As New Year's resolutions go, the neck check for your pets is easy. It won't even take all of a commercial break from watching football games to complete, and you'll be getting your pet off to a safe ... more
If you've decided to join those indulging in a little Y2K worrying by stocking up on batteries, flashlights and food, it really wouldn't hurt to make sure your pet is covered in the event of an emerge... more
I love houseplants. I pore over seed catalogs, kick around nurseries, and fill my home with plants of all description. And then I abuse them horribly.... more
As a former child, I can remember a time when I wanted nothing for Christmas as much as I wanted a puppy. From kindergarten on, my lobbying campaign would start the day after Christmas and continue no... more
Claudia Presto realizes some people might think she's crazy to have given up a high-paying job in Connecticut to move to a small town in Utah and dedicate her life to unwanted racing dogs. But she doe... more
The recent news that Americans are getting fatter didn't come as a surprise to many people, and certainly not to veterinarians, who've been watching an ever-larger flow of fatter people bring fatter p... more
Those who are saddened by the belief that their old dogs can't learn new tricks will be cheered by the story of Andy, who is 13 years old and still learning.... more
When you spend your life researching and writing about the absolute best way to choose, raise, train and care for an animal companion, you start to believe that the way you do things for your own anim... more
Why do so many of us end up with ill-behaved dogs? The mechanics of dog training aren't difficult, after all, and it's not as if there aren't a million books, videotapes, seminars and training classes... more
Call it the curse of the good samaritan. But any animal lover who picks up an occasional stray -- which would be all animal lovers, of course -- knows that sure as dogs have four legs, any stray you f... more
With dogs, as with anything else, nothing succeeds like excess, which is why the dogs who win in the show ring have lots of fur. Breeds such as cockers, collies and Afghans have lush, glorious coats t... more
Not long ago, I wrote about how to pick a puppy and promptly got a lot of mail from people wanting to know about selecting a kitten. "Hey! What about kittens, you dope!" wrote one reader, tactfully.... more
Julie Weiss Murad was having a week that seemed a month long, and it was only Tuesday when she sat down to talk about her life's work, an education, rescue and sanctuary organization for parrots.... more
Although not as many specialists exist in veterinary medicine as in human medicine, the kinds and the number of certified veterinary experts grow every year. And that's good news for our pets.... more
How do you know which puppy is the right one when you're looking at a litter in someone's home or at an even larger group of puppies in a shelter? So many choices, and making the right one is very imp... more
This is the time of year when kittens are everywhere, and some cat lovers start to imagine their single cat would like a companion. With visions of frisky, devoted felines dancing in their heads, they... more
Toy dogs have more than a few special things about them, most good, some not so good. The upside: They're adorable. They're portable. They're usually long-lived. On the downside, they seem to be excep... more
If there's one parrot problem that has both bird owners and veterinarians alike pulling out their own hair in frustration, it would have to be feather-picking, a bird's willful destruction of his own ... more
The independent and seemingly self-sufficient nature that many people admire in cats is really a facade masking an animal especially sensitive to illness and vulnerable to tragedy.... more
The quality of pet health books just took a grand leap upward with the publication of two pairs of references that coincidentally manage to complement each other beautifully.... more
Reading and cats go together as naturally as vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup, or corn dogs and county fairs. What could be more perfect than reading an engaging book with a purring cat on your l... more
These days I'm hearing from a lot of people wanting to know about feline pregnancy. How long does it last? (On average, 66 days.) Do I need to help my pregnant cat with delivery? (Yes, usually by leav... more
The following story is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, by which I mean me, because the not-so-innocent will kill me if I hold him up for public disapproval. Let's call him "... more
Is there a happy medium between keeping cats completely indoors and letting them roam where they wish? Is it possible to fence in a cat? The answer to both of these questions: maybe so.... more
Until recently, the sports open to dogs and their owners mostly have had their roots in the history of the breeds involved. Hunting dogs have field trials, sheep dogs have herding trials, guard dogs h... more