Pet Wellness Advocate
Breezing (relatively speaking) Through the Nightmare of an ACL Repair My majestically athletic, exuberant Weimaraner Maisie made it all the way to age six before she tore her ACL ligament in May. I had been living in absolute dread of it tearing for months before it happened. I was doing everything I could to protect... Read more »
Icky Ears? A lot of dogs have ears that are really bothering them---itchy, painful, irritated---and their people do not realize how much discomfort there are in. Do you have a dog with floppy ears---with flaps that hang down and create the perfect environment for bacteria and yeast to flourish? Does your dog scratch at her... Read more »
Make A Shelter Dog's Day: Take Him for Ice Cream I recently interviewed a multi-faceted graduate student, Allison Andrukonis, at the Animal and Food Sciences Department of Texas Tech University. She is doing a study on “compassion fatigue” in shelter workers---specifically “burn-out” and the emotional effects of euthanasia on the spirits of shelter workers. I... Read more »
What Can Possibly Be The Problem With Grain-Free Dog Food? I’m glad that the alarm bells have stopped ringing about the dangers of grain-free dog food. For a little while, there was a flurry of articles and cautionary advice about avoiding the dog foods labeled as “grain free” because there was a heart condition called... Read more »
Out-of-Litter-Box Issues are still the Biggest Problem for Cat Owners I’m so glad people have written in with out-of-litter-box problems, since this the main reason people give up on their kitties. Everybody who writes me with kitty questions gets a coupon for a free Comfort Zone pheromone diffuser, which for many cats helps to lower... Read more »
I got an enthusiastic message from Jenny, whose young daughter Brooks “is obsessed with dogs & would love to go to Dog Film Festival. Is it playing in our area? We live in Beacon NY & have family we visit in the Berkshires.” I wrote Jenny back to say she was in luck --- that... Read more »
How To Get Your Cat Off “Kitty Crack” And Slim Down For all of the 7 ½ years I had my own show on the Martha Stewart channel of Sirius satellite radio, I focused on feline health, especially as it related to nutrition. From my years of research for writing The Cat Bible: Everything Your... Read more »
A New Year’s Resolution: Shed Your Cat’s Excess Baggage [The first in a series of blogs about how to safely and successfully get your cat to lose weight] Many people don’t even realize their cat is fat, because we’ve all become accustomed to seeing overweight cats with hanging bellies, brick-shaped bodies, and a skeleton so... Read more »
We Rate Dogs---the Best “Inside Joke” in Dogdom I’m a pretty big Luddite when it comes to Twitter and Instagram, which means I miss out on a LOT of really fun, exciting, moving content relating to dogs and cats. I had always figured I was already so overwhelmed receiving weighty content about pets (books, studies,... Read more »
Dr. Elsey’s Precious Cat is Bringing Joy to Cat Lovers & Shelters Nationwide I was filled with hopeful excitement last year when Dr. Elsey’s Precious Cat --- my “precious” devoted sponsor of DOG TALK (and Kitties, Too!) (my NPR radio show) --- encouraged me to create a cat film festival to give kitty cats their... Read more »