The Best of YouTube: Disney Edition

How about a little silliness for a Friday? In the tradition of my recurring Pets blog posts on the best of animals on the internet, today I’ve done a round-up of the best Disney-related videos on YouTube. I’m not talking clips from films or music videos made with Disney soundtracks, but the best moments from the parks, song covers, and more. I’ll start off with the first series of videos that inspired this post. Actor Darren Criss has become famous for his role as Blaine on the television show “Glee,” but his internet popularity started before that. On the ‘net … Continue reading

Dog: Elephant’s Best Friend

I’ve wanted to post this video for a long time. However, I try to space out my articles about cute animal videos, or unlikely animal best friends, and this is one of both. It just might edge out the hand-holding otters for my favorite animal video on the internet. A few months ago CBS Evening News highlighted the extraordinary events at The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee. While the sanctuary is ostensibly for elephants and caters mostly to them, it does take in other needy animals, particularly stray dogs. Because there are 2,700 acres at the Sanctuary, there’s plenty of … Continue reading

The Best Animals on the Internet

I thought I would use today’s blog to have some lighthearted fun to send us into the long weekend. I’m highlighting my favorite animal videos and stories that I’ve found around the web. They’re not long enough to warrant entire posts like the times I’ve talked about dog and capybara best friends or countries-crossing cats, but altogether they’ll make for an amusing way to start off the weekend early. The first video I want to share—my absolute favorite animal video online—features two adorable otters. They might be good friends or maybe they’re sweethearts, but they spend the majority of the … Continue reading

Killer Cats on the Loose

One of the most popular news stories to break last week was a new estimation of the deaths attributed to domesticated house cats.  We’re not talking people deaths, but the deaths of small birds and mammals; that might seem insignificant, but the number is in the billions.  Researchers from the Smithsonian and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that although the worst offenders are feral and stray cats, one in three domesticated cats also kills animals in its neighborhood.  Those cats average two kills a week. When it’s well-fed, domesticated cats doing the killing, they’re not usually keeping these … Continue reading

Koshik the Talking Elephant

Could our next best friend be an elephant?  Maybe not for most of us here stateside, where we’re not exactly equipped to properly look after pachyderms.  But the news out of a zoo in South Korea, reported by BBC News, shows that an elephant has entered the next stage of the human-animal bond: talking. Before now, the only animals we could conceive of really being able to replicate our speech were parrots.  Now elephants are joining the list.  Koshik is a 12-year-old Asian elephant that lives at a zoo in South Korea.  When he started making sounds that his keepers thought … Continue reading

Find A Vet on Pet Advocate

I’ve talked – extensively – about how important it is to find a good veterinarian. I’ve done that, however, without offering much advice about how to do so. Finding a good vet (or doctor, or dentist, or anything) is always tricky if you’re new to an area, or if you’re the only person you know who has pets. I went through it myself. When I first moved here I only knew one other person who had a pet, and she doesn’t take her cat to the vet very often. She’s the one who recommended the low-cost clinic to which I … Continue reading

What’s Your Dream Pet?

A topic I’ve been playing with for a while on the families.com pets forums is: what’s your dream pet? As an animal lover since childhood I’ve gone through many species I’ve wanted to keep as pets, and it’s always fun to hear what other people dream about as well. My dream pets are usually wild species; there’s actually a chance of me getting to keep a teacup pig, for example, but I’ll never get to have a tiger as my personal friend and protector like Jasmine did in “Aladdin.” I know better than to actually try to keep any sort … Continue reading

Heartwarming Tales from Across the Web

Guide dogs for other dogs aren’t entirely uncommon Months ago I posted about the best animals on the internet, rounding up the latest of the funniest or cutest animal stories I’d seen. Today I want to share two of the most heartwarming stories about dogs I saw in October. MSNBC Today has the first story. Erica Daniel specializes in fostering the dogs that really need help, either for behavioral or health issues. She’s used to not giving up, to pouring everything she can into healing these dogs so that they’re ready to go into homes. This summer she found herself … Continue reading

Rare Pets: Axolotls

Usually in the Rare Pets column I cover animals that are uncommon pets, but still species of which most readers of heard. Today I’m going to look at a truly rare pet, one some of you might not have known existed until today: the axolotl. The axolotl is a type of salamander, native to Mexico, so in that it’s not an unheard-of pet. It certainly looks like a strange kind of salamander, however, which prompts its common nickname: water dragon. Despite its odd appearance and perhaps off-putting (or for some, encouraging) moniker, however, axolotls can make good pets. Here are … Continue reading

Car Insurance – True or False? – Round Two

How much do you really know about car insurance? This is one of those subjects that can end up costing you a lot of money if you cannot discern the truth from the myths. Do you think you can pick out the facts from the fiction about car insurance? Earlier this year, I wrote a blog that emphasized some of the misinformation about car insurance that tends to travel around the internet. Some of these pieces of incorrect information have been repeated so often that they are starting to almost sound like facts. How much do you know about auto … Continue reading