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Choosing Your Pet
Select your new dog with your lifestyle and living situation in mind. In addition to your new family member's personality, consider its temperament, size, and coat as well. Some breeds have traits that may be objectionable in certain circumstances, such as hyper excitability or a tendency to bark. Your veterinarian is a valuable resource and should be consulted before you acquire a pet of any kind.
Breed Selection
There are two types of dogs--purebred and mixed breed. The 124 recognized breeds are grouped into seven categories: hound, working, terrier, toy, sporting, non-sporting, and herding. There are thousands of mixed-breed combinations. Each purebred or mixed-breed dog has a unique personality. Dogs originally bred for a specific purpose tend to retain these characteristics. These dogs may require additional training and patience. Selecting a specific breed does not guarantee a particular behavior, but choosing offspring from animals with desirable temperaments does increase one's chances of getting the best pet. Mixed breeds can be as beautiful, intelligent, loving, and companionable as purebreds.Veterinarians, breed-specific books (usually available at libraries and pet stores), and dog shows are excellent sources of information about individual breed characteristics and needs.
Friend or Protector?
Most dogs, even tiny ones, bark when strangers approach their home or yard. This bark is usually enough to deter intruders. A pet should not be trained as an attack dog. Attack-trained dogs require special handling and knowledge to prevent accidental injury to people, including members of your own family.
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Tortoises
Category:
Choosing Your Pet, Exotics, Reptiles, Turtles
Tortoises can make an interesting pet, although they can present a challenge, due to their size and dietary habits. Their diets vary based on species, but all need quite a variety of foods, with careful attention paid to the amount of roughage as well as calcium/phosphorus balance. Some species have
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Get Down With Your Dog
Category:
Newsletter Library, Newsletter Archive, Fun with Pets
Each year fifteen million Americans engage in the practice of yoga. Many of the same Americans own some of the over seventy-three million dogs owned in the United States. If you put yoga and dogs together, you get doga (pronounced DOH-gah). Doga is sweeping the nation including large American cities
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Having a Positive Experience at the Dog Park
Category:
Newsletter Library, Newsletter Archive, Fun with Pets
Dog parks: they are great for socialization, exercise, and mental stimulation for many dogs. But certain dogs may feel threatened or anxious. Whether you and your dog have a good dog park experience or a bad one depends largely on your understanding of your dog, advanced preparation, proper training,
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The Pet Economy
Category:
Newsletter Library, Newsletter Archive, Fun with Pets
If there's still any doubt whether the pampering of pets is getting out of hand, the debate should be settled once and for all by Neuticles, a patented testicular implant that sells for up to $919 a pair. The idea, says inventor Gregg A. Miller, is to "let people restore their pets to anatomical preciseness"
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Traveling with Your Pet
Category:
Newsletter Library, Newsletter Archive, Fun with Pets
Traveling with your pet can be rewarding but challenging if not enough preparation has been made. Planning will help your trip go smoother and should include acquiring any paperwork that is needed, consideration of the temperatures to be experienced and how to deal with them, and obtaining equipment
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