PetLvr.com - [The Blog]

THE CHALLENGE OF CHRONIC DERMATITIS IN DOGS

by T. J. Dunn, Jr. DVM
This article appeared in Dog World Magazine

What you should know…

Understanding that there are over 160 different skin disorders of dogs, some of which create chronic difficulties, will lead you to a patient and cooperative relationship with your veterinarian. As a team, you and the veterinarian should be proactive in defining the problem accurately and in a timely manner. Satisfactory results will require the doctor’s expertise and perseverance coupled with your permission and financial commitment.

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Animals that Do Not Make Good Pets

By Tonia Jordan

As humans, many of us have an affinity for animals. We seek companions in pets, but there are quite a number of animals that do not make good pets. Some of them are obvious, like very poisonous spiders and snakes, but some are not quite so obvious. Below are just a few of the animals that should not be kept as pets:

Scorpions - These animals do not require a great amount of care, but are not an ideal pet. Handling a scorpion is not a good idea - Besides the risk of its sting, scorpions become very stressed when handled, a health risk to the creature itself.

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Tips to Keep Your Pet Safe This Halloween

By David Brooks

The Halloween holiday can be a scary and dangerous time for your pet. By following some simple rules and advice you can keep your pet safe and comfortable without infringing on the family fun this halloween:

1. Don’t put costumes on your pets unless they are used to it. Wearing clothing can make pets uncomfortable. Be especially careful in warmer climates as tight fitting costumes will cause heat exhaustion very quickly.

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Enhancing Your Child’s Life with a Pet

By Terry Coyier

I have always loved having animals in my life. In fact, I can remember only a couple of years during my lifetime when I did not have a pet. When I was born, my parents already owned a Dalmatian, so I grew up with a four-legged sibling. Our dog, Pepper, was my constant companion, from the time I could walk (so I am told) until he died when I was ten. Being a large breed dog, he possessed a good temperament and endured my constant tugging of his tail and ears. He was the one thing I could always rely on, especially after my parents divorced when I was four. Pets are very sensitive to moods as well. When I cried, he licked my tears away. When I was happy, he rejoiced with me. He was always around to play with, to confide in (offering an unconditional listening ear) and to depend on. He died when I was ten years old and it was like losing my best friend.

Within two weeks we had another dog, at the suggestion of our doctor, because I entered a deep depression. Our new dog, a 2-year-old Doberman, quickly became my new best friend and brought me out of my depression by providing me with something to love and by loving me in return.

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New Technology Can Improve Your Pet’s IaQ

By Bruce Bley

In Atlanta, some of the more progressive, “high end”, pet boarding facilities (kennels) and veterinary clinics and specialists are doing something to improve your pet’s IaQ. That’s “Indoor Air Quality”, not Intelligence Quotient. These businesses are providing a healthy environment of clean, purified air in their facilities, using a unique and safe technology to eliminate most of the harmful things in the air that your pets breathe. The results are healthier, livelier, more alert pets and a healthier, happier staff. Pets suffer the same respiratory ailments as their human families, such as asthma, allergies, colds and chronic fatigue created by the air they breathe indoors, in addition to some unique ailments, such as “kennel cough”. And, pets (along with their human friends) are spending almost 90% of their time indoors. Pollen and air pollution and smog are all present outdoors during those Red Alert days. But the fact is that we have effectively sealed our families and pets inside with some very harmful things in the process of conserving energy. IAQ, or Indoor Air Quality, is a key concern these days.

Many of the major health agencies, including the EPA, World Health Organization and CDC are concerned about the quality of our indoor air. Indoor air pollution consists of three major categories:

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OCTOBER IS ADOPT A DOG MONTH! Everyone who adopts a dog or puppy during the month of October will be automatically entered to win back their adoption fee and a nice gift basket!

THE WINNIPEG HUMANE SOCIETY IS OVERRUN WITH CATS! CAT PROMOTION RUNNING OCTOBER 19-25, ADULT CATS 6 MONTHS+ ARE $25.00. See shelter for details.

Oprah, 128190

Oprah is a terrific dog! Found stray, this beautiful Rottie had obviously been nursing puppies somewhere, although no one came forward for her. Roughly 2 years old, Oprah is very smart, loves attention & knows some tricks, including “sit pretty”- it’s quite the sight! She quickly became a staff favorite! Oprah listens well & is best suited to a confident owner who can continue working with her as she has so much potential. $159.00 adoption fee includes her spay, vet exam, behaviour evaluation, pet insurance, microchip & more!

Betsy, 126657

This little sweetie pie has been with us since July 29 when she was brought in stray. Betsy is one of the many felines awaiting adoption into loving homes at The WHS. Betsy is available for adoption at Grant Park Pet Valu, 475-4505 one of our satellite adoption centres (SAC) located throughout the city, please check our website for more available cats and other SACs, www.winnipeghumanesociety.ca! As a longterm cat, reduced adoption fee applies & includes her spay, microchip, vet exam, pet insurance & more!

Did you know? All cat & dog adoption fees include spay or neuter, microchip, 6 weeks of pet insurance, vaccine & much more!

If you would like to adopt one of these pets, please contact:

Chantal Young,
Adoption Coordinator
Phone: (204) 982-3558
Email: chantaly@humanesociety.mb.ca

The Winnipeg Humane Society
5 Kent Street
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
R2L 1X3
Phone: (204) 982-2021
Fax: (204) 982-2047

www.winnipeghumanesociety.ca

Where every adoptable dog finds a home and cats get a second chance at life!

Welcome to our 2,000th Post

It’s true .. this is our 2,000th blog entry here at PetLvr.com - [The Blog] and you can verify it by clicking on this link … http://PetLvr.com/blog/?p=2000 .. although, I should warn you that it really may not be an accurate count. While this is the 2000th post created by my wordpress blog - it IS possible that I might have deleted a post or two during our travels (for instance if a duplicate was found). So, if this is really my 1,998th post or not .. I’ll leave it up to my groupies to check the ARCHIVES at the top menu and count the posts manually!

I thought that for this “milestone” post, I would point out a few things around [The Blog]. I’m sure you were wondering what it’s all about! This post is pretty much a duplicate copy of our 1,000th Post Online (January 26, 2006) .. but I thought it would work well again - on our 2,000th Post (October 24, 2006)

So, here is HART’s Pictorial for you

In No Particular Order

* GREETINGS - My Name Is HART

I am your host here, and have been the one doing most of the posting. I hope you find the information interesting.

There’s more about my philosophy of this blog in the “ABOUT” page. While, yes, it is my website and I do most of the blogging, I feel that this blog is for the greater good - for ALL EARTHLINGS who loves animals - by having a community sense of blogging information. We have co-contributors of blog information, and I have been posting many articles from various sources and authors about many topics. There are DEFINATELY duplicate topics in here, because I believe that you shouldn’t have to rely on one rigid thinking that your pet will follow a simple set of written rules and directions by someone, who has never even seen your pet or know what you and your pet is all about. If you have many viewpoints, suggestions and opinions in front of you .. I think you are intelligent enough and love your pet enough to try and take that information and use it to the best of both you and your pets to make this world (this is the part you should bring out the kleenex box) .. make this world a better place just by having pets and making out lives richer being with out pets!

If you want to contribute stories about your pet and any pet related topic, we are always looking for co-contributors here at PetLvr.com … please refer to the “WANTED” top menu link.

* MAXXIE (right) and SOPHIE (left) ALSO OFFER THEIR GREETINGS!

Aren’t they cute? I’ve been trying to post pictures when I can on THEIR blog .. PapillonLvr.com/blog/ but as many as I have (about 50 in every possible pose each!) I probably should be posting more often if I could! I sometimes post their pictures in this blog, but not that often.

* TEXT-LINK-AD SPONSORING

We have now been offering up to 10 spots in Text Link Advertising, which appears in our sidebar under the “Sponsors” heading. Currently, on or about the 10th of each month - I am posting a Thank-You post to all sponsors on record as at the month-end date of the previous month. That’s a permanent link in this blog.

* AFFILIATED PRODUCTS AND BANNERS

Yes .. I do receive a commission if anybody ever signs up for these after clicking on the banner found in the sidebar of this blog. I don’t expect to receive anything ever, although I tried. Soon, I will be replacing it with something else. I should note, that I do make a small commission on the google Adsense ads and chitika mini emalls you see throughout the site. I don’t make much at all. I will say, that I hope that eventually it will help cover the costs of hosting my websites, and even afford a long overdue vacation my wife deserves to have come December 2006 … We’ll see, and I’m not quitting my day job just in case!

(UPDATE: Well - that vacation will not be happening! But slowly I am recouping part of my hosting fees!)

* PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO OUR RSS FEED

RSS Feed - it’s all the rage! What does it mean for you? If you have a news feeder (I use the online Bloglines.com as my choice) all you have to do is click on the funny red RSS or FEED button on the right and add that URL to your favorite reader. If you use Bloglines too, all you have to do is click on the bloglines button on the left. If you use other methods, there are other choices below in the right sidebar under “Other Syndication”

Please add me our RSS feed !! When you do, the number in our Feedburner “ENTRY SUBSCRIBERS” (under the Blog Stuff section) will increase. C’mon! Boost HART’s Ego and sign up for our feed! Have all of our posts come to you automatically at your leisure!

* WE DO CATEGORIZE OUR POSTS HERE!

You may have notice that at the top of every post, it says.. “Filed under:” - this is our way of categorizing each post so if you are looking for similar posts, they are all sorted out together. In our case, because we have a lot of categories, I placed them all in a drop down menu, as seen above and in our sidebar. All you have to do is browse, select a topic, and you will jump directly to the pages that have only that related topic.

* OUR PETLVR SEARCH WORKS GREAT!

If you are looking for a particular topic, try our search field. Believe it or not, I do go into my stats and review what people are searching for, so if I see something being searched a lot, I will try to get that information and put it back into the blog! So, not only is this search field here to help you find the information you want, it also helps me find the information that you wanted, but couldn’t find.

* THESE ARE THE NAVIGATION LINKS

If we let 100% of the posts show up on our main page or in our search results, the side scrolling bar would be too tiny for you to grab and scroll the page! Naturally, we can only show a certain amount of posts - but the posts are still there! All you have to do is click on the NEXT PAGE to get the previous page of posts and PREVIOUS PAGE to go back to the new page of posts .. Ya - I know - sounds silly, eh? You see, you are going to NEXT PAGE as you dwelve deeper into the archives!

* PRINT ANY ARTICLE

On every post, to make it easier for you to re-print just the text and forget all about the graphics and spacing issues, all you have to do is click on the above link at the top of each post. A new page will be displayed, and at the BOTTOM there is an easy link to just click - and it prints.

* OUR TOP MENU BAR ..

When I mentioned ‘Top Menu Button’s, I meant from the link on the top menu bar as displayed above. Lots of goodies there! Have you tried our FREE Greeting E-Cards? It’s a simple script I am using. What I did was place some standard pictures from our PetLvr Gallery, and added a few .mp3 and sounds .. If you wanted to send people a customized E-Card, I am willing to upload your picture and/or .mp3 just to accomodate.. how cool is that?

* OUR TOP MENU LOGO GRAPHIC

Some people didn’t know this, but it doesn’t matter on what page you are viewing .. if you click on the graphic, you will go to the MAIN / START / HOME page of the blog, to this root location PetLvr.com/blog/ .. I don’t understand why other sites do not offer this simple feature to make it easier to navigate back home. It’s almost as useful as the BACK and FORWARD buttons!

* OUR “LVR” SERIES OF BLOGS

During the period since our 1,000th post, we started a whole bunch of new blogs to more or less segregate the “breeds” and “types” and “classes” of pets found in our ‘Breed Information’ category. These sites are as follows:

DogLvr.com
CatLvr.com
FishLvr.com
HorseLvr.com
BirdLvr.com

We consider with our PapillonLvr.com and PetLvr.com part of this “LVR” series of blogs.

~~~~~~~~~~~

THANK-YOU EVERYBODY FOR VISITING PETLVR.COM … WE SHOULD DO THIS AGAIN .. ON OUR 3,000th POST!

~~~~~~~~~~~

And Finally …

* HART-EMPIRE NETWORK

Do you have a site that might fit under one of the categories in our sidebar? We are a network of blogs and if you want to be apart of that, check it out.

Your Cat Goes Missing

By Kadence Buchanan

According to the most recent Synovate pet survey (Sept. 2005), conducted in nine markets across the globe, the UK and the US were shown to be the two absolute leaders in pet ownership. Specifically, three-quarters (75%) of the UK respondents were pet owners. Since cats are low maintenance, independent, and affectionate, they fit in well with urban working lifestyles and have become the favorite pet for million of pet-owners over the last 30 years. But although cat-owners are familiar with the sight of a cat wondering the city streets early in the morning and then returning to its owner’s residence to rest and eat, statistics reveal that cats are lost, stolen or abandoned and need owners who are caring and also willing to devote time to monitor their “free” lifestyles.

Thus, in order to minimize the chances of you ever having to file a missing cat report and to provide to all cat-lovers out there a short list of the things one should know and do before his or her independent companion decides to migrate and explore the unknown, we have collected the following tips you should carefully read, keeping in mind that you should not get discouraged or panic if your cat actually disappears. By following our advice and keeping yourself organized and prepared at all times, the chances are that you will be reunited with your lost friend again soon.

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Spaying - A Simple Procedure With Great Benefits For Your Pet

By Lorie Huston

Spaying your female pet has many benefits, both for you, as a pet owner, and for your pet. Besides preventing unwanted litters of puppies or kittens, spaying can also help make make it possible for your female pet to lead a longer and healthier life.

Let’s start at the beginning. Spaying your pet means removing the female reproductive organs, specifically the uterus and ovaries, so that your pet can no longer become pregnant. The more technical name for a spay is an ovariohysterectomy (or OHE, for short).

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What Do You Know About Fish Tank Care?

By Michael Saville

Having an aquarium can be a source of great joy and satisfaction. People who have fish as pet find that they feel calmer and happier when they watch the aquarium. Fish make really great pets, and do not make hardly any demands on your time or any other resource. This is why they are considered favorite pets in millions of houses.

Some Facts and Myths about Fish Tank Care

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