Dog Tidbits

Today The Boston Globe ran an  article about dog chiropractors — as well as chiropractors for cats and other animals. Not too long ago, if you’d told a friend you were taking Fluffy to a dog chiropractor, she would have raised her eyebrows. But not now. Nowadays alternative medicines, including chiropractic, are becoming more and more accepted in treating companion animals in conjunction with traditional veterinary medicine.

The increasing acceptance and use of dog chiropractors — and of the practitioners of other nontraditional treatments — by guardians of companion animals shouldn’t surprise us. After all, over the past decades we’ve been humanizing our companion animals more and more and also seeing them as members of our families. Consider some signs of this development:

Fearful Dog Howling

Fearful dogs can be frightened of only one thing or of many things. I’ve read about dogs that are afraid of lightening or thunder, but nothing else. My fearful dog Faith happens to be afraid of just about everything under the sun: sudden noises, the gas fireplace in the living room, meeting new people, walking on the tile floor in the basement (even though she lived there for a month as a pup). The list can go on and on.

And if you’re like me, I’m sure you’ve wondered more than once what it is that made your dog fearful. Experts attribute fearful dog behavior to six root causes:

Let me state up front that I absolutely love Merrick dog food. Why? Because it was Merrick food that finally persuaded my fearful dog Faith to leave the living room after spending over a year there.

During all those months, I tried to entice Faith to come out using one kind of food after another, but none of them worked. When I finally tried Merrick dog food, Faith became terribly excited — as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks. In fact, Faith got so excited that, in her exuberance, her snout kept nudging the food bowl further and further toward the dining room while she chomped relentlessly on the food. At the same time, she was so intent on… Continue reading | 5 Comments

Our fearful dog Faith has been living with us for well over two-and-a-half years. A mentally challenged dog, Faith is afraid of just about everything under the sun. Sometimes living with her has been difficult. And since we adopted her, we’ve had to change our lifestyle to accommodate her psychological problems. But we haven’t given those changes an awful lot of thought.

We named her Faith because she had faith enough to come to our house as a three-month-old after spending a month in the woods. (For details, see How Faith Came into Our Lives.)

A Second Dog Named Faith

Recently Lisa sent me photos of a physically handicapped dog named Faith, who has just two legs. Maybe some… Continue reading

Aunt Sue's — A Local Pet Store in Chattanooga, TN

Big-box pet chains such as PETCO and PetSmart are ubiquitous in today’s landscape, which is crammed full of chain stores and franchises that have displaced local pet stores.

In addition to carrying pet products, most pet chains also offer grooming services and some have veterinary clinics as well, which makes one stop shopping easy. But if you patronize just those big-box pet chains, you’ll be doing yourself, your companion animal, and your community a big disservice.

You’re probably looking askance at me right now. Or maybe you think I’ve lost my mind… Continue reading

No bones about it — the FDA alert seemed to come straight out of The Onion. For thousands of years, our four-footed companions have been gnawing on bones. But now the FDA considers raw bones for dogs “dangerous” and wants us to stop giving them to our dogs. “Bones are unsafe,” claims Carmela Stamper, a vet at the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine CVM).

Initially, Stamper limited “dangerous” bones to large ones such as those from roasts or hams. But she then widened the bone “do-not-give” list to include all raw bones. “Bones are unsafe,” she maintains, “no matter what their size.”

Unfortunately, the nameless government bureaucrats at CVM (except for Ms. Stamper) haven’t considered… Continue reading