Introducing Animalle Mundo: A Doggie Love Hotel

Christmas might be a holiday for familial, not romantic, love, but with this notice you might have the time to start planning so your pet can have its romantic getaway.  That’s right, a romantic getaway for your pet.  If you’re trying to breed your dog and you want to do it in style, consider Animalle Mundo Pet.  It’s a hotel in Brazil, one that keeps in tradition with the country’s ritzy amorous motels.  The New York Times reports. You can find short-stay hotels all over the world, but Brazil is a leader in both having them, and in making them … Continue reading

Cold-Weather Gear for Your Pet

As the weather turns colder for most of us, it’s time to get our coats out of the back of the closet. Some of our pets require winter apparel as well, and ZooToo has a rundown of some of the latest products out on the market for keeping your pets warm. You can go with the traditional cute little sweaters and jackets that fill aisles at pet stores, or you can try something a bit different for your pets this winter. What you need depends on you and your pet’s lifestyle, so we’ll take a look at three different types. … Continue reading

Meeting the Neighbor Dogs

I’ve blogged before about my neighbor’s dogs, the ones she lets roam free through the neighborhood. Sometimes I see them in our yard. Yesterday while I was working, I noticed one of them, the tan one, out the window. I went outside to greet it, as I always do whenever I see any of the neighborhood pets. They all, cats and dogs included, run away from me. This dog did the usual, but I thought of something: I called for it to come here. I didn’t think it was a dangerous dog, because our neighbor said he isn’t. He also … Continue reading

Have A Happy Halloween With Your Toddler

Halloween is just around the corner, and for the parents of toddlers it can be both a very fun and a very challenging holiday to navigate. Getting your little guy or girl into a costume is not likely to be much of a battle because most toddlers love to play “dress up”. If you want, you can even get into the act with a compatible costume for yourself. Your toddler is sure to love seeing Mommy, Daddy, or both “playing dress up” too. This year, Dylan has decided that he would like to be a fireman. He already has his … Continue reading

Where Were Your Ancestors In 1940?

There are always interesting things to be found on the Ancestry.com blog. Today’s find is a really neat collection of infographics. An infographic is just what the name implies, a pictorial representation of information. The set of infographics that I found on the Ancestry.com blog includes one for each state in the United States, with pictures that show what was going on there around the time that the 1940 census was taken. The infographic which is pictured with this blog post depicts the state of Massachusetts, where I was born. Apparently, there was a lot going on there in 1940, … Continue reading

Service Dogs for Veterans

Training future service dogs Last month my mom sent me an interesting article from Smithsonian Magazine that she thought would make a good topic for the Pets blog (thanks Mom!) It was about the growing movement to provide service dogs to combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. I’ve written before about two topics very close to this one: rescue organizations dedicated to providing dogs to veterans, and military dogs developing PTSD. Now the two are combined. The dogs provided by Pets for Patriots aren’t necessarily service dogs, though they do deliver a wonderful service for veterans. In this case, more … Continue reading

Living with Dogs Might Improve Baby Health

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a real reason to keep our dogs around our babies? Some people are terrified of the idea, thinking that it’s dangerous to let dogs around small children. At first it’s best never to leave dogs alone with babies, to make sure the animals know to be gentle around them. However, we pet owners know that some dogs are great with babies. There have already been some studies about how being around dogs in the first year of infancy can help reduce the chances of a child later developing allergies to dogs, but what about … Continue reading

Pets Leaving Food: Should You Worry?

My cats have caused so many food-related problems this year. I went from giving my cats food once a day to twice a day, then three times, having to split up normal portions into weird smaller amounts. My cat’s gluttony, food thievery, mischievous behavior, and sudden desire to eat people food all prompted my decision. As spring progressed and melted into summer, I thought I’d finally sorted things out. No, now my cats have changed their eating habits again. It all started when Jon and I left for a weekend. I put out two days’ worth of food; we weren’t … Continue reading

Salmonella in Dog Food Infects Humans

Remember that giant Diamond Pet foods recall from earlier in the year? It stretched from December through May, and covered a staggering variety of pet foods. It wasn’t just that hundreds of specific bags of pet food were affected, but also that so many different brands of kibble were all infected. I thought the story was finally over in May when it seemed like we’d heard the last of the recalls. I’m not writing today to inform you that another recall has been announced, but to update the story. At the time although some dogs were reported as coming down … Continue reading

Cat People vs. Dog People

I’ve already debunked the whole cats and dogs can never get along theory. What about whether you’re a cat person or a dog person, and what that says about your personality? I recently caught part of a NOVA documentary exploring that very thing, and I wish I’d seen more of it. The opening was full of cat people and dog people talking about the respective attributes of their favorite mammals, before examining what life is like at home for each of them. Although the concept was fascinating, I felt a little put out. What about me? I love dogs and … Continue reading