We promised you details about Thursday’s edition of “The Dr. Oz Show,” and here they are. Check your local listings for channel and time.

Our Dr. Marty Becker is a member of Core Team Oz, and on Thursday America’s Veterinarian  and Dr. Oz are sharing information about the diseases your pet has that you can get. They’ll let you know who is most at risk  — the very young or very old, along with the immunosuppressed.

Rather than just talk about the scary stuff that could happen, they’ll offer  preventive solutions that go beyond washing your hands and using a pooper scooper. Did you know that MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) is eight times more likely to occur in homes with cats, and that it can ping-pong back and forth between pets and people? They’ll talk about why that happens. They’ll also provide information about why you shouldn’t let your pet lick you in the mouth (no matter how much fun it is for both of you), why parasite control for the four-footers benefits our health, and skin infections (ringworm anyone?).

And for those of us who forget to do poop patrol at least every other day (we know who we are) Dr. Becker will remind us why that’s important.

Both doctors have a simple solution: Get rid of the risk and keep the pet! We know that the health benefits of having a pet far outweigh the risks.

On Dec. 3, Dr. Becker will be back for another visit to Oz, taping a segment on what to do in a pet health emergency. Pet Connection blogger and Purdue U  vet school emergency and critical care expert Dr. Tony Johnson provided the background to make sure only the latest and greatest information is offered.

We’ll let you know when the next can’t-miss segment will air!

You can listen to the show in the San Francisco Bay Area at 960 AM, or on the Internet at www.green960.com.

They also run an open discussion during the show as well, at www.lftlc.com/live.

Hope you can tune in!

I said no.

But she persevered. She’s an advocate by profession, of course, the top dog and chief lobbyist of the HSUS here in Sacramento.

“Look,” she argued. “It’ll be fun. We can take Faith and Yoda. And get this: The kennel club up there is also involved. We want to get people working together, right? So let’s support this.”

I said no.

Chico is more than an hour away, and it has been very, very hot. And I didn’t much want to be cheered up.

But then she argued that it would be great socialization for puppy Faith. Smart girl, is Jennifer: She know there’s nothing I won’t do for the pets. So we had a plan.

Yes, it was hot. But it was also great fun. Kudos to this great little shelter for trying to unite the dog-lovers of its county for a better life for all animals.

The turn-out was great, both the volunteers and the public. Dogs of all sizes shapes, breeds and mixes mingled happily, and the owners were all smiles. The contest, games and demonstrations were wonderful, and the snow cones were sublime.

Faith, a/k/a FayBee, went as a bee, but it was Yoda who took a prize (second) in the costume contest, dressed as … Yoda! (”If I’d dressed as Princess Leia we would have won,” said the ever-competitive Jennifer, only half in jest.)

In truth it WAS wonderful to see reputable breeders and their breed rescues welcomed as part of the community and the solution at a shelter event — there has been too much venom-spitting from extremists on both sides lately. Instead, the Canine Carnival was welcoming to all, and everyone was feeling great, just enjoying the day, the dogs and the fun.

For me, it was a day well-spent. And nearly 6-month-old HellPuppy Faith– who was a bit of an angel, considering all new things she was dealing with — slept clear though until morning, she was so exhausted. (Maybe those antennae are heavier than they look.)

Here’s the story from the Chico Enterprise-Record.

***
Update on the home hospice front: Heather is doing really well right now. We seem to have the pain meds just about perfect. She’s happy to be here, so much so that she even hopped in the kiddie pool on Saturday. And she’s eating! Lucy Postins of Honest Kitchen overnighted me a box of Nuzzles treats and Ice Pups, which Heather loves as a warm broth. Heather will also happily eat: Rotisserie chicken, Merrick’s canned dinners, raw chicken necks, ice cream, melon slices, dandelion greens and Annie’s Bunny Grahams. Yes, the dying dog eats anything she wants, and only what she wants.

Her kiddie-pool dip was a concern because she’s wearing a Fentanyl patch for pain. I didn’t know if the water killed it. But it just so happened I had an interview skedded with Dr. Marc Wosar, a boarded veterinary surgeon with Miami Veterinary Specialists. The interview was for an upcoming article for Parade magazine, but since I had him on the phone, I asked about the patch.

He said to take off the Vetwrap and let the area dry, and then check to see if the patch was well-sealed to the skin. If so, it was still good.

It was, and we left it. It gets changed on schedule tomorrow.

Thanks Dr. Marc!

They are spotlighting animal related articles and stories, and it’s well worth tuning in.You can find showtimes on www.NPR.org.

I have already heard Temple Grandin (autistic animal advocate and consultant on the construction of animal-oriented slaughterhouses) and journalist Michael Shaffer (author of “One Nation under Dog”). I was late taking my son, Connor, to pre-school because I was having one of those “driveway moments” where I just couldn’t turn off the radio. I have my priorities, and the provision of excellent education to my son is high on the list, but some things just top it all at times. I mean, if the car was on fire, I probably would have just listened to the segment and not the whole show, but hearing how you would actually design a humane slaughterhouse had me riveted.

Michael Shaffer discussed a lot of the pros and cons of dog parks, a subject I am still grappling with. He mentioned that the social interactions between people are an important and beneficial by-product of the dog park phenom.

But, I have a hard time aligning this with the terrible carnage I see come into the ER as a result of dog on dog aggression from dog parks. I know that my perspective is skewed by what I do, and I acknowledge that there are many, many good things that can come of a well-run and cooperative dog park, but I still see so much tragedy come from these places that it is hard for me see the positive side sometimes.

I would encourage anyone with an interest in pets and animal-related issues to give it a listen.

And because I am if nothing Gina’s loyal servant (oh fine, laugh at me; I can take it), here is my Twitter post.

Yes, it’s true, I’m on Twitter. I’m on Twitter a scary lot, actually, and you can find me here.

Gina’s there, too, tweeting as “PetConnection.” Pet Connection bloggers Kim Campbell Thornton and Dr. Tony Johnson are there as well, as is Susan Tripp, although she hasn’t updated lately. We’d all love to see our readers following us, and while I can’t speak for the rest, I’ll definitely follow you back!

If you aren’t into Twitter yet, you might not really understand what it’s good for, or why you might like it. I see it as a big bulletin board where people throw out little notes about news stories that interest them — from the latest FDA recalls to breaking news from the Veterinary Information Network News Service to developments in the animal sheltering world from Maddie’s Fund, Petfinder, Nathan Winograd, and hundreds of shelters and rescue groups — from the Pennsylvania SPCA, which recently brought the Twitterlicious Sue Cosby on board as director, to Oregon’s Cat Adoption Team and Austin’s Heart of Texas Lab Rescue.

The big animal welfare organizations are there — Best Friends, HSUS and ASPCA among them — and so are innovative new social media-savvy folks like Start Seeing Black Dogs and AnimalWise Radio. I, along with a few other people, tweet for PetHobbyist.com. Pet Connection BFFs Therese Kopiwoda of PetSitUSA and Dr. Patty Khuly are there, too.

Some organizations tweet only rarely, and always impersonally; certainly these updates can be interesting and useful, but two institutional feeds manage to be interesting and personal at the same time. The American Animal Hospital Association’s Helping Pets group, which gives grants to people to help pay for veterinary care for their animals, and AboutVetMed, both of whom have fantastic social media “voices” and share a lot of information that’s both useful and heartwarming.

If you’re on Twitter, post a link or your username in the comments, and please recommend your favorite feeds, too!

It was not to be.

The interview had been teased with a mention of the pet-food recall, which NPR characterized as having “sickened” pets, which is true only if you grant that most organisms “sicken” before, you know, actually dying, which is what thousands of pets did, NPR’s glossing over aside.

New FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg batted away the question about the pet-food recall’s core issue — the fraudulent substitution of melamine by foreign companies in order to game the protein readings — by acknowledging the challenges the agency faces with globalization and her intent to modernize.

To be fair, Dr. Hamburg has a good reputation and she just started the job. And of course, this is just one interview. But frankly, I would have liked to have seen a little more  determination, a little more acknowledgment that the FDA as it exists today is a shadow of the consumer-protection firebrand it once was — if not an outright servant of the industries it’s supposed to regulate — and how she was going to change that.

After all, we know tobacco kills, and that shouldn’t be news to the anyone including the FDA, which just got handed the task of regulating tobacco products. What we shouldn’t have to worry about killing us or our pets is the food we buy.

Here’s the interview.

***

Dr. Marion Nestle always stresses what we have said on this blog from the first day of the pet-food recall: This isn’t about “pet food” vs. “people food”: It’s about safe food, and it all comes from the same places.

On her “Food Politics” blog, Dr. Nestle talks about the problems with multi-nutrient supplements:

It’s hard not to think of multivitamin supplements (which also include minerals) as perfectly safe, since the amounts of specific nutrients rarely exceed recommended levels.  But according to recent reports, formulation mistakes get made and these don’t always get caught by quality controls.  Here are two examples.

According to FoodProductionDaily.com, 25% of Adverse Event Reports (AERs) sent into the FDA last year concerned multivitamin supplements. This, says one supplement trade association, should not be interpreted to mean that there is anything wrong with the supplements.  Maybe not, but how about checking?

She then puts these findings in context of the recent recalls of Nutro. More here.

***

Finally and also food-related, Pet Connection BFF Dr. Patty Khuy writes about prescription pet diets on her Dolittler blog:

The concept of a “prescription only” diet has merely been a marketing success for pet food companies who label their products as such and somehow manage to have engendered a belief that a product labeled as a “Prescription Diet”… requires a prescription.

But this is NOT TRUE! There is no legal basis for requiring a prescription for a product that is NOT regulated by the FDA as a drug. Shall I repeat that or was it sufficiently clear?

Nonetheless, it IS true that any private retail establishment has the right to require a veterinarian’s say-so before you can buy ANYTHING from them. Sure, PetSmart is not about to require a written script for leashes and kitty litter, but if it wants to do business with pet food behemoths like Hills and Iams, then they’re darn well not going to tick them off by failing to follow manufacturer requirements for sale of Prescription Diets.

More here.

It was a good, fair look at some serious issues, although I doubt the AKC and its acolytes feel the same.  As in the U.K., they will surely lash out (and did even before it aired) at the report as an attack on all breeding by the animal-rights loons who want all domestic animals extinct. It’s the old “if you’re not with us you’re agin’ us” crap that keeps a bad situation entrenched.

The PETA loons have nothing to do with this — and even if, yes, they have more than shown they would gladly bury the AKC and all purebred dogs along with the 90 percent of pets they kill in their own shop.  But this fight is coming from those of us who are sick of burying great dogs dead of cancer at 3, 6 and 8 instead of 12, 14 and even 16.  And at  looking at dogs who can’t breathe, walk or reproduce normally.  (More on this from Terrierman, who is featured in the piece. Heaven knows he’s a sekrit PETA operative!)

It’s time to open these registries and get some fresh genetic material into the business of purebred dogs. And into the dogs as well. Open the registries to well-planned, scientifically sound outcrosses. You will still have your breeds as you like them, just healthier.

Open your mind, and open the registries. Get on board with managed outcrosses and save your dogs.

Watch the clip, here:

“Pet news?” It’s just Paris Hilton’s Chihuahuas, dog “fashions,” kittens trapped in a sewers and PETA’s ever-more-crazy “look at us … here, but not there“  pronouncements (sure sign of an organization sensing sea change and desperately trying to cope, don’t you think?). We saw this lack of interest, this “it’s just pets” approach during the pet food recall, with a couple of notable exceptions — USA Today’s Elizabeth Weise and, interestingly enough, the Pulitzer-prize winner Abigail Goldman of the L.A. Times.

These folks got it.  What it meant to the thousands of people whose pets died from tainted ingredients, and what China’s rogue capitalism means to everyone. 

The people at the L.A. Times “Unleashed” blog don’ see the picture, small or big. And they don’t even try. Why should they? It’s “just animals,” so let’s pander to the cotton-heads people who love pets are presumed to be.

I’m going to flip this to Luisa at Lassie Get Help. She nails it:

How the mighty have fallen! [Shut up, S. J. Perelman.] The Los Angeles Times used to be a splendid, not merely solvent but proud and prize-winning newspaper with money to burn and a worldwide staff of excellent reporters. Today the paper is a wan tabloid on the edge of bankruptcy. Most of the journalists are gone. Drifting in their wake: a shuffle of press-release collectors, some of whom love love love animals. Their blog at the Times is called L.A. Unleashed, and it’s so horrbly, painfully bad that I could beat my head on rocks.

Unleashed operates like this: Post a press release. Count comments. Repeat. “What do you think — is PETA right on or out of line?” I know fourteen-year-olds who can track down facts and ask sharper questions than these people. Blogging doesn’t relieve you of the responsibility to be honest and knowledgeable about a subject. Blogging means you should be more honest and more knowledgeable.

Is Unleashed the worst blog on earth? It’s quite possibly the worst blog published under the aegis of a major newspaper, or what used to be a major newspaper. I suspect the bloggers are paid per comment and poked with sharp sticks for attempting what reporters in the old days called “research.” They are that fact-averse.

Read the rest.

More good stuff, elsewhere: Therese at the PetsitUSA blog tries to unravel the story behind another killer pet food. And it ain’t easy. Therese is a better journalist than all the bloggers at L.A. Unleashed combined.

What kind of dog the first family should get.

For the record, I hope the Obamas get a nice little shelter dog, maybe some kind of mopsy, fuzzy-faced terrier mix. An adult, not a puppy, because a well-chosen adult dog often fits in better and more quickly into busy households, especially those with little dog experience.

Yes, it would be a good thing and a good example. But honestly? I don’t much care beyond that they get a nice dog who fits with their family and brings joy to their lives.

See, the Obamas choice of a family pet ranks about 1,074,037th on my list of things that it’s important for President Obama to be thinking about.

In my own Top 10? Along with the economy, the wars, healthcare and energy independence, I would put food.

Food.

Food.

and then, Food.

To say we are vulnerable to terrorist attack though our food supply is to state the absolute obvious. We don’t even need to have people want to hurt us: It’s already happening, just because of corporate greed, corruption in China and shoddy work from a government that’s supposed to protect us, not industry profits.

Melamine. In pet food, livestock feed, infant formula and heaven know what else. Salmonella, from the over-industrialized food system. Antibiotic resistance, from factory farming.

These issues are so much more important to me than getting the politically correct dog for the adorable Obama daughters.

I’m disappointed with the animal advocacy groups . With the lone exception of the Animal Poison Control Center of the ASPCA (hat tip to the courageous Dr. Steve Hansen of the APCC), they were mostly silent during the pet-food recall and they remain so on the issue of food safety still. A safe food supply effects us all, pets included, and I would hope to see some of them step up and say so.

So let’s all enjoy the photo op moment of the Obamas getting their family dog. And then, let’s move on to something that really matters.