This week, a little petpourri ...

Pet Food vs. People Food: Do you include your pet in holiday festivities? If you do, you're not the only one. According to a recent survey conducted for Purina, nine out of 10 pet owners treat their pets like a member of the family. Nearly three-quarters of us consider our pets to be our best friend, and half feel guilty about leaving pets home alone.

When we do go out, we try to calm our guilty feelings by bringing home a doggie bag from the restaurant -- or so said 54 percent of the respondents.

Not surprisingly, Purina was especially interested in the feeding habits of these pampered pets, many of whom will share food from the holiday table. Turkey will be the No. 1 treat for these pets this holiday season, followed by ham. A few will even get cookies or candy -- even though 88 percent of those polled said they realized "people foods" can cause upset stomach in pets.

Actually, it's worse than that. Fatty or spicy foods can trigger a life-threatening case of pancreatitis in dogs, requiring a trip to the emergency clinic and a hefty holiday bill you weren't anticipating. In cats, the juice-saturated strings from holiday meats can prove too tempting to resist, but may need to be surgically removed in another lifesaving intervention.

Cookies or candies? Forget it! A big chunk of chocolate can be deadly to the small dog who eats it, and even a larger dog can get a bellyache. Foil or other food wrappings can also be dangerous if consumed. A touch of white-meat turkey won't hurt your pet, but it may not make him any easier to live with. The poll reports a list of problems related to poor eating habits, including begging (69 percent), sneaking food (52 percent) and diarrhea (40 percent).

All of which leads to Purina's self-serving but not incorrect conclusion: Your pets are better off being fed a complete and balanced pet food than they are sharing your meals.

There are more good foods on the market than ever before, in pet-supply stores, veterinary offices and even grocery stores. Choose a high-quality food, and leave the people food out of it.

The Ultimate Guides to Dog and Cat Products: The Purina survey also revealed that 13 percent of us will be giving our pets gifts this holiday season, a figure that to my mind seemed low. If your dog is on your gift list, however, a new book will help make the shopping easier -- and fun.

"The Whole Dog Catalog" (Three Rivers Press; $19.95) is a guide to every imaginable product for dog and dog-lover, from the simplest bowls to the most elaborate dwellings (could your dog live without a $4,500 doghouse made to look like a thatched-roof cottage?). Clothes for dog and dog-lover both, tags, toys, fine art and jewelry -- it's all in this remarkable and enjoyable book. My favorites: lifelike breed doorstops, dog sculptures and "pup tent" dog beds.

Author John Avalon Reed drops plenty of interesting dog facts into the book, too. His previous book, "The Whole Kitty Catalog," fills the same niche for cat-lovers. Either book would make a perfect gift for an animal-lover.

Pets on the Web: "We really enjoyed watching your cat eat," writes one fan. "I am in love with your kitty!" comments another. "You must have been busy yesterday getting rid of your slob reputation. Your kitchen looks nice."

These comments and many more are on Eric Max Francis' site, The CatCam (http://www.catcam.com), where a fixed camera under a table sends a constant flow of images to the Web. You can see his kitchen, from a cat's-eye view. Sometimes, you can see his cats, Beowulf and Ebi. The flash of a tail ... the hint of a leg ... oh, the suspense! If you can't stand it anymore, you can review the last day's worth of images. Empty room. Cat. Empty. Empty. Empty. Cat. Darkness.

"I trust I would not be the first person to point out that this CatCam business is very silly," comments another fan. "I love it."

Me, too. And the cats, when they do show up, are very cute.

Gina Spadafori is the award-winning author of "Dogs for Dummies" and "Cats for Dummies," and is the editorial director of the Veterinary Information Network Inc., an international online service for veterinary professionals. Write to her in care of this newspaper, or e-mail to Giori(at)aol.com.

4520 Main St., Kansas City, Mo. 64111; (816) 932-6600

When you are among people who love animals, you are among friends.

Although I've always known this, the point was reinforced on the road in Georgia, first in the big city of Atlanta, where the world's largest cat show came for three days in November, and then in the small town of Thomasville, where I spent time with friends and their four cats, four dogs and a cockatiel.

Some 3,000 miles from home and I couldn't have been happier.

In Atlanta, I rode up and down elevators with luggage that meowed, as the world's top pedigreed cats made their way from the hotel to compete at the Cat Fanciers' Association International show. An Abyssinian named Tinbats Morgan's Passing, owned by Reg and Lynn Martin of Chatsworth, Calif., topped nearly 1,300 other cats at the show. But for most of the cat-lovers who came, the name of the winner wasn't really the point of the exercise.

The show was really a celebration of the feline, with cats about as varied as cats can get. Patched cats and solids, ticked coats and tabbies, long-haired and short, slender and chunky, each as breathtakingly beautiful as the next, and all with fur that begged to be touched (torture for the cat-lover, because petting the cats is not allowed at this show -- or any other). Eyes of many colors and shapes glistened with good health and, occasionally, ill temper. (These are cats, after all, and cats aren't all that enthusiastic about noise, crowds and strangers.)

Solace could be found among the vendors of the Georgia World Congress Center in what had to be the best collection of goods for cats and their people ever assembled. Toys, jewelry, books, beds -- anything you could imagine, times four. A cat-lover would have a hard time escaping with her line of credit intact, and I managed to only because the car rental agency had already put its claim on it.

This is one fine cat show, and if you're anywhere near Kansas City, Mo., when it moves there next November, you shouldn't miss it. Even if you won't be allowed to pet the cats.

How hard is it to survive without those pats? I know, exactly. By the time I got to Thomasville, four hours from Atlanta by car (and nearly to Florida), I was vibrating from the strain and in need of a major fur fix.

A tiny tabby named Robocat was happy to help, as were a trio of handsome retrievers by the names of Sundance, Calypso and Lucky. My friends Peg and Joe love animals and laughter, and on the wide porch of their old house we shared plenty of both, as the worst of my withdrawal pains started to ease with every touch of my fingers on warm fur.

Robo's purr could be heard a block away, carried on a cool South Georgia breeze, and if I had been physically able to do the same, you could have heard my satisfied rumble all the way back home in California.

Were it not for missing my own dogs, I might never have gone home.

Pets on the Web: While dogs have been enthusiastic in their pursuit of airborne discs from the moment the first Frisbee came out of the package, the creation of the sport traces back to a single dog, a whippet named Ashley. The slender beastie and his owner slipped on to the field during a nationally televised football game a couple of decades ago and put on a show that brought roars from the crowd. They were shooed from the field that day, but were invited back so many times afterward that Ashley became a media star. The dog is long gone, of course, but his fellow Frisbee hounds now compete in a series of regional events leading up to a national championship in a sport that's still a kick for all involved.

If you think your dog has flying-disk potential, take a peek at the Web site of the National Capital Air Canines group (motto: "Where the Fur Comes to Fly"). The site (http://www.discdog.com) is comprehensive and well-organized, with many links to other related Web pages.

Gina Spadafori is the award-winning author of "Dogs for Dummies" and "Cats for Dummies," and is the editorial director of the Veterinary Information Network Inc., an international online service for veterinary professionals. Write to her in care of this newspaper, or e-mail to Giori(at)aol.com.

4520 Main St., Kansas City, Mo. 64111; (816) 932-6600

Does it seem like there's more dog fur in your house these days? There's a reason for it: The big fall shed.

Dogs typically lose their winter coats in the spring, when it is replaced by a shorter, lighter one for summer. In the fall, this cycle is reversed, as the summer coat is shed to make room for heavy protective fur for winter. The change is most obvious in "double-coated" breeds such as collies, shelties and keeshonden. Those breeds carry not only a harsh, protective long overcoat, but also a soft, insulating undercoat -- and they lose masses of fur from both in spring and fall.

The amount of shedding varies widely from breed to breed. German shepherds, for example, are prolific year-round shedders, while poodles seems to lose little fur at all. Shorthaired breeds may shed as much as long-haired breeds, but since the hair they shed is easily overlooked it may seem they are shedding less.

Even the heaviest shedders can be tamed, however, by a regular and frequent schedule of combing and brushing. After all, the fur you catch on a comb won't end up on a rug, chair or sweater. Work gently against the grain and close to the skin to catch as much of the ready-to-fall fur as possible. Ask the folks at a reputable pet-supply store for advice on the proper kind of grooming equipment. The brush that works fine on a Doberman won't make much headway in the thick mane of a full-coated collie at the height of a seasonal shed.

Shedding is normal no matter the breed, but some heavy shedding can be a sign of health problems. Skin allergies, parasites and hormonal problems may trigger above-average shedding, and poor nutrition can also be a cause of coat problems.

Become familiar with your pet's normal pattern of shedding, and ask your veterinarian for advice if coat condition seems too dull or excessive hair loss is noticed.

Pet-pourri: Are all calico and tortoiseshell cats female? Not always. One out of 3,000 cats with such markings is male, according to a study by the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Missouri.

Here's why: The gene that governs how the orange color in cats will be displayed is on the X, or female, chromosome. Any cat, male or female, can be orange, but in males that color usually is expressed in the tabby pattern, sometimes called a "ginger tom."

Females, however, can be orange tabbies, torties or calicoes. (The last two are genetically similar, except that the calico has white patches.)

Because orange females are divided among calicoes, torties and tabbies, it often seems that most orange tabbies are males, and statistically, males do make up the majority of orange tabbies. But it's a lot more common for females to be orange tabbies than for males to be either calicoes or torties.

That's because for a cat to be a calico or tortoiseshell it must have two X chromosomes, and that means in the vast majority of cases it's going to be female. When the calico pattern exists in a male, it's because the cat has three sex chromosomes, two X, one Y, a genetic rarity that occasionally shows up in cats (and people, too). If both of those X chromosomes carry the calico blueprint, you're looking at one rare cat: a male calico.

For the record, such "male-female" animals are called "Klinefelter males." They're usually -- but not always -- incapable of reproducing.

Pets on the Web: Want to know how a cat show works? Confused about the difference between the Norwegian forest and the Maine coon? Curious about how many color varieties you can find in Persians? You'll find the answers to all your questions and more on the Web site of the Cat Fanciers' Association (www.cfainc.org), the dominant breed registry in the world of cats. The CFA site is useful if you're interested in pedigreed cats or cat shows, but general cat care information is pretty basic here. The site of another breed registry, The International Cat Association (www.tica.org), offers a lot of the same sort of information with a different spin -- check out the TICA information on showing mixed-breed cats.

Gina Spadafori is the award-winning author of "Dogs for Dummies" and "Cats for Dummies," and is the editorial director of the Veterinary Information Network Inc., an international online service for veterinary professionals. Write to her in care of this newspaper, or e-mail to Giori(at)aol.com.

4520 Main St., Kansas City, Mo. 64111; (816) 932-6600