| YOUR WHOLE PET
In the next Your Whole Pet, I'll take a look at how to get a pet from ethical sources. In the meantime, when checking out a breeder, be sure that you can meet the puppy's mother and see where the puppies are being housed. And if the only test you have to pass to get the puppy is whether your check clears or your credit card charge goes through, that's a pretty good sign the breeder doesn't have the puppy's best interests at heart -- or yours. The following companies donated services, tests, medications, food and products to help the Oklahoma puppy-mill dogs: MWI Veterinary Supply, Fort Dodge, Purina, Bayer, Merial, IDEXX Laboratories, Antech Diagnostics and DVM Pharmaceuticals. Christie Keith is a contributing editor for Universal Press Syndicate's Pet Connection and past director of the Pet Care Forum on America Online.
Send pet to school
We have an invisible fence so he can run the whole yard, which is almost an acre in a small town. I have developed arthritis in my back so bad in the past year I cannot handle the dog physically and now cannot walk him on a leash as he needs. We tried a bark collar on him when he was a puppy. It worked, but he had diarrhea every time we used it. -- P.S. DEAR P.S.: You can't leave a German shepherd in a yard alone unsupervised until they are 2 or 3 years old, depending on their bloodlines. If you do, you'll develop a barking and/or guard dog aggression issue. I won't leave any dog in a yard alone unsupervised until they are adults. At the very least, without your guidance, they just learn to bark at anything. .
Chihuahua diagnosis good, vet faces court
Today the Chihuahua went to another vet for a diagnosis. On her first birthday, this five pound pooch received some very good news. "He thinks that her eyesight will be totally back," owner Maryann Deluca said. The tiny Chihuahua made big news after it was injured during a visit for spay surgery on June 4th at the Sun City West animal clinic. According to investigators, technicians allegedly saw Dr. Joshua Winston strike Bella in the head causing her right eye to pop out. Bella's owner said Dr. Winston called her immediately after the incident. Dr. Joshua Winston was arrested, but he told us there's a lot more to the story and is confident his name will be cleared. "During the course of good, standard care things can happen that are hard for someone outside the field to understand," he said.
SOCIAL STOOP
June 10, 2007 -- IT'S funny how dogs make friends out of strangers - like my late neighbor Mitch Pressler. A fixture on East 90th Street for decades, he'd sit on his building's stoop, surveying the block. Passersby stopped to hang with him, especially those on four legs: Savory the miniature pinscher, Paco the pug, Paddy the Lhasa apso, Lincoln the beagle, Lola the bulldog and my pack of pit bulls and mutts all gravitated to Mitch because he loved dogs. Mitch regularly followed this column, too. "Very good article," he'd call out to me from his stoopside perch. Certain stories really got him talking, notably the one about how senior citizens struggle to keep pets in rent-stabilized apartments. He added his voice to the outcry when City Council Speaker Christine Quinn failed to support Intro 13, the Pets in Housing Bill.
Crazy canine competition
- Dusty whimpered as he watched his toy duck float away, but the golden retriever was leery of jumping off a 3-foot-high dock to retrieve it. Chris Gates and his 12-year-old daughter, Brittany, petted, coaxed and splashed Dusty, as other dog owners standing around the small pond at Forever Friends Pet Care Center yelled encouraging words. After several tries, Gates did what any dog-loving dad would do. He jumped into the pond. Dusty eventually followed. "Did I have the arc?" joked a dripping-wet Gates. Welcome to DockDogs, where dog owners end up having as much fun as their dogs - maybe more. The sport, often called "Big Air," first appeared on ESPN in 2000 and since has become the fastest-growing dog activity in the country, says Tina McLaughlin, president of Buckeye DockDogs, Ohio's only club.
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