Sunday's "Living With Your Pet Tips": Take This Thanksgiving Food Quiz...

          Fabulous photo of me by John Clark of Clark Creative

With the big American eating holiday just a few days away, why not take this quiz posted on the Found Animals blog, The Water Bowl, to test your knowledge of Thanksgiving food safety for your furry friends. Would you (or better yet, should you) feed your dog any of these holiday favorites: cranberry compote, turkey (and/or turkey bones and skin), sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts...yay or nay? Better to find out now rather than when your four-legged family member upchucks something scary under Uncle Burt's feet...

P.S. As you're preparing your holiday feast, why not take a spare moment and enter our two giveaways we've got running: Win one of two, Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups DVD's fresh from Disney, and a $50 gift card with free shipping to Pet Food Direct-it will only take a few minutes to enter, and who couldn't use a charming, family-friendly movie to watch over the holidays, or 50 bucks worth of free pet supplies?

A always, many thanks for your support!

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Easy Like Sunday..."Living With Your Pet Tips": Why You Should Microchip Your Pet

You know, Parental Unit was a bit "iffy" on microchips because she was worried that they might cause skin irritation or worse, based on some of the articles she'd read. But she had no choice in the matter when she got me-I came from the local shelter and the good folks there neutered and micro chipped me before they let me go to my new home (whew-glad that's over!). But the more she's read about microchips in the last four years, she's come to believe that there's no reason to worry-and that at the very least, the benefits outweigh any risks.

We learned today from our friends at Found Animals Foundation that May is "Microchip Your Dog Month"-who knew? And then we read this article from Cesar's Way where the Dog Whisperer discusses his reasons in favor of micro chipping your dog-in fact, he advocates as do some other countries and a few U.S. communities, the mandatory micro chipping of all dogs.

         Photo of Cesar Millan and Junior courtesy of Cesar's Way

Here are some of the reasons that the Dog Whisperer advocates mandatory micro chipping, besides the fact that you're more likely to find your dog if he or she is lost or even stolen:

__ It likely will discourage the abandonment of dogs-removing the dog's collar and tags wouldn't be enough to avoid tracing the dog back to the offending owners-and perhaps people might not abandon their dogs if they thought the dog and the crime of dog abandonment or endangerment could be tracked back to them.

__It also will likely discourage those who "buy dogs to use as weapons"-dogs who are trained using incredibly cruel techniques to harm other dogs or people. "If the dog was micro chipped, just like a gun with a serial number, it could be traced back to the owner."

And the bottom line is that micro chipping reduces the number of strays, shelter-overcrowding and euthanasia rates-problems that unfortunately, are still not under control.

By the way, Found Animals Foundation has a free resource to register your dog's micro chip that you can check out right here: www.foundanimals.org/pet-identification/pet-microchipping?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_campaign=dog_club_5_20_12.
And it is important that you make sure that your pet's micro chip number and your contact information are registered together. We're not sure if mine is correctly registered so we're off to check right now.

Is your pet micro chipped? Do you think it should be mandatory? Let us know!

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Easy Like Sunday..."Living with Your Pet" Tips

Photo courtesy of FoundAnimals.org

On this sunny Easter Sunday, we thought we'd bring you some tips to keep your cats happy and healthy, from a veterinarian who writes for Found Animals, that wonderful organization that promotes the rescue and care of companion dogs and cats. Dr. Mark (whose last name we can't find anywhere!), is a veterinarian who writes for the Found Animals Blog, The Water Bowl. In this post, he describes these "five essentials" to properly caring for your sweet, playful kitty. We particularly like the last one that favors cat "enrichment" toys- all cats have natural instincts that can be depressed if they live indoors-so the thoughtful owner of felines should provide enrichment toys or activities so their pets can actually use their instincts, at least to some degree. One example are toys that simulate the hunt for food, which indoor cats don't normally exercise...unless the indoors has lots of bugs or mice!

                 Here's Bella using her natural instincts...

        We hope you all have a Happy Easter and Passover!

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We're "Stars of the Week" for Found Animals Foundation!

We are thrilled to announce that we were chosen to be one of Found Animals stars of the week!
This amazing organization, based in California,  is a privately funded, non-profit organization "dedicated to  minimizing shelter euthanasia" through the implementation of a several pronged strategic approach:
__ Sterilization programs
__ Adoption Events
__Dedicated resources for programs like micro chipping, and
__ Outreach and education
They have been tremendously successful since their founding in 2008!

So without further introduction, here's the link to our featured page: www.foundanimals.org/index.php/stars-of-the-week.html
And if you have extra time, we're also featured with additional pictures and video on their Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/foundanimals

We hope you enjoy seeing our pictures and video as much as we did making it! Don't tell Parental Unit I'm advertising this, but she had never shot or uploaded video before, so she was a real pain in the neck to Found Animals incredibly gracious technical staff. Hopefully, they've forgiven her :-)

For more details about Found Animals Foundation, Inc. and to read the super impressive bios of its founders, check out their website here: www.foundanimals.org.

And the great news is that you too can apply to be "stars of the week"!  As long as you have a rescued pet, you're eligible to apply-we can hardly wait to see some of our friends there!

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