Blog

I was walking Otto the other day when his head and tail went up and he gave a little whine – one that usually indicates that he's spotted a dog in the yard we are about to walk past. In our town, there are lots of dogs that are lying on porches or under trees in fenced yards, and when you walk by with your dog, they come flying toward the fence: some barking hysterically, some staying silent until the last terrifying moment when they hit the fence and let out a roar. Otto is as good as any dog I've ever seen about holding our course in the face of these dramatic approaches; he neither runs nor retaliates nor attempts to fight through the fence, but he usually will let out a whine of anxiety or excitement, prance a little, and (occasionally) will stop and lift a leg on the fence, and sometimes the very nose of the offending dog on the other side of the fence!

Rehoming a dog due to loss of income, loss of a home, or another extreme circumstance is understandable. In other scenarios it's less clear if rehoming is the best option.

On March 2, 2021, USA Today published an article about the Seresto collar, originally developed and brought to the market by Bayer Animal Health...

Otto is my own mixed-breed dog, nearly seven years old and wise. He always knows when I’m feeling down, and positions himself nearby. He’s...

At the peak of the Camp Fire emergency, over 2,000 animals were in temporary shelters in a number of locations. This included large animals – horses, donkeys, cows, goats, sheep, pigs, and llamas – who were all taken to a local fairgrounds, where they were held in pens much like any they had ever been held in. I'm sure they experienced some anxiety, but given that their feed and housing was not much different than what most of them had experienced before, I would hazard a guess that they were more or less none the worse for wear. I'd guess the same could be said for the barnyard poultry: hundreds of geese, ducks, and chickens who were also evacuated or rescued from the fires. Lots of these birds were held temporarily at the shelter where I spent the most time volunteering, and they all seemed mentally and physically just fine, even the ones being held in crates in the medical treatment rooms while under treatment for injuries or illness.

Warnings about pets and fireworks are so ubiquitous on social media today, that it seems like repeating the obvious to warn pet owners that they should take extra steps to secure their pets for the holiday. However, there are some fine points to consider that I'd like to add to the suggestions that are most commonly shared.

The warnings all discuss taking various precautions to prevent your pet from being traumatized or escaping on the July 4th holiday. Actually, you had better ramp up those preparations NOW, since many people who buy fireworks start celebrating days in advance! With the holiday on Tuesday this year, I would expect to hear lots of snap, crackle, and pops this weekend.

One minute, my husband and I were having a perfectly ordinary conversation in the kitchen. In the next moment, I was ripping off my sweatshirt, my...

Whether or not the dog DNA tests that purport to reveal the breeds that have gone into your mixed-breed dog are accurate, they are...

Recently, I was surprised and happy to receive some photos and a report from one of the families who adopted a puppy from the...

WDJ's review of dry dog food appears in the February issue, every year. And, every February, we try to share new information with WDJ's readers about how to differentiate between dry dog foods of varying quality, and how to go about selecting the best foods for their dogs. Some of our readers have been with us for a long time; we don't want to repeat the same information year after year, but strive to share information that is new and interesting, even to people who know a LOT about canine nutrition. But neither do we want to "lose" dog owners who are new to the publication by assuming a level of knowledge of the pet food industry that they don't yet have.

In the February 2018 dry food review, now available to paid subscribers online and in print form, the emphasis is on the cost of quality: what you are paying for with the highest-priced foods, especially as compared to the moderately priced and low-priced foods.

wholedogjournal_blog

The difficulty in obtaining routine veterinary care may have contributed to the surge in pet overpopulation – but since that’s a long-term problem in...