The purring might serve to reassure or comfort the frightened cat. In addition, some studies suggest that the low-level vibrations of purring physically stimulate feline muscles and bones to keep them healthy and actually speed up the healing.

Some cats purr right to the end. When my beloved Samantha had to be euthanized due to advanced liver disease, the sound of her purring comforted both of us as she slipped peacefully away in my arms at the veterinary clinic.

For now, Smokey is the poster cat for purring and I hope the Guinness World Record officials will give serious consideration to adding this entry to their long list of record-setters.

And there is one purr feat that cats everywhere can achieve that we mere humans cannot: Cats can purr while inhaling and exhaling. Don’t believe me? Try for yourself. It is far easier to say “toy boat” 10 times fast than imitate a purring cat.

Photo credit: Geoff Robinson Photography as appeared on Smokey the Purring Cat.com