Search Results for: blog intro from a lifelong animal lover

Glam Shots for Shelter Animals

Do I look cool/cute enough to take home? I have a horrible addiction: I love to look at pictures of dogs and cats on petfinder.com. I know I shouldn’t, but sometimes I just can’t resist. I’ve always been an avid Petfinder follower. I’ve spent time looking at it since I was in high school, and I found the first two pets of my adult life through the site. At this stage I can reasonably say I’m a Petfinder expert. One thing I’ve learned from Petfinder is the importance of creating a good profile for the pets. I’ve seen some pet … Continue reading →

Intro from a Lifelong Animal Lover

As the new pet blogger at families.com, I thought I’d take a post to introduce myself. My name is Angela Shambeda, and I’ve been with families.com since November 2009. You can also find me over at the Disney blog. I thought I’d tell a story from my childhood as part of my introduction. When I was in fourth grade I wrote my very first research paper on harp seals. While working on the paper I learned that conservationists would often spray stripes of bright paint over the coats of harp seals, particularly the babies. They would do so to protect … Continue reading →

My First Pet

As long as I can remember I’ve wanted a dog. In preschool when I was around three-years-old we had the assignment to write out our Christmas present wish list. A dog was at the very top of mine. At first my wish for a dog might have just been the childish desire for one that many kids get, but my love of animals has never gone away. Unfortunately, my parents were never very interested in the work most pets, cats and especially dogs, entailed, especially as they knew that a child of my age wouldn’t end up taking any real … Continue reading →

Adopting When Renting

As I’ve stated many times before, I’ve been an animal lover for as long as I can remember. I began the process for adopting a dog and then a cat as soon as I knew I would be able to take good care of them. I knew that my husband and I wouldn’t have the easiest time adopting a dog because we were renting an apartment. I thought it might help that our apartment was part of an actual house; our landlords were fine with most breeds of dogs and had their own cat. Many rescues in our area, however, … Continue reading →

The Basics of Horse Care, Pt. 1

With the Christmas season approaching many of us might be considering giving pets as gifts. I’ve always been clear on my stance: don’t give any animal as a surprise present. Make sure the giftee knows what he or she is receiving and is ready and willing for the responsibilities which come with that particular animal. Maybe some of you are actually thinking about purchasing a particular pet that was always my special holidays dream: a horse. Sure I wanted a dog, but I always thought that might be within the realm of possibility. A horse is what I always wanted … Continue reading →

Cities Adopt Pet Store Ban

Growing up I was never fond of that common teenage ritual: frequenting the mall. But some of my friends were, so sometimes I would accompany them on the trip. I did enjoy going to a couple stores like the bookstore and our local mall’s pet store. I’ve said many times before how much I wanted a dog growing up, and the cat my parents adopted instead made me love cats as well. By my later teenage years we didn’t have any pets in the house anymore, so I enjoyed going to look at the pets in the pet store. The … Continue reading →

Do Dogs And Babies Mix?

“Don’t worry – our dog is GREAT around children.” “Your baby can play safely on the floor while our dog walks around. He would never hurt a fly.” “Sure, she can pet him. He’s never bitten anyone.” How many times have you heard phrases like this when dogs and babies are in the same room? I’m an animal lover. I was never allowed to have a pet, but I made friends with all of the neighborhood animals. I’ve never had a bad experience with any animal, let alone a dog. I think raising animals teaches children valuable lessons in responsibility … Continue reading →

Cats and Dogs Really Can Get Along

They’re as universal an example of opposites as up and down, day and night, right and left. Even the line “cats and dogs getting along” is sometimes used as a turn of phrase for unbelievable events. Thus there’s an idea out there that one has to be either a cat person or a dog person. One can’t love both equally, or one certainly can’t have both as pets without inviting a fur-flying frenzy into the home. At best they’ll get along by avoiding each other for the most part, and at worst they’ll need to be separated. Except that simply … Continue reading →